STORY AND  PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

                Attention, powderhounds: Mark  Feb. 7 on your calendar.

That’s the day Nina Gardner predicts Baldy will get 18 inches of snow.

                Or, maybe you’d better circle March 28. That’s the day Jess Kiesel predicts Baldy will get its biggest dump of the year.

Nearly 200 people crowded into the Elkhorn Springs restaurant Saturday evening for the Baldy Big Dump-Off party, placing their bets on Baldy’s biggest powder dump of the year even as they showed their support for the Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center.

The winner, to be announced on April Fools Day, will receive a host of prizes including breakfast at Velocio’s, a helmet, goggles, sunglasses and backpack from Smith Optics, gear from the Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center and MTN Approach, lift tickets for Bald Mountain, a massage from Jan Williams, Frenchman’s Gulch wine and more.

                “The contest is a great way to get the community involved and aware,” said Courtney Vandenburgh.

                The party was the first-ever pre-season benefit for the Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center. Attendees bid on silent auction items furnished by il Naso, Ski Tek, First Lite, Board Bin and other businesses.

 And they filled up on chili donated by Bigwood Bread, meatballs from Johnny G’s Subshack, brownies and other sweets provided by the Chocolate Moose, the Sweet Crumb and Sara Lipton at Hailey Coffee Company, beer, wine and more.

                “It’s a great new way to get people out,” said Ketchum Charlotte Unger.

“It’s a nice way to show support for the avalanche center,” said Lindsey Czech, who lives and works at Galena Lodge during the winter.

                Avalanche Center Forecaster Scott Savage thanked the Friends of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center for putting on the party. “Hopefully, it goes on for many years,” he said.

                It’s an El Nino year, which matters in places like Arizona and Washington, he added. But that means it’s a flip of the coin in Idaho and southwestern Montana whether we see a lot of snow or marginal snow.

                One can always hope, however, and that early season hope buoyed by seven inches of new snow on the ground outside, gave way to Savage’s pictures of a 100-inch dump near Bridger Bowl, Mont., over two days (that’s 8 feet, folks!) and a host of other tall snow tales.

                Former Ketchum District Ranger Butch Harper told how he and other Sun Valley ski patrollers controlled avalanches in The Bowls back in 1957 by putting an electrical fuse in a stick of dynamite, planting it and running “like hell.”

                Reggie Crist showed a mini-slide show of a ski trip to the Andes that he titled “Global Wierding” since the place he wanted to ski was bare in August, which is Chile’s equivalent of Sun Valley’s February.

“We’re dealing with very unusual weather patterns these days,” he said, as he showed a picture of a bikini-clad woman at a lake that is normally frozen that time of year. “Resources like the Avalanche Center help us understand these cycles. We don’t understand how valuable these resources are until we don’t have them. I spend the second half of my season in Alaska and I don’t have these guys.”

                Sun Valley Heli-Ski’s Mark Baumgardner told about the winter of 1986 when snow refused to fall through early February. It started dumping on Valentine’s Day, snowing every day until the end of February and leaving snow so deep that Sun Valley employees had difficulty keeping the Mayday lift at the bottom of The Bowls shoveled out.

“We ended up with warm days and cold nights that set up to be the best spring skiing ever,” he recalled. “We flew day after day ending only after the first three weeks of April.”

                Carl Rixon told about his ride atop an avalanche in the woods beneath the International run on Bald Mountain as a new member of the Sun Valley Ski Patrol in 1970.

                At one point he was able to wrap his arms around a tree only to cringe as the snow ripped off his skis, sheared the branches off the tree and tore him away from it. He somersaulted over and over, ending up on a debris pile that was still moving, his feet facing forwards. Finally he hit another tree and ended up swinging back and forth.

“I said, ‘Okay, man, there is a God,’ ” he said, as he looked at the sky. “I got back home, took a look at my 2-month-old son Buffalo. First I thought, ‘I’ve got to get out of this business.’ Then I thought, ‘I’m going to get an education about this,’ and I went to avalanche school. The point to this story is the value of this avalanche center. The education is available…

“Have a good safe winter and pray for snow!”

AVALANCHE CLASSES

                The Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center will offer an Avalanche Basics class from 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 18 at Hemingway Elementary School in Ketchum. Cost is a $5 suggestion donation, no pre-registration required. An optional field session will be held Saturday, Dec. 20.

PHOTOS: Jack Weekes holds a Baldy- Dump-0ff poster that he, Chris Erickson and Andy Gilbert printed up during the party.

Snowstradamus, aka Nate Farrell, served as the emcee and Conan O’Brien of snow jokes.

Jess Kiesel predicts Baldy will get its biggest dump of the year on March 28.

Nina Gardner predicts Baldy will get 18 inches on Feb. 7.

Artist Chris Erickson prints Baldy Dump-Off posters during Saturday’s party benefitting the Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center.