STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Keep the cork in the champagne bottle.

Sun Valley Resort won’t be breaking a bottle over the new Cold Springs lift next year after all.

Sun Valley Resort originally planned to build a new Cold Springs lift to replace the resort’s oldest chairlift this coming summer. But engineers decided that a different alignment would provide a better experience for skiers and boarders and possibly even open up a little more glade skiing, said Mike Fitzpatrick, Sun Valley’s director of marketing.

That means the old two-seater, built in 1970, will be in operation yet another year.

Fitzpatrick said the resort will start building the infrastructure for the new four-seater this summer but will not open the new Cold Springs lift until the 2020-21 season. The detachable quad will take skiers on a six-minute 5,500-foot ride that will ascend 1,525 vertical feet from the bottom of Cold Springs to the Roundhouse Restaurant.

The new lift is part of a Cold Springs project expansion that will add 380 acres to Sun Valley’s ski terrain, increasing Sun Valley’s skiable acreage to 2,434 acres.

It will open an advanced/intermediate area on the south side of Seattle Ridge Lodge called Turkey Bowl. The new terrain will feature off-piste skiing that includes tree skiing.

The project will also extend lower Broadway Run 4,200 feet or two-thirds of a mile and line it with 18 new snowmaking guns over 1.5 miles. When finished, Broadway—a green cruiser run—will be 2.5 miles long.