He was almost ready to give up and go home. It was 1935, and for a few weeks, Count Felix Schaffgotsch of Austria had been on a mission to find a hidden gem tucked into the western reaches of the United States. He wanted to find the perfect untapped area in which to build a ski resort the likes of which no one had ever seen.

So far it had been a series of hits and misses, and the good count figured his vision just might not exist. But it was then that he overheard some locals talking about a small mining town in Idaho called Ketchum. The count couldn’t exactly say why, but “Ketchum” had a ring to it, and he decided to take a look.

The veritable Shangri-La he found would change the skiing world forever. As he looked upon a beautiful sun-kissed valley outside Ketchum, the count knew this was the gem he had been hunting. He immediately wired his employer, Averell Harriman, ecstatically exclaiming, “This combines more delightful features than any place I have ever seen in Switzerland, Austria or the U.S. for a winter resort.” Harriman rushed to join the count, and within days purchased the 4,300 acres that would become Sun Valley.

They immediately got to work, and within eight months Sun Valley opened to the public in the winter of 1936. And it didn’t take long for the world to see what Harriman and the count had seen. Sun Valley was an instant success, and eventually became the lodge for celebrities, champion skiers from around the globe and everyone else who wanted a winter resort with almost year-round sun, endless vertical slopes and virtually no crowds. Sun Valley has grown since then, but it’s every bit as amazing as the day it opened.

Sun Valley Resort Fact Sheet

Sun Valley Resort
1 Sun Valley Road
P.O. Box 10
Sun Valley, ID 83353

800-786-8259
www.sunvalley.com

Fax: 208-622-2030

Opening day: Dec. 21, 1936

Sun Valley Resort is America’s first destination resort, built in 1936 by the Union Pacific Railroad. It is located in the Northern Rockies region of south-central Idaho and is open year-round with four distinctly beautiful seasons. There are more outdoor recreational activities here than at any other destination resort in the U.S.

Accommodations

The Sun Valley Resort sleeps 1,200 with a total of 480 rooms.

Sun Valley Lodge: 108 rooms 

Sun Valley Inn: 97 rooms

Apartments, cottages, and condominiums: 227 rooms

Mountain Statistics

Bald & Dollar Mountains

Ski season: Thanksgiving Day to mid-April

Hours: 9 am–4 pm

Sun Valley Totals

Lifts: 17

Gondola: 1

Six-Pack: 2

Quads: 8

Triples: 3

Doubles: 1

Surface: 2

Total lift capacity: 29,717 skiers per hour

Skiable area: 2,553 acres

Longest run: 3 miles

Total runs: 121

Steepest run: Inhibition (70% or 35 degrees)

Slope rating:

36% Easiest

42% More Difficult

20% Most Difficult

2% Expert Only

Snowmaking area: 645 acres

Snow guns: 555

Groomable area: 810 acres

Groomable terrain with snowmaking: 78%

Sunshine: 120 days out of 150-day ski season or 80%

Bald Mountain

Summit elevation: 9,150'

Vertical drop: 3,400'

Rise: 19,714'

Lifts: 12

Runs: 120+

Lift capacity: 23,680 skiers per hour

Day lodges:

River Run Day Lodge

Warm Springs Day Lodge

Seattle Ridge Day Lodge

Lookout Restaurant

The Roundhouse

Sun Valley Ski & Ride School: 240 instructors

Dollar Mountain

Summit elevation: 6,638'

Vertical drop: 628'

Rise: 976'

Lifts: 5

Runs: 22

Lift capacity: 6,037 skiers per hour

Day lodge: Carol’s Dollar Mountain Lodge

Eight terrain parks

Sun Valley Nordic & Snowshoe Center

Roughly 40 km (25 miles) of meticulously groomed tracks for classical, skate skiing and ski touring

Snowshoe trails: 14 km

Ski and snowshoe rental, accessories, wax room

Clinics and private instruction

Winter Recreation

Swimming and soaking: Two outdoor heated pools, one hot tub

Spa: Day spa and full-service salon

Ice skating and hockey: One outdoor rink, one indoor rink

Après-Ski

Entertainment: Duchin Lounge, Bald Mountain base lodges

Dancing: Jazz musicians perform nightly for dancing in the Duchin Lounge

Movies: First-run movies nightly in the Sun Valley Opera House. Free viewings of “Sun Valley Serenade” play continuously in guest rooms.

Summer Recreation

Golf: Sun Valley Resort Golf courses, 45 holes

18-hole Trail Creek course designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr.

9-hole White Clouds course designed by Knott & Linn

Elkhorn Golf Club (semi-private)

Tennis: 17 courts, full-service pro shop and expert instruction

Ice skating: Indoor and outdoor rinks, skating school, hockey

World-class ice shows Saturday nights during the summer, featuring Olympic and world champion figure skaters

Swimming: Three heated outdoor pools, one hot tub

Gun club: Trap and skeet fields, double trap, wobble trap, duck tower, five-stand, sporting clays, professional instruction

Horseback riding and Wagon Rides: Sun Valley Stables

Gondola and chairlift rides: Access to Baldy’s summit and biking and hiking trails

Fly-fishing

Rafting: Whitewater trips on the Salmon River, the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and others

Bowling alley: Six lanes, Sun Valley Lodge basement

Paddle boating, horseshoes, fishing, and volleyball: Sun Valley Lake

Sun Valley PlaySchool: Available year-round

Restaurants & Lounges

14 restaurants, including 6 mountain lodges

4 lounges: Duchin Lounge, Ram Bar, Warm Springs Day Lodge, and River Run Day Lodge

Shopping

Sun Valley Village: 8 shops

Summer Calendar

Major events include Sun Valley Pavilion entertainment, the Sun Valley Wine Auction, Arts and Crafts Festival, the Sun Valley Music Festival, Sun Valley on Ice shows, Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, Killebrew-Thompson Memorial Golf Tournament.

Meeting & Banquet Facilities

The newly renovated Sun Valley Inn Convention Center totals more than 12,000 square feet and is as grand in interior décor as it is impressive in its concealed state-of-the-art technological function. Meeting rooms have extensive telecommunication and audiovisual backbone cabling systems that allow for numerous telephone, data, video and audio distribution via fiber optics, data-rated twisted-pair 802.11g wireless and coax. High-speed Internet access is achieved through RJ45 twisted-pair connectivity and fiber-optic cabling along with 802.11g wireless Ethernet. This access also can be configured to allow for virtual LAN networking between meeting rooms within the hotel. In addition, an in-house, resort-wide fiber-optic backbone can accommodate all possible data and video distribution needs as well as direct fiber connections from carrier circuits to all meeting rooms.

Total meeting rooms: 18

Largest capacity: Seats 1,100 theater style

Total meeting space: 28,500 square feet

Ownership

Sun Valley Resort is privately owned by the R. Earl Holding family, owners of the Grand America Hotels & Resorts family. Sister properties include Snowbasin Ski Resort, the Grand America Hotel, and the Little America Hotel and Towers in Salt Lake City, Utah; the Westgate Hotel in San Diego, Calif.; the Little America–Flagstaff in Arizona; and the Little America–Wyoming and the Little America–Cheyenne in Wyoming.

Management

Vice President/General Manager: Pete Sonntag

Director of Hotels: Justin Cambier

Director of Marketing: Scott Warren

Director of Sales: Tayt Knowles

Director of Mountain Operations: James Grant