STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

“I forgot this is a six-passenger chair,” said one young woman in her 20s as she scooted her skis parallel to those of five other skiers.

“I’ll have to learn to count higher from now on,” said another as she settled into the spiffy brand new chair.

John Nichols, who oversees grooming on Bald Mountain, cut a big red ribbon for Sun Valley Resort’s new six-passenger Seattle Ridge chairlift Friday morning. And, with that, hundreds of skiers and boarders hitched a ride on the lift’s 66 chairs into the clear blue sky overlooking Bald Mountain’s most popular skiing area.

James Cameron rings an Austrian bell signaling the opening of the lift—a Dopplymayr tradition.

The chairlift, which sits 7,399 feet above sea level rising to 8,713 feet, is the third new chairlift Sun Valley has opened in the past 12 months. And it will cement skiers’ praise for Sun Valley’s lifts, which earned first place in SKI Magazine’s 2025 reader’s choice awards for “Most Efficient Lift Systems in the West.”

The new state-of-the-art Dopplmayr six-pack lift will increase uphill capacity by 20 percent, said Sun Valley’s COO Pete Sonntag. And it sounds like a whisper compared with the constant loud drone of the previous chair, thanks to a smoother, more efficient direct drive, he added.

“I always felt bad for the lift operators because the previous lift was so loud,” he said. “Seattle Ridge is such a pristine environment and reducing the noise honors that pristine environment.”

More than a hundred people showed up for the 9:30 a.m. ribbon cutting and more kept skiing in even as Sonntag made a few remarks.

The top has been reconfigured so skiers no longer have to pole uphill if they want to turn left onto Gretchen’s Gold.

Some, including a family of four from Nashville, were just there to see all that Bald Mountain had to offer. Others were there to cut a few runs through the untracked powder that had built up over the past week.

They weren’t disappointed as Sun Valley groomed Christin’s Silver and lower Broadway down to the Cold Springs lift but left plenty of powder on the side of Christin’s Silver, in Muffy’s Medals, on Gretchen’s Gold and in Hour Glass and Byron’s Park.

“I’m so happy to have it open,” said Isabel Leiphart, who was skiing with her husband Brook. “Christin Silver is my favorite run, followed by Muffy’s Medals and Broadway. And I love Seattle Ridge because it’s one of the first places where the sunshine hits the mountain in the morning.”

Skiers found a new queue area that had been expanded by 40 feet, doubling the size of the platform. The new look allows skiers coming from the gondola down Guntower Lane to sail right into one line, rather than having to ski around fencing to get in line. Skiers coming off the hill can sail into a line from the opposite direction.

Sun Valley COO Pete Sonntag makes a few remarks as Jake Moe in orange eyeballs the new lift.

“Excavators took earth material from what they call Pizza Face above the lift terminal to create a bigger platform,” said Sonntag.

At the top, he said, Sun Valley installed a new trail board to the right of the former one, allowing riders to have an unblocked view of the mountains in the distance. One can even see Pomerelle near Burley on a clear day.

“It’s one of the most beautiful views in the valley so we don’t want to block it,’ he said.

The first lift installed on Seattle Ridge was a triple chair put in during the summer of 1976, said Tim Silva, who preceded Sonntag as general manager. That was the year of the big drought, which limited skiing to Upper College, Flying Squirrel and Lower Warm Springs. And, so, the chairlift never operated its first year.

A skier heads into the expanded queue platform.

It was replaced with a the four-passenger chair that operated up until now in 1992 and paired with the beloved Seattle Ridge Lodge with its outstanding views, said Matt Baxandall. But that chair was beginning to show its age. And, so, in late April 2024—right as Bald Mountain shut down for the season—workers began dismantling the lift, removing the top and bottom terminals and its 13  steel lift towers.

They laid the foundations for the top and bottom terminal stations in June and flew in concrete by helicopters a few weeks later with the helicopters holding an apparatus from which concrete was poured into the holes that had been excavated.

Helicopters returned in late July to place the towers. A month later workers overhauled the old power lines with underground lines to support the new direct drive lift. In September they installed the top terminal as they began work on the bottom terminal.

Then men worked side by side as the cable was brought in and hauled upwards by smaller ropes before workers linked six strands on the cables together.

They hung the chairs in mid-November as Sun Valley prepared to embark on its 89th winter ski season and load tested the lift just has they had the new Challenger and Flying Squirrel lifts, by placing buckets of water on the chairs to simulate the weight of skiers.

Jake Moe, who co-founded Powder Magazine, stood in line in a shiny new orange ski suit as Sonntag welcomed guests to the new lift.

“There’s a lot of pressure on ski resorts to keep upping their game, to keep improving to be the best of the best. And that’s why I love the mentality of Sun Valley. They’re America’s first destination ski resort, but they’re not sitting on their laurels. Right now I know they’re thinking of what’s next down the road.”

“What I like about Seattle,” he added, “Is that it’s very doable--comfortable, not scary. You can feel confident on Seattle Ridge, whereas looking down College onto town might be scary for some people.”

Seattle Ridge, named in honor of Sun Valley’s many Seattle skiers, encompasses more than 200 of Baldy’s most popular acres as it’s family friendly and good teaching terrain.

“It’s so beloved by intermediate skier and as a place where you can bring visitors who may feel challenged on other parts of the mountain,” said Sonntag. “And, what we’ve done with Sunrise means it also has some of the best expert terrain on the mountain so we’re seeing more demand for this lift from expert skiers. We have to think how different it will be here in 30, 40 years.”

Sonntag said Sun Valley Resort has no plans to replace the Christmas lift in 2025 but that the resort will replace it soon.

“It’s our next priority, and we could replace it in 2026 as it’s a critical link to the top from the gondola.”

The new lift will be a chondola, meaning there will be some chairlifts that skiers and boarders can ride,  as well as gondola cabins that may be more comfortable for summer visitors who want a ride to the top and workers who don’t ski but need to get to Lookout Restaurant.

When it is built, Sun Valley guests will be able to hike to the top and ride the chondola down to the gondola. And, yes, there will likely be a few puppy paw cars so doggie hikers can ride down, as well.

The Lookout Express, which ferries riders from the Lower River Run chairlift to the top of the mountain will be put in at the same time, Sonntag said: “They share; infrastructure at the top so it makes sense to do both at the same time.”

Sonntag said Sun Valley is looking forward to a great Christmas. Temperatures have been pleasant—even getting into the lower 40s this week as Boise broke a century-old record with 59 degrees. And, while that’s not conducive to lots of snowmaking, the mountain has not felt crowded, thanks to stellar grooming on both the River Run and Warm Springs sides alongside off-piste runs.