The valley was at last bestowed with a blanket of snow Monday night, just in the nick of time for the holiday season.
On Saturday, Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air made its first landing of the season at Friedman Memorial Airport, and will be streaming in up to 140 people a day until March 27. Two 70-passenger planes will be landing daily, one from Los Angeles and one from Seattle. The flights are almost sold out for December.
SkyWest also increased its flights to and from Salt Lake City on Dec. 17, jumping from five daily flights to eight. The 25-passenger Delta Connection planes link to numerous Salt Lake City flights, bringing up to 200 passengers a day.
In tune with flight bookings, room bookings at Sun Valley Resort have also taken off.
"Reservations in the last 10 days have really picked up (for December)," said Sun Valley spokesman Jack Sibbach. "Every time it snows, we get 30 percent more calls."
Even if the National Weather Service merely issues a snow warning, Sibbach said, reservations see a swift kick.
And the Weather Service did issue a "winter storm warning" on Monday morning, calling for a dumping that night. A little more than 4 inches did accumulate on Bald Mountain over Monday night and it was still snowing on Tuesday, which bodes well for the resort and other hotels.
Sibbach said Sun Valley has 510 rooms available, and most are reserved for the rest of December. He said selling out every room is a difficult goal to reach. There may be enough demand for 510 rooms, but the resort has 37 types of rooms. And someone may just want a one-bedroom hotel room, but their only option may be a seven-bedroom house.
"There's a wide gamut of price ranges," he said.
While December has shaped up and crowds are flowing in for Christmas, Sibbach said, room bookings for the rest of the winter are "up and down." He said some weeks are surpassing last year's marks but, overall for the season, the resort is trailing last winter.
Being a privately owned company, Sun Valley Co. doesn't have to provide actual numbers and prefers not to.
Sibbach said the good news is that Christmas "sets the stage" for the winter to come. And the lights strung from street-side trees aren't the only things making the north valley glow—Ketchum and Sun Valley are abuzz with activity.
"It's all based on return stays," Sibbach said, "and word of mouth."
Trevon Milliard: tmilliard@mtexpress.com
A traveler picks up her luggage at Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey on Saturday, the first day of winter flights from Seattle and Los Angeles. Express photo by Mark Oliver
