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The Unofficial, Unauthorized Guide to Bald Mountain

by Tina Cole

Every skier has names for favorite runs and secret stashes on their home mountain. Bald Mountain is no exception and is rife with names accumulated over its 62-year skiing history.

The Sun Valley Ski Patrol, whose members must as part of their jobs know every inch of Sun Valley’s premiere ski mountain, has a long list of their own names used for finding injured skiers. The Sun Valley Ski School members have their own roster, and the locals continually generate new names that you will not find on the regular trail maps.

Many of these names are replacements for traditionally named runs and others are just favorite places. All of these runs are within the ski area boundaries. 

The following are just a few of these insider names and their locations.

Huey, Duey and Louie are Donald Duck’s three cartoon-character nephews. They are also the monikers for Gretchen’s Gold, Southern Comfort and Cristin’s Silver on Seattle Ridge. While Boogie Pines has been and continues to be found in a number of locations on the mountain, perhaps it is most commonly known as the Seattle Ridge haunt that requires a slight hike toward the west from the lodge. It then descends to the cat track at the bottom of Broadway Face. 

On the main mountain, at the bottom of Ridge before dropping into Blue Grouse or Cut Off is a gentle downward slope called Ego Flats, named for obvious reasons. 

On the far skier’s right of Christmas Ridge, is a control fence separating the ridge from Little Easter Bowl. This is the Siegfried Line, where the ski patrol stations itself to lob bombs into Little Easter Bowl on avalanche control mornings. If you follow the fence line down two-thirds of the ridge and take a hard right at the trees, you ski into a steep shot called Bowl 75. The bowl is named for the caliber of an old gun used to do avalanche control on the area.

Your other option is to remain on the far skier’s right of Christmas Ridge that turns into a glade of tight, small trees and willows called Filson’s Burn. 

At the top of the Mayday chair lift, a short hike up a small hill leads to Fat Chance and a jump off a small cornice for some extra untracked turns. Below the first shot on Fat Chance is Lefty Bowl and the Snakepit, a deep trench left of center that is wise to avoid slamming into on a zero visibility storm day.

At the bottom of Easter and Lookout bowls is Pizza Face. Pizza Face is always the first section of the bowls to melt out in the spring.

For exhibitionists, there is Showtime at the very top of the Challenger chair lift. Follow the lift line down as far as you can stand it.

For those preferring more solitude, look for Stage Fright, the line beneath the former Limelight chair lift that runs through the trees and pops out onto lower Picabo Street. 

At the very top of the mountain, young skiers head west for Grandma’s House, a traverse leading past the old, partially buried ski patrol bomb cache building. There are jumps, grind bars and all sorts of amusements to be found there. There are many routes down and into International, an area called Roller Coaster. Ski the top part of International then hang a left before skiing down the last pitch onto Warm Springs; go into the trees and discover Stielhung’s many shots. 

Other popular local and ski patrol-named runs include Bustle in Your Hedgerow, Maury’s Chute, Windows, Sunspot, The Three Bears, Dog on Fire or Damon’s Dive, Lily’s Bush, Hidden Bowl, Execution, The Fireman’s Slide, Mog Alley, and Springboard, but I’m not telling where they are. That’s for you to discover. •