Fun Facts About Sun Valley
Sun Valley was the first ski resort to build a chairlift, which was adapted from a system used to haul bananas onto ships in Panama.
Ernest Hemingway, who lived and died in Ketchum, enjoyed many years of hunting and writing in the Sun Valley area. He wrote several chapters of For Whom The Bell Tolls in suite #206 of the Sun Valley Lodge, and bought a house that resembles the Lodge. Many of Hemingway's favorite hangouts are still in existence throughout the area.
The first lift ticket price at Sun Valley in 1936 on Proctor and Dollar Mountains was 25 cents. In 1947 tickets were $4.50 per day.
There have been many movies filmed in the Sun Valley area including such classics as: "I Met Him in Paris" (1937) starring Claudett Colbert, "Sun Valley Serenade" (1939) starring Sonja Henie; "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953) starring Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall; "The Tall Men" (1956) starring Clark Gable and Jane Russell; "Bus Stop" (1956) starring Marilyn Monroe; "Ski Party" (1965) starring Frankie Avalon; “Pale Rider" (1985) starring Clint Eastwood; and Town and Country (2001) starring Warren Beatty.
Sun Valley Serenade still plays nightly at the Sun Valley Opera House throughout the winter and several days a week during the summer.
Sun Valley is the gateway to one of the most stunning and rugged wilderness areas in the West, The Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA). The SNRA, home to the spectacular Sawtooth Mountains (also known as "America's Alps"), is made up of 756,000 acres. The SNRA contains more than 40 peaks over 10,000 feet, 300 high mountain lakes and some of the country's best whitewater rafting on the Salmon, Snake and Payette Rivers.
Sun Valley has the largest automated snow making system in the world.
The name "Sun Valley" was thought up by a New York PR man who thought the name appropriate for a place that receives 250 days of sunshine a year. This marked the first time a PR agency was guilty of understatement.
Sun Valley Resort's uphill lift capacity on Bald Mountain is a staggering 21,580 skiers per hour, but averages only 3,500 skiers per day. Result: no lift lines.
The first woman to win a gold medal in the winter Olympics, Gretchen Fraser, hailed from Sun Valley. She is buried near Ernest Hemingway in the Ketchum Cemetery.
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