Our Sun Valley Serenade - February 20, 2016

Und so we say Auf Wiedersehen to Sun Valley, having enjoyed a week of gemütlichkeit and good skiing.  This morning, we traversed the snow-covered Magic Valley in reverse, back to Boisé.  Where the airport is about as bustling as Sun Valley, damn tourists, it is like Charles de Gaulle here, says Peter. 

On our first night, we see a “Ketchum Walks!” sign except that as Peter points out, it looks like Kvetchum Walks, and we immediately dissolve into hysterics over the whole idea of Kvetchum, town of complainers.  We also thought that sounded like a good journal name, and it would have been, except that no ended up kvetching about anything this week.

On our layover in Denver, Izzy and are intrigued by a handsome Newfoundland being walked by a not-so-handsome man, both wearing matching plaid vests that said, incongruously, CATS.  We go up for a pat, because that is clearly what he’s here for, and meet Mattie, the most laid-back Newf on the planet.  Mattie’s handler tells us that Mattie is a therapy pet, and that they just hang out at the airport letting folks have some nice dog time.  CATS stands for Canine Airport Therapy Service. Izzy and I wholeheartedly endorse this project. 

The thing about Sun Valley is that a lot of what we know and love about skiing started or was consolidated here, so it is a good place to come if you are into that historical jazz.  As a final example, everyone loves the 10^th Mountain Division, that storied band of plucky Yanks who battled the Axis in its own mountainous backyard, but what you may not know so much about is their contribution to the American ski industry.  Sun Valley, as the first major ski resort with a big staff of Austrian ski instructors, was integral here as well.  The first training films for the Division were made here, supervised by ski school director Otto Lang, who went on to become a somewhat famous film producer, and a number of the ski school’s instructors ended up as trainers for, and soldiers in the 10^th.  After the war, coinciding neatly with the post-war economic boom and the development of Western ski resorts in the same model as Sun Valley, thousands of the soldiers, with their excellent skiing and mountaineering skills, came back and became ski instructors, ski resort managers, ski school directors, etc. all over the country.   In a way, the 10^th contributed to the slow post-war slowdown of Sun Valley – with so many good skiers all over the place, you didn’t have to come here to learn the sport. 

But I think Izzy would say that if you are good enough to be in the Bald Mountain Adventure Club, you can’t go wrong by coming here because maybe you will get to ski with Parker and meet avi dogs.   And I think this has been a good place for me to learn to ski like a grownup.