You Don’t Go to Sun Valley to Party

In recent years, America’s top ski resorts have upped the ante with five-star hotels, slopeside luxury brand collaborations and outposts of pricey, big-city restaurants around town.

But sometimes, the Madison Avenue-in-the-mountains vibe becomes tiresome, and an old-fashioned ski trip is in order.

So last winter I went to Sun Valley.

The Idaho resort had been on my radar for years. Friends raved about ‌its terrain, which ranges from wide-open bowls to tough mogul runs, and the groovy town, where dressing to the nines mean‌s sporting a flannel shirt with ‌timeworn Wranglers. That its celebrity culture revolved around the legacy of Ernest Hemingway, who spent large chunks of time here from 1939 until his death by suicide in 1961, added to the allure.

But the challenge of getting to south-central Idaho in less than 10 hours held me back. Direct flights (limited and seasonal) from Chicago to the nearby town of Hailey were introduced in late 2017, so I finally made the trip to see how this mountain enclave has managed to safeguard its small-town charm.

Sun Valley was constructed by the Union Pacific Railroad chairman Averell Harriman in 1936 as a St. Moritz-style winter playground to ramp up train travel to the mountain West. The resort has changed hands only three times since its founding and remains independent under its current owners, the Holding Family, who purchased it in 1977. Robert Earl Holding made his fortune in hotels, and the family also owns the Snowbasin resort in Utah.

Sun Valley consists of two mountains. Bald Mountain sits in Ketchum, where the two-stoplight, 10-street center is lined with locally owned businesses (well, there is a Starbucks, and a tiny Lululemon shop) and, noticeably, no high fashion boutiques. Dollar Mountain, the beginner area, is next door‌ ‌in the City of Sun Valley, along with the quaint Sun Valley Village, home to the Sun Valley Lodge, and a network of shops and restaurants, plus indoor and outdoor ice skating rinks, the local opera house and an open-air theater where the Sun Valley Music Festival unfolds each summer.

Lack of a party scene is one of the resort’s calling cards. That’s ironic because, starting in the 1930s, Harriman used celebrities to generate publicity for his newbie resort by ferrying Hollywood royalty like Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Janet Leigh out to ski in exchange for paparazzi buzz.

These days, kowtowing to celebrities is not in Sun Valley’s DNA. Which explains why…