The Fire that Saved Sun Valley

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Published on January 3, 2019 by FREESKIER

FREESKIER is teaming up with the crew at Visit Sun Valley to give one lucky winner and a friend of their choosing a three-day, two-night trip to Sun Valley, Idaho, to ski one of the most beautiful resorts in North America! Enter your information below to be considered to win complimentary lift tickets for two days of skiing at Sun Valley, a two-night stay at the brand new Limelight Hotel in downtown Ketchum, a $75 gift card to use at the delicious Sawtooth Brewery and a fresh pair of Crosson Skis of the winner’s choosing. The dates of the winning trip are March 7th through March 9th and all you have to do is get there!

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Flocked in a frosty coat of white and adorned with shimmering lights, wreaths, and a passionate reverence for time honored tradition and family gathering, few places are as magical during Christmas as Sun Valley. As the streets lined with lights welcome visitors to town and the village teems with festive activities and traditions, the spirit of Christmas is infectious to all who enter.  So come to Sun Valley and rekindle your love for the most wonderful time of the year while bonding with your loved ones and enjoying the skiing and iceskating, caroling and worshipping, dining and shopping–even late night bar hopping.
See what Sun Valley has in store for your family this winter!

Papoose Club Christmas Bazaar

A fundraiser for the Papoose Club–come out and shop the wares of local artists and craftspeople for unique presents for that person who has everything.

Ketchum Christmas Lighting Ceremony

Join in the start of the Christmas season at Town Square in Ketchum with the ligthing of the Town Square, Santa arriving on his traditional fire truck sleigh, and hot cocoa and cider with cookies for everyone!

A Christmas Carol

Holiday fun for the whole family! Come join the tradition.

Tree Lighting Ceremony – Sun Valley Resort | December 15

Featuring Santa, live holiday music, ice carving demo, free cookies & hot cocoa, and no-host outdoor bar. Festivities begin around 5:30pm with Tree Lighting to follow.

Sun Valley Winter Wonderland Ice Show and Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade | December 24

The Sun Valley ice shows are a sight to behold any time of the year, but the Nutcracker on Ice is one spectacle that brings a smile and a warm heart to everyone who attends.  This is truly a time honored family tradition that lets us all know the Christmas is here, while free admission celebrates the giving of the holiday season. Fireworks and a light show of skiers wielding torches down Dollar Mountain is the last thing children for generations have seen before crawling into bed to wait for Santa to arrive in the night.  Free to all!

Gallery Walk | December 28

Each year, the Sun Valley Gallery Association hosts seven gallery walks (exhibition openings for all SVGA galleries), which are eagerly anticipated and free to the public. Locals and visitors alike take in thought-provoking exhibitions of newly installed art, enjoy wine, mingle with friends, and often meet the artists.

Night-Skiing on Dollar | December 31

Hit the slopes to and enjoy some night turns, music under the stars and fireworks. Admission includes skiing and riding on Quarter Dollar, face painting, New Year’s Eve party hat decorating, photo booth, bouncy twister and so much more! Ring in the new year with family fun and festivities. 4-9pm

Bubbly Bash | December 31

Welcome in 2019 with fellow supporters of the arts at the New Year’s Eve Bubbly Bash, which promises once again to be the valley’s most festive holiday celebration. The annual sold-out event benefits the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and is co-hosted by Sun Valley Resort and The Center’s Junior Patrons Circle.

The ‘Sixth Sense’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’ star’s 20-acre lakefront ranch sold after seven years on the market.

Actor Bruce Willis has officially sold his 20+ acre lakefront ranch property in Hailey, Idaho, just 12 miles south of Sun Valley. In 2011, Willis listed the estate for $15 million with Sotheby’s, then re-listed it in 2016 as a co-listing with Engel & Völkers Sun Valley and Keller Williams for the same price. While the home’s final sale was only a fraction of the original listing price, Willis’ listing represents the single biggest residential sale ever in the Hailey area. Travis Jones was the listing agent with Engel & Völkers Sun Valley.

The far-from-modest, 8,400-square-foot home was fully rebuilt by Willis in 2003, and currently features six bedrooms, a guest house, and a gym. Willis also added several streams and ponds to the property, along with an impressively grand heated pool that features waterslides, waterfall features, and a rope swing.

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SUN VALLEY, IDAHO — Mountain peaks pierce the sky like emerald pyramids as we weave through Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest, more than two million acres of gorgeous green that’s home to Baldy, one of the Smoky Mountains’ highest summits.

After spending a day discovering the hipster comforts of Boise, we’ve driven three hours east to this massive wilderness, where the blue sky is free of clouds and mountain goats scale the golden granite, for a late summer getaway. Sun Valley is the posh resort area that includes Ketchum and Hailey, towns that Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks and other Hollywood elite call home.

To wrap one’s head around how much nature is here — and just how deeply your soul will surrender to it — crunch the numbers: The region is home to more than 1,000 lakes, 3,000 miles of rivers and countless mountain trails and equestrian routes. There is so much to do in the summer, you almost forget about the world-class skiing that’s defined Sun Valley since 1936.

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KETCHUM — The dates have been set for Sun Valley Center for the Arts’ 50th Arts & Crafts Festival — a cultural highlight of the Wood River Valley’s summer season. This free event will take place Aug. 10–12 on the lawns of Atkinson Park in Ketchum. Festival hours 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 10. Weekend hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Center uses a rigorous jury process to select artists and craftspeople to exhibit work at the Arts & Crafts Festival. According to the Art Fair SourceBook, a comprehensive guide to the top-selling art fairs and craft shows around the country, the event is ranked in the top 100 fine art festivals in the U.S.

Each year, the three-day outdoor fine arts show gives Wood River Valley residents and visitors the opportunity to interact directly with artists and learn what’s new in the world of arts and crafts. In addition to the exhibition, the festival includes artist demonstrations, food vendors and a free kids’ craft area.

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First 5 months of 2018 outpace prior years in city

Looking across Ketchum, the story of new commercial property development is no longer solely focused on new hotels.

The construction of the Limelight Hotel on Main Street and the anticipated construction of the Auberge Resort Sun Valley hotel were the major new commercial development projects in Ketchum in 2015 and 2016, according to building activity reports maintained by the city government.

The city recorded those projects when their developers paid their building-permit fees; the Limelight wrapped up construction in 2017 and the Auberge will have until 2021 to complete construction.

Full Story Here

Forbes, April 4th, 2018

Sun Valley in Idaho offers just about everything an outdoor enthusiast might dream of doing in one location. Skiers and snowboarders relish its more than 2,000 skiable acres and 40 kilometers of cross-country tracks. But don’t discount its warm-weather outdoor activities, as droves of people come here for hiking, mountain biking, golf, fishing, shooting and horseback riding, as the summer season has surpassed the winter season as the busiest time of year at the resort. And that’s just the beginning.

A resort for all seasons.
Indeed, Sun Valley is a year-round destination that benefits from a high mountain desert climate, low humidity and sunny skies for 80 percent of the year. The average daily high temperature during its coldest season, between mid-November and late February, is a comfortable 32°F, while the average temperature during the summer months is an enviable 81°F.

“The old saying here,” explains Steve Haims, who has lived in the area since 1978 and is employed by Sun Valley as its Director of Nordic Sports, “is that people come for the winter and stay for the summer.”

It is easy to understand why.

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After all the excitement from Monday’s women’s giant sla-lom finale of the 2018 Toyota U.S. Alpine Championships on Baldy, Sun Valley will make a quick turnaround two days later and stage another major U.S. Ski and Snowboard (USSA) event. Roughly 70-80 men and 50-60 women from across the U.S. are expected for the USSA U.S. Junior National Alpine Championships that will put a lively spring skiing punctuation mark on the 2017-18 winter sea-son at Sun Valley Resort.

The Sun Valley Ski Educa-tion Foundation (SVSEF) along with title sponsor Smartwool will host top U.S. juniors for competition in the USSA championship event set for Wednesday through Friday, March 28-30. Featured in the three-day series are one competition in super giant slalom, one in giant slalom and one in slalom for men and women.

SVSEF also hosts a Ketchum welcome ceremony, awards ceremonies after men’s and women’s races, and a gathering for parents, coaches and offi-cials at Ketchum’s Limelight Hotel on Thursday.

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U.S. halfpipe skiers take 3 medals at PyeongChang

U.S. freeskiing halfpipe coach Ben Verge started skiing at Dollar Mountain as a kid. When he got older, he coached for the Sun Valley Ski Team. This week, his team struck gold at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

“I definitely remember skiing on a leash on Dollar,” Verge told the Idaho Mountain Express in 2014. “And my dad used to ski with me in a baby backpack on Baldy. I don’t think they even allow that anymore!”

On Monday, U.S. team member Brita Sigourney, of Park City, Utah, won a bronze medal in the women’s freeskiing halfpipe competition. On Thursday in South Korea, Reno, Nev., skier David Wise won a gold medal in the halfpipe. His teammate Alex Ferreira, of Aspen, Colo., took silver.

All four men’s halfpipe Team USA skiers qualified for the finals; Aaron Blunck, Ferreira and Torin Yater-Wallace took the top three spots, respectively. Wise took the eighth spot in the qualifying round.

Verge grew up in the Wood River Valley, graduating from Wood River High School and ski racing with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation until he was 19. He left a carpentry job to coach freestyle skiers for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation until 2011 and was named Freeskiing Coach of the Year by the U.S. Ski and Snowboarding Association in 2012.

Four years ago, Verge was U.S. freeskiing halfpipe coach during the first Olympic Games to host the sport. U.S. skiers Maddie Bowman, of Salt Lake City, and Wise each brought home gold medals from Sochi, Russia.

Verge started skiing in Sun Valley when his parents, Judi and Gus, put him on skis at the age of 18 months.

The couple had come to Sun Valley on their honeymoon and never left. Gus Verge dedicated his career to the ski industry, creating the popular Reflex ski pole line in the early 1980s and serving as president of Smith Optics for years.

Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation coach Pat Savaria, who Verge called one of his most important coaches and mentors, said young Ben was not only a great skier, but a great asset to the program.

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