Sun Valley

Averell Harriman, running the Union Pacific Railroad, wanted a destination that would fill his passenger trains and sent an Austrian count to find an American equivalent of St Anton; the site chosen was a sheep valley in Idaho and the lodge opened in December 1936. To move skiers uphill, a railroad engineer adapted a system used for loading bananas onto boats in the tropics, replacing the hooks with chairs - the first chairlift in the world ran here that season. The resort courted Hollywood from the start and Ernest Hemingway spent his last years in Ketchum, where he is buried. Bald Mountain has around 1,000 metres of consistent fall-line vertical with very few flat sections.

What you actually see

• The first chairlift - adapted from banana-loading machinery in 1936.
• The original lodge - built by the Union Pacific to fill trains.
• Bald Mountain - about a thousand metres of consistent fall line.
• Hemingway's grave - in the Ketchum cemetery.

When to go

December to March for skiing; June to September for the valley. Several days.

Honest expectations

It is expensive and remote - the nearest airport has limited and weather-prone service. The valley is quiet compared with Colorado resorts, which some visitors want and others do not. Wildfire smoke has affected late summers.

Nearby

Ketchum is at the base; the Sawtooths are north.