Fresh off the Sunrise expansion, Sun Valley Resort had an excellent season. BoiseDev sat down with Pete Sonntag, the new VP and General Manager of Sun Valley to discuss the famous mountain and its future ambitions. Pete has extensive leadership experience at a long range of resorts: Whistler Blackcomb, Vail, Heavenly, Beaver Creek, Keystone, and Copper Mountain. His main focus in the next couple of years will be working with the community to expand the amount of affordable housing in the area and countering employee shortages from the last two seasons through the J-1 and H2-B visas.
An interesting topic that was discussed on the podcast was the long-rumored sale of Sun Valley and Snowbasin, its sister mountain, to a more ski resort-oriented company. There have been rumors that Vail Resorts would buy the two resorts due to their inclusion on the Epic Pass. Pete Sonntag said the following about the question that he asked Carol Holding of Sinclair Oil (Sun Valleys parent company) when he interviewed for the position:
“When I was interviewing for this job, I asked Carol Holding specifically. And I can tell you the answer was emphatic: ‘we are not selling the company. This is what we love to do, this is who we are.’ And that was the answer I was looking for and a big reason I came here. And I believe that.”
With these affirmations, along with the transition of Sun Valley and Snowbasin from Epic to Ikon for the 22-23 season, it looks like the Idaho ski resort will remain outside of the major mountain resort conglomerates for years to come.
Editors Note- A previous writeup of this article stated from the BoiseDev article that one future plan in consideration was a base to Sun Valley Village gondola. We corresponded with Sun Valleys’ marketing team, who confirmed with us that this idea is not part of their future plans. Our apologies for the error.
Image Credits: Sun Valley Resort, BoiseDev
