Today, the Sun Valley Resort opened its Sunrise expansion, a vast, new section of expert terrain on the southern side of Bald Mountain.
The long-awaited unveiling came after a late-January weather system dropped 51 inches of snow on Baldy in the last seven days, providing enough snowpack to allow skiing and snowboarding in the area.
The Sunrise expansion adds more than 380 acres of new terrain—featuring chutes, glades and bowls—southeast of the popular Seattle Ridge section of Baldy, above the Cold Springs gulch. The expansion—which boosts Baldy’s skiable terrain to almost 2,500 acres—offers access to the formerly out-of-bounds Turkey Bowl area, now called Sunrise Bowl. The area is accessed by the high-speed quad Seattle Ridge chairlift.
“Sun Valley Resort has been working on the Sunrise construction expansion for over three years, and we are elated to open up the fruits of our labor to our community, pass holders and guests,” said Tim Silva, president and general manager of Sun Valley Resort.
To help serve the area, the resort has installed a new Doppelmayr high-speed quad chairlift named Broadway, which has replaced the oldest operating lift on Bald Mountain, the Cold Springs two-person chair. The lift ascends 1,582 feet from a point at the bottom of an extension of the Lower Broadway run up to the Roundhouse restaurant, where skiers and riders can access the Christmas chairlift and runs on the River Run side of the ski mountain. The resort has installed 25 new snowmaking guns on the extended section of Lower Broadway, an easy-rated cruising run.
Silva thanked the owners of the resort, the Holding family, for backing for the project.
“Between the hardworking snow safety and operations teams at the resort and at Doppelmayr, this endeavor was truly a team effort and showcases the ongoing investment by the Holding family, and the dedication to innovation by our entire management team,” he said. “This expansion is a huge step for the resort, offering an entirely new experience for our highly skilled skiers and riders to enjoy.”
Sun Valley chose the name Sunrise for the expansion area because it is the first location on Bald Mountain to be hit by the sun on the winter solstice, the birthday of the ski resort 85 years ago.
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That's just part of the story. This area, had it been managed by early (informed or experienced) skier access (patrol or other), would have have provided long ago, a more stable "opening". The fact that there is/was NO skier compaction in these VERY dangerous areas prior to this last snowfall only compounds the issue. The fact that the SV Co. is promoting these areas as open "runs" is scary. There are so many terrain traps and tree-traps in any given fall-line all over this expansive area, the fact that its now open to any skier that passes the warning sign is only asking for some serious trouble down the line. So many places to find danger. I feel for the ski patrol. I wouldn't want to try to extricate a skier in a sled in many of those places. If only they had selectively thinned trees in the multitude of these "chutes" with fall line EXITS, they could have lowered the risk exponentially. Numbers, Mistletoe, c'mon! Danger, Will Robinson! The fact that these "runs" ski best during or immediately after a storm would lead to better base, but waiting for a week to pass not only ruins many epic runs under prime conditions, but also increases the risk of an accident because now many areas have treacherous conditions, like sun/temp crust, bottomless (to the ground) areas and obstacles (trees, branches, etc), just to get started. There's a contingency of locals, all with experience and packs/beacons, who have skied the crap out of these areas for decades. They know where it slips/slides and what the conditions would be. They often dig pits when appropriate. SV is squandering terrain because they don’t have the experience nor the agility to manage it. In other areas, one can go sign up with the ski patrol, get “checked out” for ability, then sign a waiver and go get after it. They should institute such a policy, with a gate, that allows for those who have it to pass and be part of the “skier control” group. It would have been "controlled" weeks go and there would be a stable base prior to that last storm and all the way thru it. As it is now, theres a quite few out there just dropping adjacent to the rope line and taking it down to the highway. No problems reported. There were "resort" skiers tempted by this new terrain today out there all alone, on skinny skis, who had no idea of where they were other than following tracks, wherever they led......... It's a recipe for disaster.
So your stash is now accessed by "resort" skiers on skinny skis. Sounds like whining to me.
5Z, this is one of the most poignant posts on this forum I have read to date with respect to skier safety. Thank you!
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