Thanks to a successful fundraiser and a large donation, skiers at Rotarun will no longer need to depend on the whimsy of the weather.
After receiving an anonymous $180,000 donation on Friday, Sept. 14, and raising nearly $35,000 at its benefit concert the following Sunday, the Rotarun Ski Club will be able to purchase and install snowmaking equipment, potentially before the first natural snowfall of the winter.
"This is what makes this community unbelievable," said Don Wiseman, executive director of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation and a major proponent of the improvements to the ski area. "People put their money where they think the community needs it."
This support of the ski club's $500,000 target was evident at Sunday's event, which saw over 500 people come through Hop Porter Park in Hailey to listen to music provided by Johnny Neel and Tony Furtado. Proceeds from the concert will help fund a number of improvements to the Rotarun ski area, located west of Hailey in Croy Canyon.
"It was extremely successful with the park filled with families," Wiseman said during a recent interview. "But we want to stress that we're not done yet—we still have two parts to go."
With approximately $250,000 raised since fundraising began in June, the ski club will be able to move forward with snowmaking, the top priority of its master plan to make the small mountain a thriving, full-time ski area. The ski club estimates that it will cost $178,000 to buy and install six York Safyr snow guns, similar to those introduced to Dollar Mountain in Sun Valley last winter. Wiseman said the guns will help make Rotarun earn more money through after-school ski and snowboard race training, as well as learn-to-ski programs.
That money will help fund construction of a chairlift and day lodge, the next two improvements in line for Rotarun. The ski club has already received significant help toward those goals, after Sun Valley Co. donated the Dollar and Quarter Dollar lifts, except for the towers, which would be combined to create one lift to take skiers to the top of Rotarun. As well, the developer of the property where the Sun Valley Helicopter Ski Guides building sits on First Avenue in Ketchum has committed to donating the costs of moving the building to the base of Rotarun.
Wiseman said that the developer needs to move the building by April 1, and, therefore, that will be the second improvement, with installation of the lifts planned for next summer. However, that will depend on the success of continued fundraising.
"This is a grassroots campaign," Rotarun Ski Club board member Jason Miller said during Sunday's concert. "It will keep us from skiing over grass and roots."
Johnny Neel, former keyboardist for the Allman Brothers Band, entertained the crowd at a full Hop Porter Park in Hailey on Sunday, Sept. 16. The concert helped the Rotarun Ski Club raise nearly $35,000 for planned improvements to the ski area, located just west of Hailey in Croy Canyon.
Photo by Willy Cook
