TR Sun Valley March 5-6, 2025

[santacruz skier]

@VickiK , @santacruz skier : what were a couple of your favorite runs on Bald Mountain?

At the time we were in SV, there was not a lot of good coverage to explore the entire mountain, but I liked the runs off Lookout Express such as Christmas Bowl, Christmas Ridge, Rock Garden (fun bumps) as well as Flying Squirrel and Challenger lift runs. Probably my favorite was off the Mayday triple chair Kaitlyn's Bowl, Lefty Bowl and Sigi's Bowl which are wide open bowls that meander through the trees towards the bottom. We mostly stopped for lunch at Lookout Restaurant on top. I loved the location where we stayed (Pennay's) and I would stay in that same unit again. Even though there are resorts with more snow, Sun Valley is a special place and I can see why @Christy likes it so much. I know I mentioned in another thread that I spent a week in SV with my sister and family in 1984. I can remember eating at the Pioneer Saloon a couple of times and other great restaurants that I cannot remember the names of.

 

[Sheena]

I just got back from a 3 day trip to Sun Valley. We had a fantastic time. We originally used our Snowbasin pass discount for lodging at the sun valley inn, but got a call the day before we left to tell us we were upgraded to the SV Lodge. Last week there was the local spring break plus the world cup race, so when we got there then town was really quiet.

The Dollar Mountain side was closed, so we were disappointed we didn't get a chance to check that out. And the warm springs area had limited terrain because there was a lot of shut down for the races last week. But we still got to explore a lot.

We liked the long green cruisers off Seattle Ridge, kinda surprised how steep they were relative to our home mountain. We tried one of the bowls off the Mayday lift but bailed as the snow was really not that great off piste. All in all though, we had great blue Bird days and fun exploring a new mountain.

The food is super pricey though, everywhere. We did hit a fun mexican place in town, that we all enjoyed.

 

[Christy]

@Sheena so nice to get upgraded! The hot pool... ahh....

 

[VickiK]

As much as I like zoomer groomers, I really enjoyed Broadway Bowl and its do-able, fun bumps (shown on the first photo I posted above, which was taken from the Seattle Ridge Lodge patio).

Broadway itself was always enjoyable, whether you wanted to make wide turns or small ones to hug the side. It's a long run, good for pushing the cardio exertion level. You can keep pushing it on Broadway past the Seattle Ridge chair, as it flows into Lower Broadway run, less steep but still long. But riding up the Broadway chair, there was hardly any snow then. Photo below.

I liked the mid-mountain blue runs that go down to Warm Springs Lodge, Cozy and Hemingway. Once, they were blowing snow on one of those as we skied down, and it was sooooo smooth and creamy and lovely. The upper portion of those runs were closed for World Cup preparations.

 

[marzNC]

Probably my favorite was off the Mayday triple chair Kaitlyn's Bowl, Lefty Bowl and Sigi's Bowl which are wide open bowls that meander through the trees towards the bottom.

As much as I like zoomer groomers, I really enjoyed Broadway Bowl and its do-able, fun bumps (shown on the first photo I posted above, which was taken from the Seattle Ridge Lodge patio).

Broadway itself was always enjoyable, whether you wanted to make wide turns or small ones to hug the side. It's a long run, good for pushing the cardio exertion level. You can keep pushing it on Broadway past the Seattle Ridge chair, as it flows into Lower Broadway run, less steep but still long.

Makes sense from what I vaguely remember from 2016 of the upper bowls.

While there was plenty of snow coverage in the bowls below Bowl Lane off Mayday, dust on crust with a hard frozen surface meant it wasn't worth dropping in. We watch a few people in the bowls and it was clear they weren't having fun. One woman ended up deciding to traverse all the way across after dropping into Lefty or Kaitlyn's. She was moving about the same speed as people on the groomer so clearly knew where she was going.

One side of Broadway Face was ungroomed . . . and not fun . . . so both Bill and I were back on the groomed fairly soon. We also tried to duck into the trees off upper Broadway but even with a few inches of fresh snow, the hard surface underneath meant it wasn't worth it. Pretty sure we continued all the way down Lower Broadway that run. Can get a good view of the new tree terrain (double-black) off Seattle Ridge from the Broadway lift.

For the last run down Lower River Run the first afternoon, Bill started using the snowmaking guns as slalom gates. There were very few people around so that was fun. Since that green doesn't have too much pitch and is wide, it wasn't skied off like the steeper blue/black groomers on the upper mountain. We had taken Olympic Lane down.

I finished the second morning on Olympic Lane (green cat track) to Olympic Ridge (green) to Lower Olympic (blue) to Lower River Run (green). Lower Olympic was slick so I preferred the low bumps on the sides.

Sun Valley is a special place and I can see why @Christy likes it so much.

Agree!