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Galena Lodge Support Snowballs
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Tuesday, January 30, 2018
 

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Keith Perry had nine words for restaurant diners when they bemoaned the sparse snow in Sun Valley over the Christmas holidays.

“Head north to Galena. It’s full-on winter up there!”

The bountiful snow that has covered the Harriman Trail and the trails around Galena Lodge was not lost on Jenny Busdon Saturday night as she and Bob Rosso co-hosted the 22nd annual Galena and the Trails Winter Benefit.

“If we hadn’t saved the Lodge 24 years ago in 1994, where would we have been during the holidays!? We can always depend on Galena to have snow for skiing. We’ve had our lean years but we’ve never been out,” she said.

Apparently, lots of other people feel just as grateful.

Four hundred enthusiastic supporters crowded into Sun Valley’s Limelight Room to dine on roast chicken with wild mushroom ragu and spinach and thyme risotto and dance to pop favorites served up by the High Street Band.

A week-long stay at a beachfront penthouse donated by Erik and Wendel Boe went for $10,500 and a private multi-course dinner at Galena Lodge and gourmet pizza dinner donated by Anne and Scott Mason went for several thousand dollars each.

And, by the time the evening was over, the Blaine County Recreation District had hit its targeted fundraising goal, exceeding the $200,000 mark, said Jenna Vagias, marketing and events manager for BCRD.

“The energy in the room was awesome this year!” said Vagias. “We feel so very fortunate to live in this generous community that values all that Galena and the trails offer.”

Galena Lodge proprietors Erin Zell and Don Shepler greeted each guest with a glass of bubbly—an easy task compared with the Christmas holidays when business soared 25 percent over previous Christmases.

“It was crazy. Our busiest ever,” Zell said. “People wanted to have fun in the snow, and we had snow for them.”

John and Carolyn Lloyd compared notes with Wendy Jaquet about their grandchildren racing in the Junior Olympic Nordic qualifiers earlier in the day. Jaquet’s granddaughter had come from Park City after low snow forced Soldier Hollow to cancel the event there.

Roger Gould waxed eloquent about lunch at the lodge.

The Ploughman’s lunch is my favorite—cheese, a little chutney…Sitting on the deck with your dog—it doesn’t get any better!” he said.

Ted Angle, who has patrolled the Nordic trails for umpteen years, said he likes the opportunity the cross-country trails provide for people to stop and chat.

“It’s a chance to share what you enjoy, and the setting only enhances it,” he said. “It’s the way downhill skiing used to be.”

Carol Rank has always loved skiing the swooping loops at Billy’s Bridge at the foot of the majestic Boulder Mountains with her dogs.

“It feels like you’re away from it all, and you really are,” she said.

Tom Pomeroy relishes seeing alpenglow from Horsecreek Trail near Galena Lodge 15 minutes before dark and skiing the nearby North Cherry Creek Trail at 7 or 8 p.m. after Daylight Savings Time takes effect.

“There’s nothing prettier,” he said.

Pomeroy recalled joining 15 others around a table in the old Well Fargo Bank building calling on people for donations to save Galena Lodge when the Forest Service threatened to raze it.

“I thought, ‘Ohmigosh! We’ll never raise enough to save it.’ And, then, on my second call someone offered $200 and I was so excited.”

The snowstorm track this year has smiled favorably on Galena and the trails north of Ketchum, dumping enough snow for the BCRD to begin grooming before Bald Mountain opened on Thanksgiving Day. Storms of three and four inches have continually refreshed conditions.

“The Nordic skiing is so good this year,” said Keith Perry. “Last year we got so much snow it was so deep and soft. And, cold, too! This year--you couldn’t get any better.”

BCRD Director Jim Keating noted that the BCRD offers free trail passes to youth under 17.  The trails get about 70,000 visits winter and summer, with the mileage ranking right behind Royal Gorge near Lake Tahoe and with the Methow Trails in Winthrop, Wash.

“It’s so gratifying to see how the support continues to grow,” he said. “Is there any place like this? Your support helps protect all this for future generations.”

Busdon called the evening a celebration of what’s been achieved, even as she marveled that next year would be the 25th anniversary of saving Galena Lodge.

“When Nello and I came to Sun Valley from Whisler for the first time in 1979, everyone told us we had to go see the old lodge. Who wouldn’t thought we would help save it and that today we’d have a fleet of Pisten Bullies, 200 kilometers of maintained Nordic trails and a new Nordic center coming to Quigley. My hair has gone blond white in that time--and now we have 47 mountain biking trails. I always said I would be dead and gone before that happened. And now look! It warms my heart.”

WHITHER SKI THE RAILS?

The BCRD pushed the annual Ski the Rails event from Ketchum to Hailey back from its usual slot in January this year so it wouldn’t conflict with the Galena Lodge Benefit. It was too much for volunteers to get the Limelight Room ready for the benefit and pull off the Ski the Rails in the same day, said BCRD Director Jim Keating.

The BCRD is not ready to make a final decision whether Ski the Rails will go on as planned on Feb. 10.  But the forecast is looking grim, said Jenna Vagias, marketing manager for BCRD.

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