STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Expect the River Run side of Bald Mountain to close on April 6—the day after Easter—to make way for two new chairlifts on the mountain.

Pete Sonntag, the COO of Sun Valley Resort, told members of the David Ketchum  American Legion this past week that Sun Valley will replace the 1996 high-speed detachable Lookout Express with a six-passenger chairlift similar in style to that on Seattle Ridge.

It will replace the Christmas lift, which runs from the Roundhouse to the top of the mountain, with a high-speed quad.

Pete Sonntag said that the Toy Store will get a facelift with a Bavarian theme this summer as part of a 20-year master plan for the 61-acre Sun Valley Village.

“I hate to admit it, but the Christmas lift is one of our most problematic lifts, so we’re very excited to be replacing it,” he said.

The construction project, which will close mountain biking trails on top of the mountain but not midway down, will be a big project like the Challenger and Flying Squirrel project in terms of the number of people involved and other factors, Sonntag said. The Austrian ski lift company Doppelmayr will do the honors.

Most days you don’t need more uphill capacity at the Lookout Express, but every once in a while, there are days when the line gets long,  Sonntag said.

While Christmas will remain a quad, the capacity will be greater because Sun Valley will be able to hang more chairs on it and the new lift will run faster than the old.

Kyle Johnson chatted with Ned Hamlin, who was beaming about a Porsche convention that will bring 400 Porsches to Sun Valley in September 2027.

“Old quads are too temperamental to do that,” he said.

Sun Valley will also build a new lift operations facility near the top of Lookout to support both lifts. And it will start laying a service line to the top.

Sonntag said that Sun Valley also plans a major upgrade for its four snowmaking venues.

“When you get a cold window and you’re troubleshooting problems, it’s the worst feeling in the world,” he said.

Mike Riley spent the cocktail hour regaling Rick Ryerson with tales of working as a shoeshine boy in New Orleans, earning $9 a night in the 1950s. “That was Americana at its best, when kids could work hard and save their money,” he said.

Sonntag spoke at the monthly meeting of the American Legion which featured a beef dinner catered by St. Luke’s capped off by a decadent lava cake oozing with chocolate and raspberry magma plated on a table boasting Valentine red tulips.

The crowd was an enthusiastic one, applauding Sonntag’s announcements about the lift upgrades and World Cup Finals encore.

The 2027 World Cup Finals featuring the best downhill, Giant Slalom, Super G and Slalom skiers in the world will be held in late March.

Sonntag noted that European officials came out to check out the terrain, snowmaking and grading on Bald Mountain in April 2024. They asked Sun Valley to create a separate slalom course. But Sun Valley officials said they didn’t have the time or resources to take on another project as they were already hustling to build the downhill course and widen the finishing area on Warm Springs and Greyhawk.

Nicole Preveaux is a member of the David Ketchum Post 115 American Legion, which is about to renovate its bathrooms to make them ADA-compliant. Bob Brennan, who developed part of what used to be the Warm Springs Golf course, will help fund the project.

Sun Valley Resort ran the men’s and women’s slaloms side by side on the bottom of Greyhawk, and World Cup officials liked it so well they said, “Don’t change a thing,” Sonntag said.

That said, Sun Valley may move the men’s downhill start from the top of International to the top of Warm Springs. And it plans to explore how it might create a more level standing area for spectators who last year stood on an angled ski run.

There’s a possibility of expanding the finish area by about 10 feet on skier’s left, Sonntag said. But he said it would be disadvantageous to get too spread out.

“I was in Beaver Creek for the World Cup in December and our finish is so much better,” he said. “They use the same screen we had, but it’s 200 feet away so it doesn’t have the same impact. I loved how loud our venue was. In bigger venues it’s like no one’s there. And to be able to see the entire race from the bottom as you do with ours is rare.”

Sonntag acknowledged the difficulty of climbing a short hill to get to the viewing area but said that the upper Greyhawk parking lot will have to remain dedicated to athlete and media centers.

Last year’s World Cup Finals featured 12,900 unique attendees and 2,108 racers, coaches,  technicians, nutritionists, physical therapist and others who came with the teams. Passenger traffic increased by 18 percent from the previous March with 20 percent of the 18,359 passengers during March traveling to Sun Valley for the Finals.

And the event generated a $16 million impact for Idaho and Blaine County, according to a Sun Valley Economic Development analysis.

Putting on the World Cup is “really expensive,” Sonntag acknowledged. Sun Valley lost a lot of money building the course, putting in new snow guns, blowing snow on the course and taking care of other details.

Now, the resort is focusing on how to become more efficient in preparing for the event and selling sponsorships.

The biggest sponsor last year was the Idaho Potato Commission, which paraded Spuddy Buddy out at the different events, offered tiny Spuddy Buddys as part of the athletes bib draws and plied crowds with fresh French fries and tasty dehydrated garlic and cheesy potato cups.

“They were a great sponsor,” Sonntag said. “Anything to celebrate Idaho and our great community. I think there’s the opportunity to do more this time because we understand what needs to happen.”

Hopefully, another group will step up for the entertainment, he added, acknowledging reports that the 5850 Fest did not pay service providers.

Those in charge of transportation were surprised by the number of people taking advantage of free bus service the first day.

“But we identified it right away and it ran smoothly after that.”

Sun Valley Resort will still need a lot of volunteers--the more volunteers from the community the fewer volunteers from outside the valley that will need to be housed, he said.

Anyone who has room in their home and wouldn’t mind hosting a couple ski patrollers and others needed to put the event on would be much appreciated, he said. Some workers can be put up in Hailey and Bellevue; some need to be closer because of their roles.

Sun Valley Resort is putting on a new event—the Sun Valley Stampede—on March 14 and 15 as something to alternate with the World Cup Finals, which Sun Valley Resort hopes to have return in 2029.

“It’s something to draw people in, let them have fun, give them a reason to stay longer,” he said. “The idea is to crown the best all-around skier with elements of racing and freeride. It’ll be an elimination format with racers racing side by side to make it more exciting. Of course, we’ll have music and other things at the bottom. We want to make it a fun party.”

The U.S. Paralympic Alpine team will train on the Warm Springs side of Bald Mountain beginning today—Tuesday, Feb. 17--before they head to Italy for the 2026 Winter Paralympics, which will be held March 6-15.

Among those expected to train is Sun Valley’s Jesse Keefe, who will turn 22 two weeks after the Paralympics. Keefe, who grew up racing with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, was born without an ankle bone in his right leg, which necessitated the amputation of his foot. He took ninth in slalom at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, 15th in super combined and giant slalom and 22nd in downhill.

The team will spend about three hours training each morning with the course reopening to the public when they’re done.

Sonntag noted that this year was only the second in the past 25 years that Sun Valley didn’t open for skiing on Thanksgiving.

“But skiing is really good on the mountain,” he said “We’re just far enough north that we’ve had more snow than rain. And it’s been cold enough to make snow.”

Sonntag said he’d visited Aspen and Palisades this year, and neither had good snow. Snow-starved Utah resorts announced last week they would cease snowmaking for the season.

But Sun Valley is committed to making snow for as long as it needs to, Sonntag said.

“We’re blessed to have what we have now,” said Sonntag, who noted that Sun Valley’s crew is smaller than typical snowmaking crews because they only have to work snow guns manually on places like Sunset Strip, the cat track ferrying skiers from Lower College onto 42d Street. “ Our primary goal now is to refresh what we have.”

Skier visits are flat this year. Christmas was good and the momentum from that carried into January. And the mountain is super busy this week because of families from San Francisco and Seattle on Spring Break.

Just how many skiers show up after that depends on whether this week’s weather forecasts predicting a foot or two of snow in the mountains pan out. Baldy was off to a good start with 10 inches of snow stacking up by 5:30 a.m. this morning and the snow continuing to fall.