Sun Valley

Sun Valley exists because the Union Pacific Railroad wanted Americans to have a reason to ride trains to Idaho. Chairman W. Averell Harriman bought the 3,888-acre Brass Ranch for roughly four dollars an acre and built the entire resort — lodge, ski runs, staff village — in about seven months, opening on December 21, 1936, for around $1.5 million. It is widely credited as the first destination ski resort built in the United States, meaning the first one built specifically to be a vacation in itself rather than a local hill.

The single biggest thing Sun Valley gave the world wasn’t the resort — it was the chairlift. Before opening day, Union Pacific engineers installed the first chairlifts anywhere on Proctor and Dollar mountains, single-seat lifts built that same fall of 1936. One of those original lifts was later moved to Alaska and, remarkably, is still the oldest operating chairlift in the world. Every ski resort chairlift built since traces its lineage back to this one hillside.

The lodge that opened alongside those lifts, the Sun Valley Lodge, is a 220-room, X-shaped building poured in concrete textured to look like wood grain, a trick used because the site had no timber mill nearby. Bald Mountain itself — “Baldy” to everyone who skis it — didn’t open for lift-served skiing until the winter of 1939–40, four years after the resort itself, and it’s the mountain, not the original lodge hill, that made Sun Valley’s reputation among serious skiers.

The Sun Valley Lodge is the reason to get out of the car even in July, when there isn’t a run open on the mountain behind it. Ernest Hemingway finished a draft of For Whom the Bell Tolls in Room 206 during the fall of 1939, and the hotel has kept that connection alive rather than papering over it. The lodge’s Sun Valley Inn opened the same season as a Swiss-styled companion building, and together they set the template every mountain-town resort in America has copied since.

Visit Sun Valley, the area tourism organization, says the Sun Valley area includes four distinct towns, Bellevue, Hailey, Ketchum and Sun Valley, each with its own restaurants. Its dining guide says it features all the restaurants of Ketchum and Sun Valley and counts more than 50 restaurants and nightlife locales between them. No published comparison of prices or number of options between the two towns was found, so check each restaurant’s own site for menus and hours.

In the Sun Valley Lodge lobby, the resort lists Gretchen’s, which it describes as named after skier Gretchen Fraser and covered in ski memorabilia, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.

2 brewpubs within 10 miles of Sun Valley, all with a kitchen.

Brewpub locations from Open Brewery DB (MIT)

No professional or college team plays in Sun Valley or Ketchum — this is a resort town built around skiing, not spectator sports, and it has never pretended otherwise.

This is a two-season stop, not a highway pass-through: come for skiing from roughly December through March, or for hiking, biking and the lake country in July and August. Visit Sun Valley, the area tourism organization, describes mid-October through November as a quiet season with a slower pace, peaceful trails and more lodging availability, and describes late March through June as a time of fewer crowds, warmer days and better lodging value. Its spring page also advises hikers to be mindful of wet or muddy conditions on some routes. No published list of what closes between seasons was found, so check the resort’s mountain report and each business’s hours before planning a spring or late-fall visit.

Budget at least one full day even outside ski season — the lodge, Ketchum, and a short hike or gondola ride fill a day without a lift ticket.

Peak ski season runs late December through February, according to Visit Sun Valley, the area tourism organization. We were unable to confirm the fees for the current season, or how lift ticket and lodging prices change around the Christmas and Presidents’ Day weeks; check the resort’s lift-ticket and lodging pages for the dates you plan.

The nearest commercial airport is Friedman Memorial in Hailey, about 15 miles south, which makes this one of the few Idaho stops people also fly directly into rather than only drive to.

6 public campgrounds within 25 miles of Sun Valley, 4 of them bookable ahead. Public campgrounds run by federal agencies. State-park and private campgrounds are not included.

Sun Valley Lodge

Address

1 Sun Valley Rd, Sun Valley, ID 83353

Hours

Open year-round; ski season roughly late November–April

Price

Free to visit the grounds and lobby; skiing, golf and the ice rink priced separately

Link

sunvalley.com

We checked operating status, opening hours and seasonal opening on 2026-10-14. These change without notice — confirm with visitsunvalley.com and sunvalley.com the week you travel.

Straight-line distance from Sun Valley, not drive time.

• Friedman Memorial (SUN) — 14 miles
• Stanley — 46 miles
• Joslin Field Magic Valley Regional (TWF) — 84 miles