For one strange late summer, the interesting things in Warm Springs are happening at the bottom of the hill instead of the top. The mountain above the neighborhood is quieter than usual because two chairlifts are being replaced. The valley floor is louder than usual because a 65-acre preserve just opened and a Labor Day parade is about to reroute half the traffic in town. If you live between Picabo Street and the base of Baldy, the map of your daily routine looks different this August than it has in years.
That shift is the story of the season. It is worth walking through in order.
The Preserve Is Finally Usable
The Warm Springs Preserve has been a construction site for most of two years. As of this summer it is essentially done. At the foot of Bald Mountain, where the Big Wood River meets Warm Springs Creek, the 65-acre property, once a golf course, was saved by a community campaign that raised roughly $9 million with support from the Wood River Land Trust, the Spur Community Foundation, and more than 1,000 donors. Construction wrapped in 2026, and the site now includes a restored creek, native re-vegetation, ADA-accessible trails, and a Welcome Building with restrooms.
A few practical notes if you have not walked through in the last month. Wildlife fencing around the larger plantings is expected to stay up for about a year while vegetation takes root, and several seeded areas will remain off limits to dogs through the summer to protect the new grass. The master plan calls for 3.5 miles of ADA-accessible trails, parking, restrooms, updated irrigation, and floodplain restoration. The new irrigation is a quiet upgrade with a big number behind it: the old 1960s system was very inefficient, and the replacement is expected to save roughly 50 million gallons of water annually and can run at night without interfering with daytime users.
What that means in practice, if you live nearby:
- Off-leash dog access is still a priority use, but stay on the marked routes while the seeded areas recover.
- The Welcome Building restrooms are the first real public facility on this end of Warm Springs Road.
- New trails were designed to reach the different habitats of the Preserve, so the loop you walked in 2023 is not the loop you will walk now.
If you moved here for a walk out the front door that ends at running water, this is the summer that walk got shorter.
Baldy's Lower Half Is a Construction Zone
The mountain side of the neighborhood is doing the opposite. It is quieter, because Sun Valley is in the middle of the biggest lift project the hill has seen in years.
Sun Valley is replacing both Lookout Express and Christmas ahead of the 2026 to 2027 winter season. Lookout Express is being upgraded from a quad to a six-person high-speed lift, and Christmas will receive a new high-speed quad, both running at speeds up to 1,000 feet per minute. The improvement is not the story for a resident right now. The disruption is.
Lift access to the top of Baldy via the Christmas Lift is not available to hikers, bikers, or sightseers this season, and Lookout Lodge is closed. Bald Mountain opened for summer on June 26 with mid-mountain hiking and Roundhouse dining, lift-served mountain biking from Roundhouse to River Run began July 1, and the Roundhouse Gondola runs Wednesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Then there is the trail. The lower Warm Springs approach is being reshaped as we speak. The City of Ketchum is building a new trail connecting River Run to Warm Springs. It is not open or accessible until the project is complete, and construction will impact the lower Bald Mountain Trail at times. If you have walked out your door and up the ridge on autopilot for years, expect intermittent detours on the first section.
One more piece of context worth holding: the Bald Mountain Stewardship Project is a partnership among Sun Valley, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Forest Foundation, the BLM, and local partners, focused on forest health and wildfire risk reduction, and this summer's work spans 150 acres across Seattle Ridge, Scorpion, River Run, and Cold Springs Canyon. The stewardship work is deliberate. The quiet is temporary.
Apple's, the Day Lodge, and the Base After Hours
The base area was for years an après-ski address that went dark in June. That is no longer true. Apple's Bar & Grill sits at the base of Baldy near the Warm Springs Lodge, and the restaurant now runs year-round with a summer patio and a menu that combines the après favorites with dishes carried over from the former Bigwood Grill. The owners moved the operation entirely back to Warm Springs after years of running both Apple's and Bigwood.
The mid-mountain option changes with the weather. The Warm Springs Day Lodge sits at the base and, in season, is a short ski-out from the runs with food, a bar, and a view of the mountain. In August it is closed to skiers for the obvious reason, so the base area rhythm compresses onto the patios and the sidewalk in front of PK's back in town.
Consider this a small reset for anyone who has lived here long enough to remember the Warm Springs Ranch Restaurant era. Bald Mountain Hot Springs sat on the south end of Main Street from 1927 until the late 1990s, hot springs were the first tourist attraction in the Wood River Valley, and Carl Brandt piped water down Warm Springs Road in wooden pipes to build a pool where the Limelight now stands. The base of Warm Springs Road has always been a gathering point. It is again, in a slightly different shape.
The River Run Summer Series Is in Its Closing Weeks
If you have been meaning to walk over the hill to the River Run side once more before September, this is your window. The River Run Summer Series runs weekly events at River Run Plaza every Wednesday from July 22 through August 26. Four Wednesdays, and then the plaza rolls into fall.
Worth pairing with the fact that the connector trail from River Run to Warm Springs is not open yet. For now the cross-over is still the drive, the bike path, or the ridge.
Wagon Days Will Reroute Your Block
Labor Day weekend is the piece to plan around. The 2026 Wagon Days celebration takes place from September 4 through September 6, a Labor Day tradition commemorating Ketchum's mining heritage and culminating in the Big Hitch Parade. The parade is Saturday, September 5, with the staging area opening at 8:30 a.m., pre-judging from 10 a.m. to noon, a hard closure of Sun Valley Road at noon, and a 1:00 p.m. parade start.
Two logistics matter more than the parade itself if you live in Warm Springs.
First, the approach into town is not normal. Hwy 75 and the bridge into Ketchum are under construction, trailers are not advised to enter downtown from Hwy 75, and the recommended route to the staging area is via Elkhorn Road. If you are running errands south of town on Saturday morning, plan the same way the parade entrants are planning.
Second, the museum is open long before the parade weekend. The Ore Wagon Museum at 500 East Avenue is open daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. from August 11 through 31, with full event details released later in the spring. That is a legitimate summer afternoon in its own right, particularly with kids in town before school starts. The Lewis Ore Wagons once carried loads of up to 18,000 pounds as far as 14 miles a day, hauling ore to the Philadelphia Smelter in Ketchum, near Warm Springs Creek. The Smelter site is a five-minute walk from most of the neighborhood.
A Late-August Week Without Leaving the Zip Code
Put it together and the neighborhood plans itself:
- Monday morning, a Preserve loop with the dog on the parts that are open, then coffee.
- Wednesday evening, the River Run Summer Series while it is still running.
- Thursday, the Ore Wagon Museum before the crowds arrive for Labor Day.
- Friday sunset, patio at Apple's.
- Saturday, stay out of the truck. Walk to Main for the Big Hitch.
The mountain will be louder next summer, when the new Christmas quad and the six-person Lookout Express spin for the first time. This summer belongs to the valley floor. If you already live here, the assignment is simple: use what you have while it is quiet.
If you are considering a move within the valley, or thinking about how a Warm Springs address fits a year-round life rather than a ski-season one, the team at Matthew Stevenson knows this stretch of road well and is happy to talk through what the neighborhood looks like on a Tuesday in August.
