On the broad slopes of Bald Mountain, the technical and historic heart of Sun Valley, Idaho, the 2026/27 season is preparing to welcome skiers with a double lift upgrade on the upper mountain. Scheduled to debut in December 2026 are two new detachable chairlifts: the six-person Lookout Express and the four-person Christmas, set to replace two lifts that for more than thirty years shaped winter days at one of North America’s historic ski capitals.
High-altitude construction has followed a tight schedule: after concrete pours and helicopter tower installations wrapped up in September, on October 12 technicians also completed the haul-rope splices on both lines. This key milestone puts both projects on track for December’s winter opening, advancing the modernization program through which Sun Valley has been redesigning connections across the different faces of Baldy, as Bald Mountain is affectionately known.
Over eight hundred meters of vertical on Lookout and nonstop cruising on Baldy
Looking closely at the two Doppelmayr installations, the most striking jump in capacity involves the Lookout Express, which moves from the old four-person chairs of 1993 to a modern high-speed six-pack capable of covering roughly 815 meters of vertical drop in eight and a half minutes. It serves one of the most important backbones in the entire ski area, spanning much of the mountain’s vertical rise on its own. Alongside it, the new Christmas lift builds on the legacy of the 1988 installation while retaining four-person chairs on a high-speed line that climbs roughly 413 meters of vertical in just four and a half minutes.
On a mountain like Bald Mountain—rising from roughly 1,750 meters at the base to nearly 2,790 meters at the summit for over a thousand meters of total vertical—fast, reliable uphill transport makes a real difference. Baldy’s more than 120 trails are renowned for their sustained pitch and absence of long flat runouts, exemplified by signature descents such as Warm Springs, which delivers an uninterrupted run of roughly 2.9 kilometers from top to bottom.
Forest stewardship and family terrain on Dollar Mountain
Together with the replacement of the two chairlifts and upgrades to four snowmaking pump stations, winter 2026/27 also brings advanced skiers 50 new acres (about 20 hectares) of thinned, skiable tree terrain across the Christin’s Silver, Leigh Lane, and Upper Broadway sectors. These traditional American glades have been carefully opened up under the Bald Mountain Stewardship Project, the forestry program that over the past six years has already added more than 390 acres of powder tree runs among the conifers.
Families and first-time skiers will continue to find their ideal terrain on the resort’s other mountain, Dollar Mountain, entirely treeless and contoured with gentle, progressive slopes, where Sunny’s Adventure Park will also return for its second season in December. Two mountains complementary in character and challenge, with Bald Mountain ready in December tochristen the new pairing of Lookout Express and Christmas.
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