Is skiing at ritzy Sun Valley worth the splurge?
KETCHUM, Idaho – Before Whistler Blackcomb, there was Sun Valley. While the former draws Western Washington’s skiers and snowboarders en masse, the mountain resort north of Vancouver, British Columbia, didn’t become a major attraction until the 1980s. So for 50 years, rabid Seattle skiers looking for a true destination mountain trekked east to Idaho.
As the Seattle Times wrote in 1937, a year after the resort opened, “Sun Valley was 26 hours from Seattle by train, and 20 hours by car, but it might as well be in Seattle’s backyard.”
While Sun Valley is twice as far as Whistler, it should be on every serious skier’s list. Remarkably, today it still feels like Seattle’s backyard – our city’s winter sports culture and distinctive style have left their fingerprints all over the Wood River Valley.
I went this winter because Sun Valley is preparing for the global spotlight. The world’s top ski racers will slalom into town for the FIS Ski World Cup Finals from March 22-27.
Concentrated in Europe, the ski racing circuit only brings its championship to North America about once a decade. The Pacific Northwest has never hosted the World Cup finals and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, B.C., are the only comparable event to grace this region. (Sun Valley last hosted a World Cup race in 1977; Crystal Mountain hosted once in 1972.)
Eager to see the action live? It will be a tough ticket – the grandstand is already sold out, though VIP packages remain, and lodging will be at a premium. Away from the racecourse, downtown Ketchum will turn into one big party during the concurrent weeklong 5850 Fest.
Fret not if you haven’t already secured your seat. NBC Sports will air the races live, so Team USA faithful will have the chance to cheer on Mikaela Shiffrin and a late-career Lindsey Vonn (if they make the finals) an hour ahead of Pacific Daylight Time. If the camera panning across the sun-splashed Idaho peaks and plunging into the crowds in refined-meets-rugged Ketchum whets your appetite, here’s a primer on the PNW’s deluxe destination resort.
From SEA to SUN
Sun Valley recently ranked No 1. as Ski Magazine’s best North American resort for three years running, but it remains surprisingly under-the-radar. For most of the country, getting here means passing the likes of Aspen and Jackson Hole. Not so for Western Washington, where Sun Valley is among the closer destination resorts.
Driving takes roughly 10 hours or 90 minutes in the air (Alaska Airlines flies once or twice daily through April 17). Catch the morning flight and you can be on the slopes by lunchtime, swapping Seattle gloom for Idaho sunshine. Boise offers more flight options (13 flights daily on Alaska and Delta), but necessitates a three-hour drive. The Sun Valley Express provides coach service between Sun Valley and Boise Airport once daily.
Friedman Memorial Airport (SUN) is situated 20 minutes south of Ketchum, convenient for the private jet crowd who are regulars at the tony resort. The old mining town turned into an exclusive alpine getaway when a railroad baron envisioned a ski resort here nearly 90 years ago, though it retains some of its frontier grit amid the multimillion-dollar chalets that dot the snowy hills.
There are shuttle services to local hotels – arrange ahead, taxis don’t queue at the terminal. If your visit will be confined to the resort, skip the rental car counter. Downtown Ketchum is compact and walkable, with the nearest chairlift no more than a mile away. For anywhere that feels too far to walk, the free Mountain Rides bus service is reliable.
I tucked in at Hotel Ketchum, a refreshed motel with an industrial-modern aesthetic that suited my solo traveler needs with reasonable rates (including an Ikon pass holder discount), hot tub and complimentary breakfast. Or go old-school luxury and check into Sun Valley Resort, with the original lodge plus an inn, cottages, condos and town homes available for rent. (Every July, the resort hosts the Allen & Co. conference known as “summer camp for billionaires.”)
Beware: Sun Valley Resort’s lodging is three miles from the resort’s main ski hill, imposing Bald Mountain; and just under a mile from Dollar Mountain, the mellow beginner bump. The resort operates both Bald and Dollar, but booking a room at Sun Valley Resort does not equate to ski-in/ski-out. What’s more, the distance between mountains means that groups with a mix of learners and experts will find themselves heading their separate ways. Compared with the midmountain learning center at Whistler, it’s a clunky setup, especially for families.
On the mountain
I called up one of the many Seattleites who settled in Bald Mountain’s shadow. Seattle Prep graduate Mike Hattrup is a U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Famer who skis all over the world, but moved to Ketchum over 30 years ago.
For Cascades skiers who chase deep powder, Sun Valley requires a different mindset. “It’s the only place that I’ve ever skied that people are hooting and hollering like a powder day after skiing groomers,” he said.
Why the enthusiasm? Bald Mountain tops out above 9,000 feet. Drier, lighter snow than we’re used to tends to fall in the interior Northwest. Those factors combined with the mountain’s racing history have led Sun Valley to perfect the groomed run, perfect for leaning into your edges on the carving turn that racers hone on the World Cup circuit. I saw a lot of precision skiers during my time on the hill – and very few snowboarders.
Powderhounds may scoff at idolizing groomers, but Hattrup makes a compelling case.
“I love groomers for the technique and that’s where you become a great skier,” he said. “If you can make a World Cup-style turn, you can take that anywhere.”
Bald Mountain rises 3,400 vertical feet. From top to bottom, the pitch rarely lets up – the consistent fall line with few if any flat spots challenges beginners, but delights intermediates and above. Hattrup cautions, “You need to be strong to ski here.” While the accomplished former extreme skier’s cliff hucking days are behind him – go to Jackson Hole or stay at Alpental if you want to get airborne – he eagerly starts his day on green circle runs like College that would be blue squares most other places.
Brought fat skis but find yourself cruising acres of corduroy basking in sunshine? Stop at Pete Lane’s Mountain Sports in the base area lodges and rent a pair of carving skis. The shop is one of just a few dozen nationally that carry high-end Swiss brand Stöckli. Around town you’ll also spy familiar Sturtevants ski shop – the Bellevue store beloved by Eastside snow sports enthusiasts was founded as an offshoot of the Sun Valley original.
Chairlifts leaving from the Warm Springs base area – inhale the sulfurous air and you’ll understand the name – provide an eye on the World Cup course, while the River Run side offers quicker access to the bulk of the mountain. For hometown pride reasons, I was drawn to Seattle Ridge. Incorporated into the resort in 1976, the gladed area was once the out-of-bounds provenance of a hardy crew from the Emerald City. In “Skiing Sun Valley,” (Arcadia Publishing, 2020) Seattle author and part-time Sun Valley resident John Lundin explains, “Seattle Ridge is named for the rugged skiers of that city who ski their own Cascades in raincoats. In the spring when they come to Sun Valley they didn’t mind at all following a long and difficult catwalk out to the Ridge.”
Nowadays skip the catwalk of our Seattle skiing forebears. Start with the Roundhouse Express Gondola – where employees personally load and unload every pair of skis – then ride the six-person Seattle Ridge high-speed chairlift, which opened to fanfare in December. During my visit I skied straight onto the lift every time. I was told multiple times that a “long lift line” in Sun Valley is any line at all.
Sun Valley is a member of the Ikon and Mountain Collective passes, but the resort is privately owned. Day tickets top out at $250. While the ski industry’s pricing arms race is disdainful, the quality of the mountain, lifts and grooming and attention to detail in the lodges and service make Sun Valley the first outrageously priced ski resort I’ve visited that arguably feels worth the money.
Time to refuel
Don’t feel guilty about lingering in the lodges – they might just be the highlight of your day. Forget sad French fries wilting under a heat lamp. Sun Valley’s cafeterias serve restaurant-quality dishes like salmon flatbreads and wood-fired pizzas. I sipped a delectable French onion soup ($17) at Seattle Ridge and later swung by Warm Springs for an afternoon pick-me-up macchiato ($6) and cinnamon bun ($6).
Both times I nearly stopped at the door because the hardwood floors and richly textured carpets looked too pristine to scuff with ski boots. The rest of the lodge tableau is extravagant: roaring fireplaces, cascading chandeliers, coat racks, granite bathroom countertops, thick wood beams and furniture carved with the Sun Valley logo. A longtime ski instructor who splits his time between Bellevue and Sun Valley told me the resort’s owners spent millions on the lodges, and it shows. (A resort spokesperson said they did not have access to exact figures and could not speculate on the cost.)
Head downhill and you’ll find yourself in Ketchum, the mining town turned exclusive alpine getaway. That’s the other part of the equation that lured Hattrup. “Sun Valley has the best town-mountain combination of anywhere,” he said.
Regardless of where you stay or ski, the après scene at Apple’s Bar & Grill will be sure to get your World Cup juices flowing, or help you relive vicariously after the big event. Decked floor to ceiling with ski racing memorabilia and with TVs tuned to slaloms and downhills, this spot embodies the passionate racing culture that earned Sun Valley a shot at prime time.
When dinner time rolled around on my whistle-stop tour, over-the-top Wild West-themed steakhouse Pioneer Saloon gave off tourist trap vibes so I opted for spacious Warfield Distillery & Brewery instead. Nothing on the beer flight ($17 for six samplers) tickled my fancy for a full pour, but the Deke edition single-malt was exceptional ($18 a pour) after polishing off a hearty brisket potpie ($25). I was disappointed at my hotel’s in-house dinner spot Ramen Cowboy and wished I had braved the wait at buzzy Rickshaw instead. Italian-inflected Enoteca served up my best repast, an all-Gem State sourced meal of ostrich meatloaf ($37) and Holesinsky Vineyard’s Snake River Valley malbec ($14 a glass).
Beyond the pistes
Sun Valley exudes quiet luxury, and sometimes more ostentatious displays like Bentley puffy jackets and fur coats. Among downtown Ketchum’s shops one name will be familiar to stylish Seattleites: Baby & Company, a women’s clothing boutique which spent decades anchoring First Avenue before relocating to the mountains in 2020. I spotted proprietor Jill Donnelly at the resort wearing a Seattle-designed TaraShakti one-piece ski suit, and later she showed me her racks stocked with small-label European imports of city-to-mountain chic – even more obscure than the luxury ski brands sold in Sun Valley Resort’s shops. (For another taste of home, Ballard’s Sonic Boom Records opened a Ketchum outpost in September.)
Wealth can beget culture, and Ketchum’s art scene deserves a gander. Among the handful of galleries, I was drawn to Broschofsky Galleries for a larger-than-life Warhol screen print of Sitting Bull and other inventive takes on Western motifs, including owner Rudi Broschofsky’s own unique landscapes and portraits carved out with a utility knife. Time your visit for one of the town’s gallery walks (next edition Friday) and meet the artist-turned-gallerist yourself.
Local history museums are a must-stop for orienting to a new place and the Wood River Museum of History and Culture excels with compelling exhibits about natural history and notable residents, like Tacoma-born Gretchen Fraser’s gold medal from the 1948 Olympics (see sidebar). Don’t miss the Ernest Hemingway deep dive – and trek out to his memorial to pay your respects to the writer, who lived out his final days here. Around the corner, the exceptional Community Library has an impressive rare books collection of vintage ski publications.
You can read about skiing, or you can get out on the snow. Bald Mountain is just the tip of the spear among the rugged peaks in central Idaho that beg to be explored – a vast swath of mountain terrain once deemed national park worthy. Get better acquainted by heading 23 miles north to rustic Galena Lodge, whose 50 kilometers of groomed trails are a nordic paradise. It’s also one of the rare cross-country centers that treats snowshoe trails as more than an afterthought. For maximum adventure, hire a guide from Sawtooth Mountain Guides for a day of backcountry skiing. You’ll leave realizing that Sun Valley and Ketchum are a gateway to an incredible alpine realm as awe-inspiring as the Cascades, the likes of which racers and fans from across the world will appreciate live or on screen soon enough.