Sun Valley 2025

I toured Idaho Falls, the EBR-1, and Craters of the Moon on the travel day. The next day I skied Sun Valley during the first snow storm in about a month.

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Revelstoke Loop 2025

Sun Valley

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Today was a relocation day: Driggs to Bellevue, ID. I stopped in Idaho Falls to look about a little and very importantly to fuel up. (Last year I didn't and nearly ran out of gas before arriving in Arco, ID).

I checked out the falls on the Snake River that flows through town. The falls result more from the concrete dam/wall constructed to extract hydroelectricity. The town was called Eagle Rock until a little after1900 when the dam was built. An enterprising guy built a bridge over the Snake river at this location to avoid people needed to use a ferry. This provided an alternative route as part of the Oregon Trail. Apparently there were some altercations with the natives on the regular route that follows the Snake so some folks elected to travel just north of the regional basalt deposits despite the lack of reliable water.

I stopped in at the Villa Coffeehouse having a coffee and muffin. When the lady told me the price I had to have her repeat it; the price was about 30% less than anywhere else I've been in recent (and ancient) history. Yeah to a small backwater town! I also visited the Museum of Idaho just a couple blocks away. I hope it's not the only 'museum of Idaho', as it's pretty limited. I confess to being amazed that there were numerous references to rocks and fossils being millions of years old. After all, the prominent LDS (Latter Day Saints) church not far away suggests that religion dominates thinking in the area. (Ok, so maybe I'm being a bit cynical.) A lady in the museum wished desperately to share her knowledge of skulls with me. I listened and interacted with her at her prompts learning some tidbits along the way.

My last stop in Idaho Falls was one of the suggested Tripadvisor sort of things to see the eagle's nest waterfall and roundabout. It was painfully cold so the water was frozen, but it's still and nice sculpture.

Gassed up at the last Maverick station I headed west out of town. Hwy 20 passes over one of the ancient calderas in this part of the world. The land is basalt which apparently is worthless as farm land because the surface waters immediately percolate downward out of reach of roots. Instead this area has been used to test ordinance (a.k.a. bombs) and to develop nuclear reactors. The EBR-1 (and 2) (experimental breeder reactor) are located here. This was the world's first sustained and controlled nuclear reactor that generated electricity. It was important for the scientists to demonstrate the peaceful use of nuclear energy after the bombs dropped during WWII on Japan. The facility has a couple of nuclear development devices intended as propulsion systems in aircraft; fortunately President Kennedy in the early 1960's canceled the program. The area also has nuclear devices used in developing nuclear propulsion for naval vessels. I believe these are still used to train naval personnel on real reactors before they operate the ones in vessels.

I stopped at the Craters of the Moon visitor center west of Arco, ID. Today was their first day of the 2025 season. The roads remained closed, but I was able to tour the single room displays that discussed the history of volcanic activity in the area. The North American continent has been moving over a magma hot spot for millions of years. This hot spot is now under Yellowstone. This hot spot is why the are from Boise to Yellowstone exhibits so much historic surface lava.

As I left the visitor center my westward route collided with the eastern moving snow storm. Snow was rapidly accumulating on the road. Semis were prudently reducing their speed. The new snow tires on my car performed beautifully making me happy I'd purchased them. I checked in at the motel in Bellevue, ID, and enjoyed a meal at a Mexican restaurant in town. Spanish seems to be the preferred language in this town.

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The snow continued to pile up here at the motel this morning. About two more inches sat on my car.

I started to clean my car off, but stopped to help some other guests get their car unstuck from the parking lot. Oddly there is a drain in the parking lot forming a steep depression. It was a Spanish speaking family/group. They had a rear tire sitting in the depression and summer tires. A woman was driving the guys were haphazardly pushing the car and shoveling snow away from the tires. I stumbled in trying to help. The front tires were sitting on a sheet of ice spinning. I found an ice bucket and threw some ice under the front drive tires; it didn't seem to help. Pushing did help either. I have to take my hat off to the driver. She rocked the car back-and-forth and suddenly gained enough spinning traction to ease the car out. I suggested they park the winter unprepared car since it looked even worse out on the roads. I couldn't understand the easy going Spanish conversations they were having, but she pressed on with tires spinning onto the main road and out of view. My thoughts drifted to the ongoing ICE deportations and this group that likely weren't naturalized citizens of the U.S. of A. I wondered if they were under some kind of stress. Later in the day I happened to scan a local paper with a headline that ICE was not actively deporting people in the valley presently.

Well, with them out of the way, I finished clearing snow from my car and ... with my newly purchase snow tires!! ... easily headed for Sun Valley. The roads were laden with snow. Some folks were driving slowly while some of the big pickup trucks were driving like the devil possessed speeding and tailgating the whole time. (There seems to be something about pickup truck drivers these days that brings out the worst driving characteristics. I read somewhere that Dodge pickups tend to speed more than other vehicles.) I was able to park at my usual spot near the River Run Plaza. It still requires about a 300 m walk, but I love the view from the bridge over the Wood River.

The lifts hadn't opened yet. The powdered induced queues for the gondola and chairlift were growing longer. i fell in line and appreciated the line shuffling along steadily right up to the point I had to have my IKON pass scanned. Good grief Charlie Brown! The place I usually place the pass contained the Grand Targhee pass which obviously didn't work. I stepped out of line. I rummaged through a pocket with other passes only to pull out the wrong one for the second time. Laying my gear down to get both hands free I finally secured the correct pass. A few minutes later I was whisked up the gondola to be deposited near the Roundhouse lodge the snow falling the entire time. The views from the gondola didn't encourage despite the powder accumulation. There were willows and short shrubs poking out of the snow everywhere!

From the top of the gondola I boarded another chair to reach the top. The wind wasn't bad. I started down Christmas ridge and quickly realized the falling snow with thin fog eliminated any contrast of the moguls from the fresh snow from the ice from the wind pack. The first couple hundred meters was all done by feel - feeling which ski skidded suddenly on hard pack or got shoved behind due to a pile of unseen powder risking a face plant. Lots of people were falling. Visible contrast improved shortly and I could actually spot the lines of untracked powder - yippy! Let the powder turns begin!

I made a few runs sniffing out the untracked powder which there was plenty of. Much of it was in scattered trees that most skiers avoided. But even the 'groomed' runs had fresh snow to enjoy. At last...after two weeks of skiing with spectacular blue skis and so-so snow here was a proper winter ski day. Like someone that's gone too long without a good hotdog or potato chips, or ice cream and cake, I over indulged making countless ski turns. Within two hours my legs muscles revolted and just howled in pain and weakness when i tried to engage them further. I took a break at the Warm Springs Day Lodge - it didn't help. I rode the chair back to the top of the mountain thinking I'd made a few more runs. I just couldn't, :( . I actually chose to ski down the green cat track because my legs hurt so much and were so weak. (I noticed that a Sun Valley 'green' run is more like a 'blue' run about everywhere else.) I passed an advanced run with beautiful snow conceding though my mind craved it, my body had the veto power. That didn't completely stop me from finding fresh snow and making gobs of turns on the lower angle slopes as I descended back toward the base. And the snow just kept falling.

I drove into Ketchum and went to the Java on Fourth street coffee house. I could tell it is a popular hangout for the locals. The patrons and staff often greeted each other. Two gentlemen that looked to be in there late 70's were sharing a lively discussion about past, present, and shared female relationships and encounters; I had to admire their continuing sexual focus and urges.

I stepped into the Sun Valley Museum of Art. It had photo and video exhibits about snow and winter. I then walked several blocks to the Wood River Museum of History and Culture. It highlighted past important figures and recent people that found themselves living in Ketchum. There were a few artifacts displayed. A large area was dedicated to Earnest Hemingway who was invited to visit in the late 1930's when the railroad was marketing Ketchum as a destination ski location; he stayed. My last stop was right next door at the Living with Wolves Museum. It displays photographs of wolves all taken at a now dismantled many acre reserve. The reserve was set up by a couple with the objective to study wolf behavior. Eventually, the reserve was dismantled and the wolves neutered and located on a Nez Perce reservation until the pack members all died. While there I became engaged in a conversation with the two woman hosts. The older had lived in Ketchum for 20+ years having moved there from Palisades, CA. She shared that her first house in Palisades had burned down so she rebuilt it only to see that this second house succumbed to the recent fire. The younger woman had moved to Ketchum just two months ago from L.A. also. In our conversation about wolves she revealed that while she worked at a dog rescue one of the dogs suddenly bit off one of her fingers - which she readily displayed to us. The event has not damped her love of dogs - go finger. All the museums were free, uncluttered, modern, and informative.