STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
PHOTO BY ROBBIE HAMLIN
Both Sun Valley Resort and the Nordic trails are closing in on some healthy skier counts as the end of the ski season nears.
Sun Valley Resort recorded more than 400,000 skier visits as of March 31—up more than 11 percent over last year, said spokesperson Kelli Lusk. And the resort certainly added to that number over the weekend as 450 ski instructors flocked to Baldy Friday through Sunday for a ski instructors’ symposium.
Baldy will close for the season on Easter Sunday, April 21.
The Blaine County Recreation district saw a big uptick in season pass sales this year, as early snow allowed the BCRD to groom the new Quigley Nordic trails in Hailey in early December.
Last year the bike path and Hailey hardly had enough snow all winter to be groomed, noted spokesperson Morgan Buckert.
The BCRD plowed two feet of ice and snow off the bike path from Bellevue to Ketchum a couple weeks ago, and bicyclists, pedestrians, elk and dog are happily motoring their way past the snow sculptures alongside the path.
The BCRD did its last groom at Quigley Nordic on Friday, ending an amazingly long season there.
But it will continue to groom other trails as long as it can, said Buckert. There is still two to three feet of snow, even as far south as the SNRA area.
“We groomed until May 7 last year, and we hope to groom through the first weekend of May again this year,” she said.