On Thanksgiving Day, some people in the Wood River Valley went running and hiking. A few others rode bicycles. And, according to Sun Valley Resort, nearly 650 people went skiing on Bald Mountain.
Sun Valley skier numbers were down over the resort's opening weekend, a result resort officials attribute to a lack of snow-covered terrain.
Sun Valley Co. officials reported Monday that 643 skiers and snowboarders skied at Bald Mountain opening day, Thursday, Nov. 25, followed by a smaller crowd of 619 on Friday.
Jack Sibbach, Sun Valley director of marketing and public relations, said the low skier counts for the first two days were largely the result of the resort only being able to open one lift and one ski run on the lower elevations of the River Run side of Baldy.
However, after mountain crews opened runs from top to bottom on both sides of the mountain Saturday, skier numbers were more reflective of early-season tallies from years past. On Saturday, 1,736 skiers hit the slopes, while on Sunday 1,196 followed suit.
Last year, Sun Valley opened Nov. 26, the day before Thanksgiving, with skiing from top to bottom. With significantly better conditions prevailing last year, Thanksgiving Day and the following Friday brought solid skier counts of 2,068 and 2,258 respectively.
Thanksgiving weekend skier-count totals from this year and last year were both down sharply compared to those from 2002, when 10,785 skiers and boarders took to the slopes over four days.
Despite the lack of natural snow and low skier counts, Sibbach said Thanksgiving weekend was a success for the resort.
"Everything was very busy at the village all four days," he said. "Obviously, we would have felt a lot better if we had more help from Mother Nature."
Sun Valley has reported receiving 43 inches of natural snow this winter, but most came before an early November warm spell.
The dry weather in southern Idaho was certainly more of a problem for other ski resorts. Most remained closed for Thanksgiving weekend while they waited for more snow.
Clearly, Sun Valley would not have opened without its state-of-the-art snowmaking system, one of the world's biggest.
"We're at the mercy of the weather sometimes," Sibbach said. "At least we have snowmaking and were able to get open."
Sibbach said more terrain on Baldy could be opened by next weekend. In the interim, the mountain will stay open.
"They're making a lot of snow up there."
Prior to Thanksgiving weekend, Sun Valley staff called people with lodging reservations to inform them that skiing would be limited on opening day, but other activities—including tennis and shooting—would be offered.
To date, Sibbach said, Sun Valley has had very few snow-related cancellations.
Sibbach said it is important for the resort to open Bald Mountain by Thanksgiving Day because it has tried to build the concept of visiting Sun Valley over the holiday weekend as a "tradition."
Apparently, travelers have responded. At resort restaurants and special events, Sun Valley fed Thanksgiving dinner to more than 1,000 people.
"Nobody was going to beat us," was the mantra of this foursome, all of whom slept at the River Run base of Bald Mountain last Wednesday night to get the season's first chairlift up the mountain Thursday morning. The group included, left to right, Taylor Stoecklein, Collin Collins, Alex Nelson and Corey Warren. Photo by Willy Cook
