Sun Valley Resort pulled off something nobody had seen before last weekend. On the famous Warm Springs face of Bald Mountain, the resort hosted the first-ever Sun Valley Stampede — a ski competition unlike anything the mountain, or frankly the sport, has produced before.
This wasn't your typical race. Skiers didn't just blast through gates and call it a day. The course forced competitors to do it all — carve through dual giant slalom gates, launch off twin jumps, navigate a genuine mogul field, and then throw down on terrain park features before crossing the finish line. Two skiers ran the course at the same time, head-to-head, which turned every single run into its own little drama. The course dropped from just below the Challenger lift mid-station, swept down Lower Warm Springs, cut through Race Arena, and finished back on Lower Warm Springs.
Judges were watching every bit of it. Lynsey Dyer, a judge for the event and founder of Unicorn Picnic — a multimedia company built around outdoor sports — summed it up plainly.
"Nothing like this has ever been done. We're kind of making it up as we go," Dyer said. "All of these judges are legends in their own right and have committed their lives to the sport. We all really know what a well-rounded skier looks like."
Dyer noted that the judging framework was built to be flexible, because no single rulebook existed for a course that blended this many disciplines at once.
A Three-Year Pitch That Finally Got a Yes
The Stampede didn't happen overnight. Jake Moe, the man who created the event and founded POWDER Magazine — which sponsored the competition — spent years trying to get this off the ground. He first pitched the idea to Sun Valley three years ago and was flatly told it couldn't be done.
Then the resort hosted the 2025 FIS Ski World Cup Finals, pulled it off flawlessly, and suddenly the phone rang.
"But then they pulled off the World Cup in incredible fashion with phenomenal success," Moe said. "And then I got a call eight months ago. They said, 'You know, we do have the bandwidth and let's dive in and go to work.'"
Moe was quick to share the credit. He pointed to Riley Berman — Sun Valley Resort's mountain events and competition services manager and the course maker for the Stampede — as the person who deserved the loudest applause. Berman had also led course construction for the World Cup Finals, and his work on the Stampede course earned immediate praise from competitors.
"Riley deserves enormous accolades because after yesterday's qualifying race, I went up to as many competitors as possible and they all said, this is the funniest thing I've ever done," Moe said.
The course was apparently so irresistible that skier and runner Drew Peterson — originally scheduled to judge the event — took one look at it and decided he wanted to compete instead.
"The Sun Valley Stampede lost a judge because the judge saw that the course was too much fun. I love that," Moe said.
Who Competed and How It Worked
The Stampede opened its doors wide. Amateurs, professionals, and fan-favorite wildcard athletes all showed up on Saturday and Sunday. Qualifiers on Saturday were sorted into age groups: 12 and under, 13-17, 18-40, and over 40. From an opening field of 190 competitors, judges cut the field down to 32 men and 16 women who advanced to Sunday's bracket rounds, where age groups no longer mattered — it was simply the best skiers left standing going at it head-to-head.
The goal, by Dyer's account, was always to find the most complete skier on the mountain. Not the fastest gate racer. Not the best park skier. The person who could do everything well and do it under pressure with another skier charging down the hill right beside them.
The Winners From Right Here at Home
When Sunday's bracket wrapped up, two local skiers claimed the titles of best male and female skiers in the West — and both of them made it look like they were having the time of their lives doing it.
Ruby Smith, competing in the 13-17 age group on Saturday, took the women's title. Harlan Collins, who ran in the 18-40 group during qualifiers, won it for the men.
"I think it was a great representation of an all-around skier," Smith said. "I thought every aspect of the course was super fun and super awesome."
Smith pointed to the mogul section as her personal favorite stretch of the course. Collins, meanwhile, described throwing one of the biggest backflips of his career off the jump heading into that same mogul section. The two winners took completely different approaches to how they handled each head-to-head matchup, adjusting their strategy on the fly depending on who was lined up next to them.
"I'm super excited that Sun Valley did this event, and I'm super excited to be able to say I'm from Sun Valley," Smith said.
Beyond the main titles, the event handed out awards for best turns, best crashes, best performance in the lower section, and runner-up finishes — making sure plenty of standout moments got recognized.
The Scene at the Bottom of Warm Springs
The competition was the centerpiece, but the whole weekend had a festival energy to it. At the Warm Springs base, live music ran across all three days. Aaron Golay and The Original Sin played Friday evening to warm things up. The Hooks and The Huckberries took the stage Saturday. And Kris Lager Band closed it out Sunday. Ski and snowboard vendors filled the base area, giving the event the feel of a weekend-long celebration rather than just a race.
Competitors Talking About More Than Just Skiing
What stood out to many competitors wasn't just the course design — it was the atmosphere in the start area and throughout the bracket rounds. Hailey skier Riley Revallier, who competed in the 18-40 group and made it through to Sunday's bracket, put it in straightforward terms.
"My favorite part was the way all of us were totally hyping each other up and the community aspect," Revallier said. "We all really connected and everyone was super friendly with each other. I think that brought the energy in a way that was really positive."
Anna Howard, a Salt Lake City skier who also competed in the 18-40 qualifiers, felt the same energy coming off the course.
"Despite it being a competition it was a very friendly, warm event," Howard said.
That combination — serious competition with a genuinely welcoming atmosphere — is something most race events struggle to pull off. The Stampede seemed to thread that needle.
What the Crowd Was Thinking
Spectators packed the jump-viewing area on Lower Warm Springs and made their opinions known loudly. The aerial tricks drew the biggest reactions, with backflips and 720-degree spins off the jumps between the giant slalom section and the moguls bringing the crowd to its feet repeatedly.
Two young spectators — nine-year-old Hayes Marsted and eight-year-old Harper Broderick, both from Hailey — made it clear they thought skipping the jump should not be an option.
"They shouldn't get to choose if they want to go off the jump, they should have to go off the jump," Marsted said.
Harper's father, Rhett Broderick, 47, backed them up completely.
"The aerial trick really sets them apart. There's a lot of people that can race gates, but to race gates and huck a backflip, that's a true skill right there."
Not everyone was prepared for what they saw on the mogul section. Peter Atwood, 70, who lives part-time in Sun Valley, watched the middle section of the course with wide eyes.
"I didn't think it was going to be this gnarly, to be honest," he said.
Brian Webber, 73, a resident of East Fork, watched competitor after competitor launch tricks off the jumps separating the upper gate section from the middle mogul field, with cheers ringing out around him the entire time.
"I'm all about ski culture and continuing the legacy of inventing new adventures on the mountain and keeping young people involved," he said.
Webber also told the paper he'd like to see this format expand into a circuit of Stampede-style events at ski areas across the West — a thought that speaks to how much the format resonated with people watching it for the very first time.
What Comes Next for the Stampede
The Sun Valley Stampede is now a confirmed annual event — with one important scheduling caveat. The event will be held in years when Sun Valley is not hosting World Cup racing. With the resort already confirmed to host the FIS Ski World Cup Finals again in March 2027, the next Stampede is expected to take place in 2028.
Moe framed it simply: Sun Valley now has a marquee event on the calendar every March, one way or another.
"For March there'll be a big event in Sun Valley every year," he said.
Whether it's the World Cup drawing the world's fastest ski racers or the Stampede pulling together everyone from 12-year-olds to veterans in the over-40 bracket, Bald Mountain is going to be the place to be every spring. The Stampede's first edition made that case as loudly as any jump-side crowd could.
