Sun Valley - Page 2
By Tom Kagy | 28 Jan, 2026

Cross-country skiing at Galena Lodge was a great way to immerse ourselves in Sun Valley's breathtaking scenery before a visit to the Hemingway Memorial which casts a long shadow across time.

The drive to Galena Lodge treated us to a picture-perfect winter wonderland thanks to the snowstorm that had blown through a couple days ago while we were in Jackson.  Now the snow glistened brilliantly in the sunshine against blue skies.  We got to the Lodge a bit ahead of the crowd, so was able to find parking without great pain.

The Kneadery is Ketchum's indispensable breakfast restaurant, serving up heaping plates and an abundance of wilderness kitsch. (Tom Kagy Photo)

Galena Lodge is a co-op in theory, owned and operated by the local community.  In practice it's a busy rustic mountain lodge dominated by a lively pub restaurant in the main area, with a small but very busy ski shop off to the back renting Nordic skis and snowshoes.  The Lodge serves as a gateway to about 20 miles of trails leading part-way up Galena Peak, as well as down along Highway 75.  A couple miles up the mountain are two yurts available for overnight stays by skiers and snow-shoers in winter and mountain bikers and hikers in the summer.

Galena Lodge's back field is the ideal place to learn the basics of cross-country skiing before heading onto a trail.  Below: The parking lot in the early afternoon attests to the popularity of Galena Lodge among both locals and visitors.  (Tom Kagy Photo)

Our cross-country ski instructor was Cindy, a fit 72-year-old whose friendly energy made her seem 52.  She equipped us with shoes and skis, both of which are lighter, slimmer and more comfortable than the downhill variety.  She led us to the flat snowy acre just outside the lodge and spent forty minutes taking us through the mechanics of moving with skis.  Then she unleashed us to practice what we learned by going up a  pine-lined trail leading uphill in the general direction of Galena Peak.  

The Sawtooth Brewery in Ketchum offers an assortment of beers, ales and ciders to wash down a menu of hearty meals.  (Tom Kagy Photo)

We reveled in the snow-covered natural beauty while mostly keeping our skis in the tracks left by other skiers—by far the easiest way for beginners to control their skis.  About half the people on the trails wore snowshoes.  After ascending for a half hour, we turned back and enjoyed some mildly anxiety-provoking but exhilarating stretches of downhill gliding.  

The Hemingway Memorial recycles lines from a eulogy the literary legend had written for a friend killed in a hunting accident.  (Tom Kagy Photo)

By the time we turned in our skis, the Lodge had long lines of people waiting to order food to be brought to the tables, either in the dining area or the half dozen picnic tables outside.  We decided to head back to Ketchum for lunch.  As we were leaving, the parking lot was full, requiring patience and maneuvering to exit the lot and turn left for the drive south on Highway 75.  We settled on the Sawtooth Brewery on the northern edge of Ketchum.  The rustic ambience and mostly local crowd gave the place a laid-back ambience filled with pleasant low-key chatter.  We stood in a short line to order our food and drinks before taking a high table by the window.  The menu included a Pioneer Elk Burger for $22.99.  We opted for more familiar fare like lager-battered fish & chips, loaded nachos, broccoli slaw and Korean street tacos.  Their extensive brew selection was augmented by hard cider and seltzers.

After lunch we drove up Sun Valley Road about 20 minutes to the Hemingway Memorial overlooking Trail Creek.  Aside from a few people walking the nearby trail, it was a sunny, lonely spot hosting a modest memorial to a writer who won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize and the 1954 Nobel Literature Prize for putting English prose on a strict diet and exercise regimen.  That spawned a whole generation of writers who learned to see each word on the page.  

The memorial's epitaph is all the more touching as it was taken from Hemingway's own words written for a 1939 eulogy for Gene Van Guilder, a man he had known only a few weeks before his death in a hunting accident:

Best of all he loved the fall

The leaves yellow on the cottonwoods

Leaves floating on the trout streams

And above the hills the high blue windless skies

...Now he will be part of them forever

Both men are actually buried in Ketchum Cemetery a few miles south of the Hemingway Memorial.

We drove back to Ketchum and spent a couple of hours exploring the town center.  Unlike Jackson, whose development trajectory fed its old west image, Ketchum and Sun Valley are unabashedly New West, with an ambience that caters to the need of a moneyed class seeking escape from the hubbub of Hollywood, the Madness of Manhattan, the stresses of Silicon Valley.  The town center is surprisingly tasteful in architecture and adornments, and devoid of the kind of old-west kitsch that permeates every block of Jackson.  But for the snow-covered ridgeline of the Sawtooth Mountains in the background, streets might have been in a suburban bedroom community in the SF Bay Area.  

Our exploration took us into the Gold Mine Thrift Shop, reputed to the the final resting place of items that wealthy visitors couldn't bother packing for the trip home.  I found a $5 replacement for the spacey $120 ski goggles I had lost at Jackson Hole in preparation for the next day's runs on Bald Mountain.  We then stepped into an art gallery featuring an exhibition of rodeo art, followed by an espresso bar-cum-boutique-cum-bookstore.  It didn't take long to forget that we were in a mountain valley in Idaho and not some snooty San Francisco Bay neighborhood.

That evening, as with the previous one, dinner reservations were impossible to get despite it being a Monday.  Ultimately we set off on foot to nearby eateries.  The first was Sushi on Second.  Upon opening the door we found ourselves staring into the crush of a crowd waiting for a table.  The place was packed and offered zero prospect of food for at least 40 minutes.  

We walked on a few more blocks to Smoky Mountain Pizzeria and Grill on Washington and Sun Valley Road.  It was the kind of clean, well-lighted place in which Hemingway set his 1933 short story about an old man who had recently attempted suicide and was refused a second drink by a young waiter.

The vegetarian pizza was too big to finish and ended up in a take-out bag of leftovers that would be our breakfast before the downhill skiing we had planned for the next day at the Sun Valley Resort's Bald Mountain.

TSVR's 2,500 or so acres of skiable area may put it among the top 25 biggest in the US, along with Jackson Hole which has similar acreage.  But in terms of image and reputation, it punches above its weight class.  That's due in large part to its renown as a celebrity playground, but as well from its well-burnished image as one of the nation's oldest luxe resorts with climax views from the ridge of Bald Mountain.  

In terms of sheer status with skiers and nature enthusiasts, it's right up there with Jackson Hole, but with a more family-friendly image due to its luxe accommodations and for a higher percentage of intermediate runs as opposed to the black diamond runs that predominate at Jackson Hole.

We had been warned that the resort's parking lot fills up early.  I decided to drive the short distance to save my legs for skiing, what with my right rump still aching from the long lateral trudge out of the deep snowdrift at Jackson Hole carrying my skis.  Just as I pulled into the parking line with no open spaces in sight, the staff opened up a new row in a section marked "By Permit Only".  

After getting out of my car I was presented with no way to pay for parking or otherwise secure a "permit".  I walked across the bridge over Big Wood River to the resort's River Run base facilities.  

Sun Valley Resort's ski areas are distributed among four lodges: Dollar Mountain a half mile east of Highway 75, plus three in the main resort area comprising Warm Springs, Seattle Ridge and River Run, respectively to the north, south and center of the resort, each with their own lifts.  The River Run base facility didn't have the hectic feel of Jackson Hole or most major resorts, though it looked to be operating at capacity on that day.