It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Sun Valley

Fireworks and torchlit parade will ignite the sky on Christmas Eve

Sun Valley is transforming into a Winter Wonderland before our very eyes. Magical lights twinkle throughout the village. The sound of jingle bells and the smell of gingerbread float through the air.

Sun Valley spokeswoman Jenna Vagias says their series of events will fill even the biggest Scrooge with holiday cheer.

“Our family of employees at Sun Valley Resort are woven into the fabric of our community, and family-friendly events bring generations together for memory-making,” Vagias said.

The festivities continue at 7 p.m. on Dec. 17-18 at the Opera House with the Classic Christmas Concert. Tickets cost $25 and are available at the Guest Center in the Sun Valley Village, or at sunvalley.com.

“Nothing evokes the spirit of the holidays like music,” Vagias said. “Where better than the historic Sun Valley Opera House to enjoy a wonderful evening of carols old and new, storytelling, and more?”

Performers include Aly Wepplo, Andrew Alburger, Andrew Garratt, Teddy Cunningham, John Mauldin, Melodie Taylor-Mauldin, with special guests The Beverly Lovers and Colla Voce. Taylor-Mauldin directs, with R.L. Rowsey taking on the music.

This 12-Acre Sun Valley Estate Starred in a Marilyn Monroe Film. Now It Can Be Yours for $16 Million.

The guest house on the property is better known as Grace’s Diner on the silver screen.

While many of the private homes that have appeared in feature films and TV shows are located in Los Angeles (obviously), that’s not always the case, as shoots often head out on location to get some authentic flavor. For the classic Marilyn Monroe movie Bus Stop, for instance, the crew shot scenes in an old general store in Idaho. That shop has since been repurposed into a guest home and is now part of a larger, contemporary estate that’s just hit the market for $16 million.

The residence is better known by Monroe fans as Grace’s Diner. In the movie, it’s where characters Beauregard Decker (played by Don Murray) and Virgil Blessing (played by Arthur O’Connell) make a pit stop on their way down to Phoenix. Since they’re taking a bus to get there, in many ways the now guest home was the titular bus stop. The duo return to the diner on their way back to Montana after meeting Monroe, who plays Cherie, a singer.

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Did your favorite make the list?

It’s that time of the year again, when SKI releases the results of our annual Reader Resort Survey ranking the top ski resorts in North America. And after the pandemic season we all made it through, it was anyone’s guess which resorts were going to come out on top. In the West, where travel was less restricted, many of you said that you made most, if not all, of your typical ski trips—aside from Canada, as borders were closed. That said, we did see a bump in responses for smaller, independent resorts, and more appreciative comments about them, as well.

Not surprisingly, the West’s biggest resorts bore the brunt of the frustration from readers, with comments about interminably long lift lines and packed slopes dominating the responses this year. Readers both lamented the loss of skiing’s softer side—limited access to the dining and après facilities, less camaraderie after a day on the slopes—and celebrated just skiing without all the bells and whistles. While we anticipate a return to normalcy at ski areas this winter, we acknowledge that the pandemic changed how we ski at the resorts—and that some of us are opting not to, with a newfound love of backcountry skiing.

Whatever the coming season will look like for you, we hope you can use these rankings to inform your vacation choices. As one wise reader wrote, “There is no one resort that ‘has it all’. People need to decide what’s important to them.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

1. Sun Valley Resort, Idaho

Overall Score: 8.91
Strengths: Grooming, Service
Weaknesses: Access, Snow

What Readers Say

“Sun Valley is just magical. The village and the Lodge can’t be topped. The mountain is perfectly maintained and has perfect pitch on every run. The history makes it fun to be a part of. The Holding family are supreme stewards of this jewel. “

From New Mexico to Wisconsin, leaves are turning.

When temperatures cool across the United States, the colors of the leaves heat up. States like Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont seem to steal all the glory when it comes to fall foliage and leaf peeping opportunities—but what many travelers don’t realize is there are a bounty of destinations for watching the leaves change in every region across the U.S. From Georgia, to the mountains of Arizona, and beyond, here are 13 destinations for fall foliage that are nowhere near New England.

Sun Valley, Idaho

The autumn colors of Ketchum in Sun Valley, Idaho, are one of a kind. Between the months of September to October, Sun Valley’s backdrop of aspens and cottonwood trees turns vivid shades of red, orange, and brilliant gold. Bald Mountain, Sun Valley’s ski mountain, can be a great spot to peep at the colors from above. Head to the Scenic Overlook via Bald Mountain Trail, which requires just a 3.6-mile roundtrip trek to reach a wood-platform with an eagle-eye view of the Big Wood River and the town of Ketchum below. Pair a day of taking in the scenery with a cozy cup of coffee or cocoa at Lizzy’s Fresh Coffee, then spend the night at the iconic Sun Valley Lodge, which has easy access to numerous hiking trails.

All 13 Fall Foliage Trips Here

By Julie Miller

Aug 4, 2021

Home prices notched their biggest annual growth since 1979 in June, during an extra-hot summer for real estate, fueled by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Nationally, sale prices shot up 17.2% in June compared with a year ago, according to a recent report from real estate data provider CoreLogic. They rose 2.3% from May.

“When you start hitting historic highs, you wonder how long this is going to go,” says Selma Hepp, CoreLogic’s deputy chief economist. She estimates that home prices have likely peaked and will grow more slowly for the rest of the year. “Home prices have gotten out of reach for a lot of people.” While it’s still a seller’s market, that doesn’t mean buyers should sit it out.

“Interest rates are still low, and home prices will still keep going up even if they level out,” Hepp says. Appreciation of single-family, detached homes, like those typical in the suburbs, rose 19.1% in June. That’s almost double the 10.7% rise in attached properties, such as townhomes and row houses.

The increase makes sense as buyers have sought out more square footage, outdoor space, and locations where they could socially distance during the pandemic. Buyers have been competing over the limited supply of these detached, single-family homes, which typically offer all of these things, bringing prices up to previously unheard of levels.

Where are home prices rising the fastest?

Prices continue to rise the fastest in the western part of the country, with year-over-year growth in June reaching 34.2% in Idaho, 26.1% in Arizona, and 24.3% in Montana. “These places are affordable,” Hepp says, adding that the Rocky Mountain states “have been particularly of interest to people who are now able to work from home and looking for outdoor amenities.”

Twin Falls, ID, about two hours southeast of Boise, had the highest year-over-year increase of any locality, at 40.2%. The median list price in Twin Falls was $367,550 in June, according to the most recent Realtor.com® data. Bend, OR, with a median list price of $737,500, came in second, at 35.4%.

“What I hear from out-of-state clients is, they are looking for a better way of life and a place to raise their families,” says Nicole Gabiola, owner of Keller Williams Sun Valley. And many who are priced out of Boise, where the median list price was $513,050, “are coming our way.”

Local agents say the housing market in Twin Falls has been growing for years and is still hot. But they expect it to start slowing. There were just 30 houses for sale in the spring, says Stan Tobiason, a Realtor® with Super Realty of Idaho. Now there are about 130. “Prices are still crazy, but people have a few more houses to choose from,” he says.

Businesses in the town, near the Sun Valley ski resort, can’t fill openings as applicants are unable find a place to live; mayor proposed letting workers pitch tents in a park.

KETCHUM, Idaho—Ethan McKee-Bakos has had no trouble finding work since he moved to this upscale mountain town last February, earning $60,000 a year from two jobs. But Mr. McKee-Bakos spent nearly six weeks living out of his SUV in the nearby Sawtooth National Forest, unable to afford rent for a condo.

“If you live in Ketchum, there’s no shortage of work. There’s just a shortage of where you can live,” said Mr. McKee-Bakos, who works as a supply manager at a local hospital and a bouncer at a bar. “This is the first time I’ve experienced any type of homelessness.”

Like many towns in the West with economies built around tourism, Ketchum is facing a cascading housing crisis caused by a rush of new residents during the Covid-19 pandemic, growing demand for workers during the economic boom that has followed, and a shortage of affordable homes that was years in the making.

Businesses in this community of 2,700, located in central Idaho near the Sun Valley ski resort, are struggling to fill open positions, forcing some to cut hours. Some workers live in trailers or tents in the Sawtooth National Forest. And the waiting list for the 113 affordable-housing units for sale or rent in surrounding Blaine County is years long.

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With all the talk of a tent city springing up in Ketchum, the canvas tents that popped up in the Upper River Run parking lot and an empty lot at the base of Bald Mountain Monday might have given passersby a start.
• Are city fathers renting out tents to workers this summer?
• Is it just a way to determine what a tent city in the shadow of a world-class ski mountain would look like?
• Or are hotels so full proprietors are going to offer tent lodging for tourists, complete with the foot-thick mattresses and comforters in each?

Actually, the tent city is part of 29029 everesting, a monumental challenge designed for those who believe challenging things change us.
The four-day event is expected to bring more than a hundred competitors and their families to Sun Valley from Thursday through Monday, June 17-21.
Competitors will leave base camp at 5,750 feet and race up the mountain about 15 times to climb the equivalent of Mount Everest which, at 29,029 feet, is the world’s tallest mountain. They will ride the gondola down after each summit.

Participants have all sorts of reasons for taking part. One woman told everesting that her husband passed away in January after being diagnosed with ALS. She signed up to give her something to focus on to work through the grief.
Another woman said she is doing it to prove that she is stronger and more fit—and to have fun. A man said he was attempting to be the best he can be for the rest of his life after his father’s death by heart attack shook him to his core.

And a woman who will be coming to Sun Valley from Atlanta is doing it as part of a pandemic health plan that included losing 45 pounds and reducing her elevated blood pressure.
Additional 29029 events have been held in Vermont and Snowbasin, Utah. Split evenly between men and women, the average age of past events is well over 40, according to Bloomberg.
Many participants are entrepreneurs or corporate managers for companies like Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. While some have a few marathons behind them, for most this is a new frontier.

When people think of art not many think of pies, but one local Sun Valley woman is changing that with Piedaho, a family-owned bakery. Rebecca Bloom created Piedaho to offer Idahoans and people nationwide a way to order handmade artisanal pies.

When she first launched Piedaho, Bloom was selling pies to friends and friends of friends, but that quickly changed after the bakery was featured on Oprah’s favorite things. “So that took this little thing and sort of bloomed it out, so we were forced to grow then and that put us in a different place than we anticipated,” Bloom said. After the feature, demand for pies increased within a couple of days.

Each pie purchased is made with a unique handmade design. Unless it’s a custom order, people usually won’t know what their pie will look like until they open their box. The bakery has been family-operated since it launched in 2018. They even hand deliver to those who purchase in the Wood River Valley.

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