Ski Flakes: A Sandpoint Originally
From the Winter 2026 Issue
TV show entertained audiences for decades – and still does
Thirty years before YouTube and GoPros brought ski filming to the masses, a Sandpoint-based, homegrown cable TV show captured the spirit of mountain life with equal parts humor, history and powder turns. That show was “Ski Flakes,” and its creator, Terry Cooper, became an unlikely pioneer of regional ski media whose work connected Schweitzer Mountain to Sandpoint and the wider northwest ski community.
Cooper, a South Carolina native and Vietnam veteran, first came to North Idaho in the early 1980s after years of wandering by motorcycle, bicycle and tele skis. Like so many others, he was instantly smitten. In 1992, leveraging a bulky camcorder and a knack for storytelling, he launched “Ski Flakes” with a simple approach: to capture the real stories of skiers, snowboarders and mountain culture.
“It was reality TV before reality TV,” Cooper recalled. Each episode was a mix of ski footage, bar parties, quirky interviews and history segments. The production quality was rough by today’s standards—three-deck editing systems, turntables for music, and VHS tapes driven or shipped to cable stations in Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene, Spokane and Cranbrook. But the authenticity was undeniable. Locals and visitors tuned in religiously, and soon the show was drawing upwards of 100,000 viewers across the region.
Terry Cooper on the other side of the camera. Courtesy photo
In the early years, Cooper traded ski passes for help, assembling a rotating crew of journalists, skiers and storytellers. Together, they churned out 60-minute episodes that aired throughout the 13-week ski season on a loop that might play 10 times or more a day, every day. Improvisation was key: one day it might be a foggy parking lot interview turned comedy skit, the next, a deep dive into Schweitzer’s early history. “We never scripted anything,” Cooper said.
While Schweitzer was home base, “Ski Flakes” roamed widely. It filmed at Red Mountain, Whitewater, Fernie, Panorama and beyond—a circuit Cooper dubbed the Borderline Tour, years before it became known as the Powder Highway.
Along the way, the show interviewed pioneers like Red Mountain legend Booty Griffiths and featured Olympians like Nancy Greene, Susie Luby and the Mahre brothers; TV personality Ben Stein; and countless local legends. But the real stars were the everyday skiers and boarders whose passion, grit and silliness gave the show its heart and lasting value. Cooper’s archive contains about 7,000 hours of footage, only 230 of which ever aired.
For Cooper, the payoff was never financial. “Ski Flakes” barely supported itself through ad sales, but it opened doors that a self-described “ski bum with no money” could never have imagined. He and his friends went heli-skiing, cat-skiing and backcountry touring with some of the best guides in the world.
He met and filmed ski pioneers, rock stars at the Festival at Sandpoint, and even traveled internationally, filming for wealthy clients who discovered him through the show. “I called it the American Express camera,” he laughed. “Carte blanche. I’d show up with a big camera and suddenly doors opened everywhere.”
While filming ended in 2010, reruns and retrospective episodes kept “Ski Flakes” alive. It aired on local cable until 2025, and episodes still do laps at Pucci’s Pub. For many here, growing up meant seeing friends and family on “Ski Flakes”—a cultural touchstone that connected town to mountain and skier to skier.
Humor and goofiness balanced the steep-and-deep skiing shots in each “Ski Flakes” episode. Courtesy photo
Sandpoint real estate agent Alex Wohllaib grew up skiing Schweitzer and appeared in several “Ski Flakes” episodes. “It was always fun and cool to turn it on and see people you recognized, and you’d see Terry out there filming and just doing his thing. He was—and is—a real part of Schweitzer,” he said.
Now semi-retired from real estate, Cooper is too busy ripping tele-skiing and single-track mountain bike lines to revisit the “Ski Flakes” vault, but concedes that a documentary or online archive would be a fun and worthy project. “People like history,” he said. “And what we captured can’t be replaced. It was a different era. It was community. And it was real.”
In an age where ski edits are churned out instantly on smartphones, “Ski Flakes” reminds us of a time when telling these stories took drive, creativity and late nights in the editing room. More importantly, it serves as a reminder of “the good old days” and a mountain town finding its vibe, one VHS tape at a time.
Check out some show highlights here: sptmag.com/skiflakesvideo
35 years ago, the first issue of Sandpoint Magazine also featured a story on a movie maker. Warren Miller had that year included Schweitzer footage in his annual ski film. The king of action ski movies said he’d like people to remember him “as the guy that got them up on the hill or out on the water.” And that influence continues today, as Warren Miller’s ski films are a staple at the Panida Theater every winter.
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