Higher Calling

Averell Harriman strode in the Wood River Valley in the 1930s intent on building a European-style ski resort to generate traffic for his railroad, the Union Pacific, but he didn’t stop with the lifts on Dollar Mountain or the fancy rooms in the Sun Valley Lodge. No, he imagined a truly European experience, and he directed his staff of Austrian instructors to create a ski school for alpine touring, lessons to be conducted in the mountains east of Sun Valley, and had a series of huts built for overnight stays.

The Pioneer was constructed in the summer of 1937, between ninety-four hundred feet and ninety-five hundred feet, and was appointed with the same attention to detail seen throughout Harriman’s properties—guests slept in swanky bunks taken from Pullman sleeping compartments, Pendleton blankets to keep them warm. Chefs stood by to keep them from hunger, guides to keep them from getting lost. And on the roof? On the roof were painted the words “Ski Heil!”—in German,