Sun Valley Resort’s Bald Mountain will see two upper mountain lift upgrades for the 2026-27 season. Lookout Express will be upgraded to a detachable six pack and Christmas will be replaced by a modern detachable quad. Both outgoing machines are Yan high speed quads dating back to 1993 and 1988, respectively. A new Christmas was originally approved as a gondola-chairlift combination lift but in the end will only include chairs. A new lift maintenance facility is also planned near the summit of both lifts. “With today’s announcement, Sun Valley is embarking on another round of major investments in the mountain,” said Pete Sonntag, COO of Sun Valley Resort. “The replacement of Christmas and Lookout Express chairlifts will ensure fast, reliable access to some of Sun Valley’s best terrain for many years to come,” he continued. A manufacturer was not announced as Sun Valley is still working through the contract process. Baldy currently operates a mostly Doppelmayr fleet.
These projects will be the fourth and fifth new lifts for family-owned Sun Valley in four years. New Challenger and Flying Squirrel opened in 2023 and an upgraded Seattle Ridge debuted in 2024. By winter 2026-27, Sun Valley will have replaced five of its seven Yan detachable quads built between 1988 and 1994. The final two, Frenchman’s and River Run, are going through replacement scoping now with no set timeline for construction. They probably won’t be around for long as Sun Valley’s parent company, Grand America Hotels & Resorts, has been investing heavily in both its ski resorts of late. Sun Valley’s sister mountain, Snowbasin, has similarly added three marquee lifts in the past five years. That’s eight new lifts in five years for the company – all detachable.
In partnership with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, Sun Valley will host a community open house and public comment opportunity next Monday, July 21st. It will be held at the Community Library from 4:30 to 6:00 pm.
Lift Blog 
Is Lookout going to be a D-Line or a UNI-G?
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Interesting! Will be curious if we hear what spurred them to go with just a quad instead of a chondola at Christmas. I wonder if they’re thinking about a future connection via River Run and Lookout Express later. Or perhaps tariffs played a role, given the impact they’d have on prices for carriers/cabins. It’s not like having pedestrian access to Lookout Lodge would have been a huge net add given they already have access to the Roundhouse.
Regardless, great improvements for a stellar resort and a great operator.
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Bald Mountain is very exposed and if you have ever skied it in a storm or similar mountain, having to unload skis as an employee would suck. Sun Valley is probably better off going with a 6 person lift and putting some of Roundhouse’s gondola cabins on it in the summer time. However, the top terminal of Roundhouse would need to be modified to put in a maintenance rail so that a construction forklift could take the cabins off and walk them over to Christmas. In the end, it’s probably not worth it.
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Exciting! Makes me wonder how they will have lift-served mountain biking to the summit, since they will be replacing both Lookout and Christmas. We shall see…
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Aww was really looking forward to a chondola at sun valley…
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