Mark Miller
Sun Valley, Idaho

Though it is best known as a winter ski resort, what I like most about this mile-high [1.6 kilometers] Idaho retreat are its quieter summers and autumns, for the same qualities that seduced me when I rolled in for my first visit on a crisp October day 22 years ago: the vivid Rocky Mountain light; the fresh, wood-scented air; and the grassy basin’s drowsy somnolence, created by sheltering sagebrush hills and piney peaks beneath what Ernest Hemingway called “high blue windless skies.”

Situated about two miles [3.2 kilometers] from the much-gentrified former mining and sheep herding town of Ketchum, Sun Valley opened in 1936 with a luxurious Austrian-style lodge as its centerpiece. Ketchum’s rough-hewn early century stockyards are gone, replaced by seven-figure tract homes, and the Sun Valley Lodge now fronts an affluent, family-oriented golf and tennis community of condos and custom-built seasonal residences. But the light is still gorgeous, and the high-country weather no less dramatic, bringing afternoon thundershowers that pop open wildflowers and sweeten the air with a desert potpourri, for my money one of the most invigorating scents in nature.

And you can still escape downtown Ketchum’s nervous crowds of self-conscious parvenus by heading up Sun Valley Road to the rustling, yellow-leafed cottonwood stands along Trail Creek, or by putting on a pair of skates and circling the ice rink off the lodge’s shaded terrace, where a lot of folks consider their vacations well spent in a comfortable chair with a good book.

Mark Miller is a contributing editor for TRAVELER.