By Peggy Townsend
KETCHUM, IDAHO (Feb. 2009) “You want to see something creepy?” asked bartender Helen Yang.
I had come to the smoky, low-ceilinged Casino Bar in Ketchum in search of writer Ernest Hemingway’s favorite drinking spot. But Yang, a snowboarder who arrived in this town looking for powder and stayed for 13 years, didn’t know much about the seat Hemingway reportedly favored and the offer to see something weird was more than I could refuse.
“This way,” said Yang, as she headed past two pool tables to a side door in the bar. Her voice had a husky, Lauren Bacall quality to it. She wore a short denim skirt and Ugg boots.
I followed Yang up a set of rough wooden stairs, through a locked door and into a hallway whose floor sloped like one of the ski runs on Bald Mountain a few blocks away. The wood groaned and cracked under my feet.
“This used to be a brothel,” said Yang sticking her head into a tiny, cell-like room where dingy wallpaper peeled from the walls and a cramped window let in rays of shadowed light. “Creepy, huh?”
She was right.
The thought of the worn women who made their living in this warren of rooms in the late 1930s as the rich and famous plied the slopes not too far away did have a certain creep factor.
Later, I would learn that the Wood River Valley had a long history of prostitution, including two women of the night known only as Enid and Emma who entertained miners in the town of Galena in the 1870s. According to an article in Sun Valley Magazine, the prostitutes were asked the bustling tent city and fled to a pair of nearby gulches where they continued their business operations. The ravines carry their names to this day.
River Run Lodge at Sun Valley
I wondered if Hemingway had ever been up to the rooms above the bar, which began life as a real casino in 1936 and now serves more Budweiser than any other bar in the state of Idaho, according to Yang.
No one may ever know.
But what I do know is that unexpected detour into Sun Valley’s past, wasn’t the only surprise I would encounter during a week-long winter trip to this area with my husband. There were plenty of other discoveries that made me rethink what Sun Valley is.
Surprise 1: The value.
Despite its reputation as a playground for the rich and famous (California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and wife Maria Shriver, Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, Sen. John Kerry and Las Vegas hotel magnate Steve Wynn are among those who own homes here), skiing at Sun Valley turned out to be worth every penny we spent.
The $80 cost of a lift ticket to Bald Mountain, which looms over the town like that bow on Aretha Franklin’s inaugural hat, seemed pretty steep at first -- especially in light of the shaky health of my 401K. But life, my husband and I decided, isn’t just about numbers on a monthly statement, so we pressed on, heading up a series of lifts that whisked us to the 9,150-foot summit of the mountain with a panorama of snow-covered mountains and valleys that nearly took our breath away.
The air was crisp and the skies were as blue as a cowboy’s eyes -- not an unusual occurrence in a place that reportedly gets 250 days of sun a year. But thanks to cold temperatures, a dedicated grooming staff and a computerized snowmaking system on 665 acres of runs, the snow here was soft and eminently carveable.
Bronwyn Peterson, public relations manager for the Sun Valley Ketchum Chamber and Visitors Bureau, said the mountain’s snowmaking system includes a series of mini weather stations that measure shifting winds, temperature and humidity levels and adjust the snowmaking accordingly. The result was manmade snow that wasn’t like skiing on the crunchy, crushed ice cubes you find on some hills but more like real snow.
Working my way around the mountain, my husband and I arced turns on corduroy beginner runs off Seattle Ridge and swooped down perfectly bumped bowl runs before heading over to the Warm Springs side of the hill. There, we dropped into a run that made me think of the Energizer Bunny. It just kept going and going and going.
I couldn’t help but smile as I skied down to a curve where I guessed the lift might be and found I still had more than half the run to go. At the bottom, I barely had time to slide my hands out of my pole straps before I was through a nonexistent lift line and back on the high-speed quad chair. My husband timed our laps on the run. It took 25 minutes to ride up and ski back down, and it wasn’t because the chair was slow. We tried a smooth black-diamond run called Limelight that seemed longer than some people’s commutes, then skied the long, gently bumped Hemingway and Greyhawk runs. My legs burned out long before my spirits did.
With an uphill lift capacity of 28,180 skiers per hour and an average of 3,500 skiers a day at the resort, that meant the only time we had to rest was on the chair. And if we divided the vertical feet we skied into the ticket price, we got a cost-per-turn ratio that even Wall Street couldn’t ruin.
I wondered how the resort could do what it did on revenues from 3,500 skiers a day (even at $80 a pop). Locals riding the lifts told me that oilman and Sun Valley owner Earl Holding and his wife Carol poured all their profits back into the mountain, so I asked Patterson of the Chamber and Visitors Bureau if that was true.
“A huge portion of the mountain’s proceeds go to upgrades,” she conceded. But she couldn’t say that all the company’s profits went back into the hill. Still, every year,the Holdings manage some new project, she said. Last year was a stunning new nordic center and golf course. This year, they planned to add a new gondola to the historic Roadhouse Restaurant on the mountain.
When I staggered back to our condo after the first day of skiing, all I could think was that, even at $80, I had gotten a pretty good deal.
Surprise 2: The Lodges.
Ski lodges are not known for their comfort. Most of them are high-school-cafeteria-like places with plastic chairs and $12 hamburgers that don’t taste much different than the cardboard plates they come on. But Sun Valley’s three day lodges were different. Built out of thick, golden logs, they had more in common with a nice restaurant than a ski lodge. There were carpeted floors, huge windows and even crystal chandeliers.
At the Warm Springs Lodge where we had lunch the first day, separate kitchen stations featured crisp salads, gourmet pizza slices and pasta, thick sandwiches and rich soups that were served in real ceramic bowls. For $8.50, I got a large bowl of housemade Italian wedding soup and crisp sourdough roll that was more than filling and didn’t leave me with the sense I’d been victim of some culinary Ponzi scheme like I felt at other resorts. There was even a bell that sounded when the chocolate chip cookies came out of the oven so no one had to settle for cold cookies after a morning of skiing.
That afternoon, live music filled the gorgeous River Run Lodge as contented skiers sipped wine and beer and evening fell over the bubbling creek just outside its windows.
It was said that the Seattle Ridge Day Lodge even provides chaise lounges so guests can relax in the sun at lunch. Good thing I didn’t know about that amenity. Otherwise, I might still be lying up there.
Surprise 3: Senior Valley.
I’m used to skiing at Squaw Valley in California, where the young and hip rule the slopes in their baggy pants and knit caps. But at Sun Valley, the slopes seemed full of energetic grey-hairs in trim, one-piece suits. Not that it was a bad thing. It just made me feel young.
Surprise 4: Where were the tourist traps?
The town of Ketchum turned out not to be just a collection of overpriced boutiques and restaurants where dinner cost more than a week’s worth of groceries. Instead, it seemed to be a place where normal people lived. While there were shops where you could buy a $1,200 fly-fishing rod and $250 blouse, we found plenty of spots that made us feel right at home.
I liked shopping at Atkinson’s market where a fire crackled in a huge brick fireplace near the cash registers and people still charged their groceries. If you get there before noon, by the way, there’s a good chance you can buy containers of fresh, hot cioppino for lunch.
I liked eating at the Pioneer Saloon (or the “Pio” as locals called it). Crowded and noisy, this steakhouse draws throngs of people for the huge hunks of beef and hampster-sized Idaho baked potatoes it serves. Prices were reasonable and the waiters were friendly. They even knew the name of the last Democratic Senator in the state: Frank Church. (The current governor and senator both have names I liked: Gov. “Butch” Otter and Sen. Michael Crapo.)
I liked the Iconoclast bookstore, where you could sip coffee and spend more than a few hours prowling its shelves while your quads recovered from a day of skiing.
I liked the Post Office where everyone comes to pick up their mail and catch up on town gossip. (Guess who’s sleeping with who?)
And I liked the way the city handles traffic. Instead of lights, there are orange flags hanging on each corner’s lamp post. Simply grab an orange flag and step into the street.
You’re your own crossing guard.
Surprise 5: Culture.
Simply put, the area has it. There are about 20 art galleries in Ketchum -- including the Friesen Gallery where I wandered in one afternoon to look at an incredible exhibit of art glass by Lino Tagliapietra. And even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t appear to be a woman interested in buying a $30,000 vase, manager Stacy Collins spent 20 minutes telling me the story of this legendary artist and showing me around his works.
There is also a year-round lecture series presented by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts (I just missed a visit by Gloria Steinem) and plenty of people mentioned the Swing ‘n’ Dixie Jazz Jamboree that draws thousands of people to the area in October.
Surprise 6: Cross-country skiing.
There are miles and miles of nordic trails in and around the area. One day, we visited the rustic Galena Lodge where we rented nordic equipment and skied into a valley that looked like it came straight out of a Nick Adams story. More than 200 kilometers of groomed trails run from the town of Bellvue to the Galena lodge and, that day, were scattered with athletic-looking folks and their dogs out for a winter workout.
After a few hours of cross-country skiing, we were more than happy to settle in for a casual lunch at the lodge -- the site of a silver and lead ore mining city that sprang up in the 1870s and that was restored thanks to a grassroots effort of local citizens.
The last surprise:
I’ve skied Aspen and Vail, and even roamed Deer Valley’s rarified slopes. But none of them were places that made me want to rush right back.
As I drove out of Sun Valley and headed for home, there was only one thought on my mind: I’ve got to come back to this place as soon as I can.
That was the biggest surprise of all.
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