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22Green: Upper College 86: Upper Christmas Ridge |
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60: Seattle Ridge 79: Cold springs Cut Off 80: Inhibition |
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1: Upper Warm Springs 81: Cozy 82: Lower cozy 83: Upper Race Arena 84: Grayhawk Lift Line 85: Warm Springs Lift Line
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LINK TO SUN VALLEY SKI INSTRUCTION LINK TO PRINTABLE COPY OF BALDY LINK TO CURRENT CONDITIONS AND WEATHER ON BALDY
Ski Ability Levels: Match Colors to Your Skiing Ability. CLICK ON NUMBER TO VIEW SKI RUN 1: First-time skier 2. Beginning wedge turn/ wedge to a stop 3. Advanced wedge turn/ can link wedge turns 4. Wedge Christie/ match skis at end of turn 5. Advanced Christie/ match skis before fall line 6. Beginning parallel/ turn both skis at same time 7. Intermediate parallel/ begin to carve turns 8. Dynamic parallel/ high level of carving 9. Advanced skiing/ speed in all conditions
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Sun Valley’s development of Bald mountain came into being through the minds of two of alpine skiing’s most influential and talented players, Averell Harriman and Freidl Pfeifer. (See Sun Valley Ski History) During Sun Valley's developmental stages, in the Fall of 1936, Harriman solicited the combined talents of U.S. ski pioneer Charles Proctor, U.S. ski jumping champion Alf Engan and Austrian ski great Count Schaffgotsch to develop the resort's skiing topography. While both Proctor, with his wife (the first woman to ski Bald Mountain), and Schaffgotsch skied the terrain of Bald Mountain in 1936 considering it for development, it was eventually discarded as to high and difficult. Pfeifer, who skied nearly every significant resort in Europe racing for team Arlberg, in contrast viewed Baldy's slopes as Sun Valley's chance to truly compete on an international par. Skiing with Harriman and his daughter Kathleen, between promotional and coaching duties in January of 1939, Pfeifer voiced his Bald Mountain aspirations.
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River Run Side of Bald Mountain Summer 1939 |
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Skiing College, Bald Mountain 1940 |
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However, Harriman had a more pressing problem with the ski school. While the school under the two years of direction with Hans Hauser (Sun Valley’s first ski school director) possessed abundant charm, it lacked discipline, direction and effective instruction. It seemed that Hauser's energies were directed more towards the playboy aspects of Sun Valley's ski life than to the school's administration. Such inadequacies prompted prominent dignitary Nelson Rockefeller to ski Sun Valley's slopes with his own instructor, Mt. Rainer's ski school director Otto Lang, which compelled Harriman to question the credibility of his world-class school. Pfeifer, in Harriman's view, was the clear choice to replace Hauser and was offered the position. Shocked at Harriman's confidence in his abilities, Pfeifer accepted and at age 28 became the 2nd director of the prestigious Sun Valley ski school. Clearly establishing Sun Valley's ski school as one of the World's greatest, Pfeifer and Harriman drew an extremely successful 1938-39 ski season to a close with ambitious plans to develop the unrivaled vertical of Bald Mountain the following season. Nonetheless, current Union Pacific President Bill Jeffers, a determined conservative Irishman who began his career with the railroad as a station janitor, had no faith in Sun Valley and Pfeifer's predictions of more development generating higher tourism. This ensued with Pfeifer being summoned to Jeffers' Omaha office, with out Harriman's knowledge, where a stern lecture on spending and a threat of termination was delivered. |
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Seeing his Bald Mountain dreams fade with every anti-Sun Valley utterance conveyed by Jeffers, Pfeifer immediately contacted Harriman who simply said not to worry. Briskly, as if Jeffers had never existed, Union Pacific Engineers crowded to Idaho's Central Mountains, in the summer of 1939, to build the world's most complicated chair-lift system. Initially wanting to construct one money saving bottom to top lift, Union Pacific Engineers eventually deferred, with a little persuasion by Harriman, to Pfeifer's plans of building three separate steel lifts that scaled the 3,400 vertical foot River Run Side of Bald Mountain. Also, in accordance with Pfeifer's specifications, a warming lodge was built at mid-mountain, christened the Roundhouse by Harriman, and new trails were cut by crews of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which Averell procured through his political ties with the Roosevelt Administration. As the 1939-40 ski season began, the world was introduced to the largest lift-served alpine skiing mountain in the western hemisphere and a modified Hannes Schneider ski school tailored to an American impatience of how to ski better in the shortest time possible. Harriman and Pfeifer also added a final touch to already unprecedented Sun Valley skiing talent by employing America's best know ski instructor, Otto Lang as assistant director. Today Sun Valley’s Bald Mountain has a consistent steep pitch that makes experts out of intermediates in no time, resulting in the amassing of more winter downhill skiing Olympic Medals than any other ski mountain in the United States. Baldy's endless un-crowded slopes will spoil you for life. Sun Valley's instructors specialize in the art of effortless carved turns. For the mogul devotee, bump runs spanning uninterrupted one-mile lengths are common. However, for those wanting a less demanding pace, Sun Valley's Dollar Mountain has the perfect practice terrain for beginners, intermediates and advanced skiers; a perfect graduation to the world's greatest ski mountain, Baldy. NOTE: BALDY’S SLOPES ARE BEST SUITED FOR SKIERS SKIING AT LEVELS 4 thru 9. |