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Vamps Attend World Masters Cup in Asiago
Snowshoeing for a Cure read about it on PaGe 12
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Fools’ Latest Play, Distracted, Demands Your Attention Page 5
Cure Boredom With The Wood River Valley’s Most Comprehensive Calenendar Pages 8-9
What
F e b r u a r y 2 0 , 2 0 1 3 • V o l . 6 • N o . 8 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
dreams are made of
Rebecca Rusch.
COURTESY PHOTO
Advocates V-Day Event is This Friday, Saturday BY KAREN BOSSICK
Want to ride The Beast?
R
ebecca Rusch usually lets her legs do the talking, having chalked up four victories in the exhausting Leadville Trial 100 Mountain Bike Race and scores of other mountain bike races that have made her a six-time world champion mountain bike racer. But now she’s ready to rant. Rusch will join actor Scott Creighton; Chantal Westerman, “Having honest former entertainment and compasreporter for sionate conver“Good Morning Americaâ€?; sations about Emma Stechallenging ussi, Anika topics‌is the Lyon, Sophie Castle, Kat first step to Vanden changing our Huevel and response as Charlotte Baker in individuals and reading selecas a community.â€? tions from Eve Ensler’s –Tricia Swartling “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayerâ€? on Friday and Saturday night. The Dirty Feet Dance Company will also perform several pieces, including a piece Sherry Horton created with Jana Arnold and David Norwood. The event, which starts at 7 p.m. both nights at the nexStage Theatre in Ketchum, is part of The Advocates’ first V-Day event since its production of Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologuesâ€? in 2007. “We felt it was time to bring these issues back to the forefront,â€? said Advocates’ Executive Director Tricia Swartling. “Having honest and compassionate conversations about challenging topics, such as bullying, teen dating abuse and domestic violence, is the first step to changing our response as individuals and as a community.â€? The event is an awareness campaign and a benefit for The Advocates, a local non-profit that strives to teach people how to build healthy relationships through its educational programs, support services and its shelter. Tickets are $15 for students, $30 for general admission, $50 for reserved seating and $75 for front-row seats. Information: 208-788-4191 or tws theadvocatesorg.org
Sign up at Sun Valley’s new Beast kiosk inside River Run Lodge. Winners will be chosen to ride The Beast every Friday and Saturday throughout the season. Call 208-6222135 for more information. STORY & PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
T
he holiday crowd has begun to arrive in Sun Valley, their Volvos and SUVs beginning to cover every square inch of pavement in the town lying at the foot of Bald Mountain. But there are only two telemark skiers making their way down Lower River Run—and with good reason. Night is rapidly falling and soon the only ones making their way down—and up—Baldy will be the Nightcrawlers. Nightcrawlers is a name given to the men and machines that groom Bald Mountain each night, tilling it with rows of corduroy that are always ranked among the best in the ski world. Tonight I am among them, thanks to a program Sun Valley instituted last year called Ride the Beast. Each week four lucky people’s names are drawn from a lottery, giving them the opportunity to ride one of Sun Valley’s state-of-the-art snow groomers as they manicure the snow. It’s a ride most skiers and boarders would give up—well—a powder day for. Some resorts charge guests for the opportunity to ride a snow cat. But Sun Valley offers rides in its Beast for free.
And what a Beast it is. The Prinoth Beast—developed in Italy to groom glaciers—is the biggest groomer on earth. It’s so wide, so powerful and so fast that it makes the oldest yellow snow cats look like pussy cats. The half-million-dollar machine is oneand-a-quarter times larger than regular groomers, allowing it to groom 40 percent more surface than the regular cats. With a tiller that’s four feet wider, it can cover five more acres per hour than a regular groomer, saving both man hours and machine hours. Yet its fuel-efficient engine uses the same amount of fuel per acre—a good thing, since it consumes about 65 gallons during an eight-hour shift. “It’s the next best thing to driving a spaceship,� said Ransom Bleyer, who works for Sun Valley’s mountain department. “These machines are pieces of art.� Joining me for the evening is Doug Fisher, a Twin Falls man who sells farm equipment and is equally fascinated with Sun Valley’s groomers. He drove a snow cat for Sun Valley the winter of 1975-76 when Sun Valley groomed its mountain with old Tuckers—little more than fourwheel-drive trucks with tracks. That was a low snow year, Fisher recalled, so groomers shoveled snow into
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“the boat� and spread it on the cat track so skiers could get off the mountain. “It was a lot like driving farm equipment but on an incline,� Fisher recalled. “They liked me because I skied here. They could tell me to go to such and such and I’d get there, while others would get lost. I loved driving the first cat in the morning because they loaded it with hot donuts to take up to the Lookout Restaurant. I’d help myself now and then to those $3 donuts.� As the eight groomers waited for the Sun Valley Ski Patrol to finish closing the mountain, Sun Valley’s grooming manager Kerry O’Brien listed an everexpanding list of runs the resort wanted groomed for visitors. It has started snowing as we head out. My chauffeur for the evening—Jeff Dent—flips on the humongous three-footlong windshield wipers as we back the futuristic silver metallic Beast out of the garage behind Bald Mountain’s gondola. We take our place behind four other groomers heading up Lower River Run—their lights barely visible through the falling snow. “When the snow came down all at
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