CHERYL CONCANNON, Sun Valley Realtor Windermere Sun Valley
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The wait is almost over for the First Annual Sun Valley Rhythm & Ride: Bike and Music Festival, June 23-27, 2010 in beautiful Sun Valley, Idaho. The festival features 5 days of activities in one of the best single-track and scenic road biking environments around. The schedule includes fun family activities/races and concerts, as well as offerings for serious racers and mountain bikers.
Wednesday, 6/23:
Ketchum Cruiser Criterium, 6-9 p.m., Forest Service Park, Ketchum. Fun Family Ride to benefit the Wood River Bike Coalition, and the Bald Mountain Rescue Fund. Bring your silly costumes, your most wrecked cruiser bike, your mountain bike -- anything goes. Lots of races, food, music and fun!
Thursday, 6/24:
Take a ride! With 435 miles of single track, 32 miles of multi-use paved bike path, miles of scenic road biking, and our state of the art pump parks, you really can´t go wrong..
"Open Range" days at the Bike Ranch, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Smoky Mountain Lodge, Free. Certified coaches ("ranch hands"), use of tracks (a progressive stunt track, dueling pump tracks and a bmx course) and an outdoor bbq. Bring your bikes and helmets!
SheepTown Fat Tire Rally, 5-10 p.m., Croy Canyon, Hailey. Registration for the Sheeptown Drags opens at 5 p.m. accompanied by the Powerhouse BBQ. Racing begins at 8 p.m.
Friday, 6/25:
Take a ride! With 435 miles of single track, 32 miles of multi-use paved bike path, miles of scenic road biking, and our state of the art pump parks, you really can´t go wrong.
"Open Range" days at the Bike Ranch, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Smoky Mountain Lodge, Free.
Club Ride MTB Poker Ride, 10 a.m., presented by the Wood River Bike Coalition/sponsored by Club Ride Apparel. MTB riders will travel to 5 (or more) of 7 checkpoints in any order to earn their hand. All riders are due back by 4 p.m., best hand wins. Route distance will be 15-30 miles depending on the route and the number of checkpoints reached. The event starts and finishes at Sun Valley Festival Meadows on Sun Valley Road.
Hailey pump park, all day, open riding.
Yoga, 5 p.m., Sun Valley (location TBD). Work out those kinks with a session with the some of the valley´s top instructors.
SheepTown Fat Tire Rally, 6 p.m., Croy Canyon/Hailey. Registration for the Hot Dog Hill Climb One Handed World TT Championship starts at 6 p.m. with racing at 7 p.m.
Sawtooth Century Bib Bag Pickup, 3-6 p.m., Elephant´s Perch lawn, Ketchum
Zap Mama presented by Sun Valley Center for the Arts, 7 p.m., Hop Porter Park, Hailey. A blend of world music, fusion, African, a capella, soul, hip-hop and dance music, Zap Mama draws you in and gets you on your feet.
Saturday, 6/26:
Sawtooth Century Ride, 8 a.m. ?1/3 p.m. Get ready for 100 (or 50) miles through the Idaho Mountains. The race will start at the Elephant´s Perch in Ketchum, head north to Alturas Lake and finish at the Festival Meadows on Sun Valley Road in Sun Valley. Back by popular demand: King & Queen of the Summit, recognizing the fastest male and female riders on the 6-mile climb up the south side of Galena Summit.
Dollar Mountain 10K Trail Run, 8 a.m. start, Dollar Mountain, Sun Valley, Presented by Sun Valley Running. $20; $25 Race Day. Euro style mountain run on Sun Valley´s Dollar Mountain. This course will test your ability to climb, descend and cruise the limited flats while seeing Dollar in a way that most are unaware of. The course is challenging and technical in places but entirely run-able. Meet at the Community School "quad". info@sunvalleyrunning.com.
SheepTown Fat Tire Rally Epic MTB Ride, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Hailey. The course is a secret but greatness is guaranteed.
Yoga, 10 a.m., Sun Valley (location TBD). For those who are not feeling competitive, a session with some of the valley´s top instructors.
Scott USA Bike Demo, 2 p.m., Ketchum Pump Park. Check out the 2010 demo fleet from Scott USA.
Sun Valley Rhythm & Ride Music Festival at the Sun Valley Festival Meadows, 12-9 p.m. Bike Expom 12-9 p.m.: Check out the offerings from local bike shops, bike organizations, bike apparel, non-profits and refreshments. Music Festival, 3-9 p.m: Features music from Sambada (Santa Cruz, CA) and Pimps of Joytime (New York, NY) with openers House of Quist (Seattle, WA) and Molly Venter (Austin, TX) - $20/$5 for kids 12 and under.
Sunday, 6/27:
Idaho Pump Track State Championships, 9 a.m.-1p.m., Ketchum Pump Park. The first annual Idaho Pump Track State Championship features timed racing with separate courses flagged for juniors and adults on Ketchum´s premier public pump track.
Ride the Harriman Trail and lunch at Galena Lodge, 2-5 p.m., Galena Lodge
Jazz in the Park, 6-8 p.m., Rotary Park, Ketchum, Free.
The Sun Valley Area features over 400 miles of single-track trails with many more within a short drive. Wood River Bike Coalition President Greg Martin states it best, "We are an endurance rider´s paradise. I have lived here in the Wood River Valley since 1997 and there are still trails that I've not ridden to this day. I've ridden a lot of places and I've never seen a trail network as vast as what we have here." For more information, www.SVRhythmandRide.com.
History: When Union Pacific Railroad Chairman Averell Harriman commissioned Austrian Count Felix Schaffgotsch to find a perfect combination of deep snow, big mountains and bright sunshine, Harriman was convinced that a destination ski resort would stimulate rider interest on Union Pacific´s Northern Line. Over the next three months Schaffgotsch rejected Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, before following a last rumor into the Wood River Valley. The Sun Valley Lodge was finished in the late Fall of 1936, just in time to host Hollywood´s biggest stars who were invited for Christmas. If it didn´t snow until early January Union Pacific publicity photos show houses groaning under eight-foot loaves of snow. Deep, cold winters, however, are more the exception than the rule in Central Idaho, but following the lean winters of 1986-91, Sun Valley voted against the vagaries of cyclic El Ninos and vagrant jet streams and invested $15 million in York-computerized snow making. With 454 computer-controlled snowguns, the system is the world´s largest, and virtually guarantees a Thanksgiving opening. If Ketchum/Sun Valley once depended on sheep and mines for its survival, during the past two decades, art galleries, boutiques and real estate offices have filled the blocks around the town´s two stoplights. Weathered brick and wood facades still front Highway 75, and there is a growing realization that growth is no longer a synonym for progress. Today, the Casino Club, Duffy Witmer´s Pioneer Saloon, and the Sun Valley Lodge bear witness to the Wood River Valley´s riotous past. Ernest Hemingway, of course, is still a major draw and a Chamber of Commerce map gives directions to Whiskey Jacques, where he once drank; the Hemingway House which overlooks the Wood River; and even old room number 38 in the renovated Ketchum Korral Motel.
Another element of the Ketchum Downtown Master Plan is being implemented by the city of Ketchum as the now city-owned Town Plaza Building, formerly home to Mountain West Bank, is being transformed into a new Sun Valley/Ketchum Visitor Information...
For Nordic skiing and snowshoeing, the new 58,756 square foot Sun Valley Nordic center debuted this winter. The plush dining facilities there offer ski in/ski out breakfast and lunch. Also, don't forget the popular destination spot of Galena Lodge 20 miles north of the Sun Valley area. Kids ski free on all North Valley Trails, and there are free ranger guided snowshoe tours leaving from Galena Lodge each Thursday through the season.
And if you haven't been to Sun Valley in a few years, the Dollar Mountain area has upgraded significantly! The new Carol's Dollar Mountain Lodge was created with children in mind! European décor and the scrumptious menu attracts skiers and non-skiers of all ages. And new last year, quad lift access was installed on dollar's easiest slope as well as to the top of the mountain.
Galvin Flying Services, of Seattle, is expecting to its growing charter fleet air service in Sun Valley beginning in 2009.
"We are adding aircraft to provide increased options for charter service in 2009 as we foresee greater demand due to economic conditions for at least the next year," Galvin Flying Services President Peter Anderson said.
Galvin Flying Services will base the newly acquired Citation Ultra out of Sun Valley with a local crew on call that can be ready for flight within a short period of time. The aircraft seats seven and has a range of 2,200 miles making it a viable charter option to and from most major metropolitan regions in the United States. The existing fleet which now totals seven aircraft includes a wide variety of aircraft from several King Airs, Lear Jets and a Challenger 604.
Founded in 1930, Seattle-based Galvin Flying Services is a nationally recognized independently operated Fixed Base Operation.
Sun Valley is Hollywood's snow town, writes Robert Upe.
Tempers are flaring at Sun Valley. One of the town's finest young men is down with concussion and amid the fracas my plastic cup of Budweiser spills across the floor and over me.
But it's not a fist fight in a bar. It's an ice-hockey game between arch rivals the Sun Valley Suns and Jackson Hole Moose and it's the best entertainment I've had for $US8 ($11.60) in ages.
I'm standing in the front row with my beer balanced on a narrow ledge on a wall separating fans from skaters when a pack of beefy players rams into it and sends the cup flying.
So that's why seasoned locals never perch their drinks here. I realise I have signposted myself as a blow-in.
On the ice, the players take to each other as hockey players do: sticks are pressed into chests and they shove each other with menace to assert regional pride. But I have greater issues in mind and I race off to beat the mob to the beer queue before the hooter sounds to end the period.
This show of aggression is unusual in Sun Valley, an up-market and genteel ski town in the out-of-the-way Sawtooth Mountains of conservative potato-growing American state, Idaho.
Quiet as it is, Sun Valley is where Ernest Hemingway shot himself in 1961. The author of classics, such as For Whom The Bell Tolls and The Old Man And The Sea, lived in Sun Valley and was inspired by its rivers, mountains and forests. But one morning he leant over his double-barrel shotgun and pulled both triggers.
The beauty of the area has not diminished since then. I see snow-covered paddocks and golf courses in the flat lands below the mountains; horses pulling sleighs with bells; neatly stacked wood piles; fast-flowing forest-fringed rivers that lure fly fishermen in summer; grand log-cabin homes; and stone fireplaces with real fires.
Sun Valley is the type of place where you'll see a farmer in a 1960s Chevy pick-up cruise into town for groceries.
"It has a strong sense of community," says professional ski guide Travis Will, a lifelong resident. "If a family is struggling, everyone pitches in to help."
The sense of homeliness and friendliness pervades but I particularly warm to the Catholic church called Our Lady of the Snows, a place of worship that seemingly pays homage to the strong ski history and heritage here.
Sun Valley was "manufactured" in 1936 at the insistence of the chairman of the Union Pacific railway, Averell Harriman. He was a keen skier and he wanted to establish America's first winter destination resort to help increase rail passenger numbers and the real estate wealth of the company's directors.
Harriman wanted an up-market resort, such as Switzerland's St Moritz, so he hired Count Felix Schaffgotsch to scout out a location during the 1935-36 winter. Schaffgotsch dismissed many places that subsequently became successful ski destinations, such as Jackson Hole (too remote and windy), Lake Tahoe (blizzards) and Aspen (too many trees and too far from the rail line).
He was running out of options when he pinpointed the mining town of Ketchum and decided it was the place because it had mountains, plentiful snow, sun and treeless slopes in a sheltered valley.
Work began almost immediately and the Sun Valley Lodge opened in December 1936. Schaffgotsch never got his day in the sun because he returned to Austria soon after and was killed on the Russian Front fighting for the Third Reich.
New York publicist Steve Hannigan, who transformed a sand dune into Miami Beach and then successfully promoted it, was enlisted to do the public relations. He came up with the name Sun Valley and invited Hollywood stars and society notables to visit to give the area the cachet of a luxury resort.
The star-studded line-up of visitors has included Lucille Ball, Ingrid Bergman, Errol Flynn, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, Demi Moore and the original Batman, Adam West. Bruce Willis lives nearby, acting for free at the local theatre company and playing in a local band.
The Hollywood push of Sun Valley was helped by the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade, a girl-chases-boy flick starring Sonja Henie, John Payne, Milton Berle and the Glenn Miller Orchestra, which included tunes such as Chattanooga Choo Choo. (The film plays on a constant loop on a Sun Valley Lodge channel.)
Sun Valley's rise was ensured with the installation of the first chairlift in the world in 1936. The chair was financed by Harriman and developed by the Union Pacific's engineering department in Omaha, Nebraska.
The lift is long gone but the modern lift system, comprising 19 lifts across two mountains (Bald Mountain is for beginners and Dollar Mountain for competent intermediates or better), works like a wonder. During our stay there are no lift queues and the long, steep, wide, groomed slopes are so deserted that we let our skis run with reckless abandon. There are also tree runs, bumps and steep bowls to tackle.
The slopes at Dollar are of a constant pitch that require a lot of muscle work and technique to check your speed. Legs are well and truly burning by lunch.
On-mountain lunches are a treat, with Sun Valley's day lodges - such as River Run and Seattle Ridge - the best I have seen in the world. Think of big, open fires, soft sofas, quality tables and chairs (no plastic), sophisticated bar areas, widescreen TVs and fresh, affordable food.
The service and food ethic is also evident at the elegant five-star Sun Valley Lodge, which remains the centrepiece of the area and retains a strong sense of Hollywood and ski history. The lodge is a 10-minute bus ride from the slopes. It is an essential experience, from the grand dining rooms to the piano bars to the outdoor glassed-swimming pool.
Many of the rooms have French country interiors and marble bathrooms and there are glorious apartments with fires and plasma TVs. Hemingway is said to have penned much of For Whom The Bell Tolls in room 206. The lodge also has a bowling alley, a spa and massage facility, shops and an adjacent ice rink.
In the early days big bands played at the lodge but now it is a little more laid-back and you're more likely to hear a jazz trio.
Unlike other big North American resorts, Australians are a rarity at Sun Valley. But four-time world surfing champion, Nat Young, is one high-profile Aussie to have bought property here, along with Andrew Fairley, the chairman of the Alpine Resorts Co-ordinating Council in Victoria. Fairley says he fell in love with the resort because of the "six-star" experience.
"There is never a crowd or a lift queue; there is diversity of terrain and the snowmaking is of the highest standard. There are beautiful and affordable lunches in the day lodges, where people are lined up behind the servery in chefs' hats to serve or cook fresh food. It makes you feel good.
"But what really makes Sun Valley compelling is the unconditional welcome. At other resorts in the US there is an A and a B crowd. Visitors are in the B crowd. But in Sun Valley everyone wants to know you and welcome you."
I've wandered into a Sun Valley bookshop to buy For Whom The Bell Tolls and have struck up a conversation with a store attendant who shows this typical friendliness. But then she drops a bombshell. In a town that reveres Hemingway she admits to finding his writing "boring".
I settle for a copy of the local paper, which reports the concussed ice-hockey player, Paul Baranzelli, is probably done for the season.
On a brighter note, the paper describes the last minutes of Sun Valley's 5-4 victory over Moose: "Mike Hanson broke away with the puck. Skating to the right, the left-handed forward slapped a blazing fast slap shot that whizzed by the Moose goalie. The crowd went wild and Hanson took a head-first victory slide into the Suns bench."
By that time I was holding my new beer tightly, just like the locals.
Robert Upe travelled as a guest of Sun Valley and Mogul Ski World.
FAST FACTS
Getting and staying there
Sun Valley Lodge is the accommodation of choice and is usually included in ski packages out of Australia with ski specialists such as Mogul Ski World, Skimax and Travelplan. Mogul Ski World has a package from $4695 a person that includes Qantas return air fares from Melbourne or Sydney to Los Angeles and flights from Los Angeles to Sun Valley, seven nights' twin-share accommodation at Sun Valley Lodge and a six-day lift pass. Phone 1800 335 724, see http://www.mogulski.com.au.
Most accommodation, including Sun Valley Lodges, is at least a few kilometres from the slopes but a free bus service provides easy access to the snow.
Skiing there
Sun Valley's ski area comprises Dollar Mountain (mainly beginners) and Bald Mountain. Several kilometres separate the the two sites. Bald Mountain's terrain is steep but there is little or no true extreme terrain. The 150-day season usually includes 120 sunny days. There are 75 runs across 2054 hectares. Heli-skiing is available; see http://www.sunvalleyheliski.com. There are excellent cross-country trails.
Eating there
Two essentials are the Round House on the ski slopes of Bald Mountain for lunch and the Pioneer Saloon (www.pioneersaloon.com) in Ketchum for dinner. The Round House was built in 1939 and has Swiss-Austrian influence, a four-sided stone fireplace and accordion player in Austrian outfit but American accent. The Pioneer Saloon is a bustling place with superb T-bones. Also consider Trail Creek Cabin, built in 1937 to take guests to dinner by sleigh and still doing it today.
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