Travel in city Sun Valley, state Idaho

This is not just a big year for Aspen—by historical standards, it is huge.

Time to hit the slopes. It’s officially summer next week, and Delta Air Lines is already thinking about winter.

While the summer travel season is well underway, one major airline is looking ahead to make enhancements for ski season. Delta Air Lines announced today it will operate their largest-ever flight schedule to popular ski destinations starting this year. The Atlanta-based carrier will operate a higher frequency or begin new service to the following popular ski destinations including: Aspen, Bozeman, Jackson Hole, Montrose/Telluride, Steamboat Springs, Sun Valley, and Vail.  “With our latest winter schedule, customers have more choices than ever, with up to 190 weekly flights to places our customers want to fly to most, paired with the premium services and amenities our customers always enjoy,” Delta’s Senior Vice President of Network Planning Joe Esposito shared in a release about the new service.  In Los Angeles, Delta will reintroduce daily flights to Bozeman, Montana, Vail, Colorado, and Saturday flights to Sun Valley, Idaho.

The world's elite had a busy year of jet-setting in 2023, spending thousands of dollars to fly private to events like Burning Man, the Super Bowl, and Sun Valley, Idaho's annual "summer camp for billionaires."

Sun Valley, Idaho is practically synonymous with skiing and winter snow sports—and for good reason. Interest in skiing surged in the decades after the first Winter Olympics in 1924. Sun Valley Resort opened in 1936 with the goal of becoming America’s premier ski resort—debuting the world’s first chairlift, adapted from a system used to haul bananas onto ships in Panama.

Sun Valley, Idaho is practically synonymous with winter sports—and for good reason. Not only is the Valley home to some of the country’s best skiing, but it has one of the sport’s oldest histories in America too. Inspired by the great ski resorts in Switzerland, Austria, and other parts of Europe, Union Pacific Railroad company built the world’s first ski chairlift here in the 1930s as a way to transform the area from a sleepy valley of sheepherders into America’s inaugural ski resort destination.

With some tweaks, the colorful minnow and feathered lures would make pretty cute earrings, I thought, or great Christmas tree ornaments.

You know that feeling of riding a bike as a kid — the freedom to go (almost) anywhere, to explore, to ride with friends? Gravel biking is like that.