Though originally from Silverton, Colorado, Cory Smith has been living in the Wood River Valley for more than two decades, since he relocated to the area to work for Smith Optics. Prior to that, he was a sponsored snowboarder for K2 and working on Mt. Hood’s skate and snowboard camp Windell’s, which he helped start back in the early ’90s. After blowing out his knee and dashing any hopes of continuing a pro career, he moved to Ketchum, where the scene at the time was “full of skiers, and I was a punk rock snowboarder.” Luckily, he learned to love the town and its people, and when Smith (the company) packed up to move to Portland in 2015, he decided to stay behind and start his digital marketing company, Idarado. Now almost ten years in, Idarado has five full-time employees and works with clients like Traeger, First Lite, Decked, Dickies, and more. Cory lives in Ketchum in a live/work setup with his two teenage daughters and their dog. When he’s not on the clock, he’s a man of many hobbies, including snowboarding (obviously), mountain biking, running, dirt biking, yoga, skiing (which he dabbles in now), going up to his cabin …
24 Hours with a Local: Hailey Councilman Juan Martinez
You may know Juan Martinez from his position on Hailey city council, but Juan wears many hats in the community, from his job coaching varsity basketball for Wood River High School to working as a ticket-checker for Sun Valley to working summers at the Valley Club. A lifelong local, Juan moved back to the area in 2013 initially just to help his dad recover from a surgery but found himself loving being involved in his community in so many ways. He immediately started coaching at his former alma mater (WRHS class of 2010) and from there began adding the many positions he holds throughout the Valley, all of which give him the opportunity to do what he likes best: interact with his community. Now in his second term on city council (he ran unopposed), Juan is in a position to continue to help the community he has always called home. He and his girlfriend (who he met in the soup line at River Run Lodge) live in Hailey through Valley Club employee housing, and when he’s not at one of his many jobs, Juan is skiing, golfing, or mentoring people. “I really enjoy being involved in a lot of things …
24 hours with a Local: Professional Skier Karl Fostvedt
Local ski legend Karl Fostvedt (often referred to as “Crazy Karl”) has been skiing Sun Valley’s local mountains practically since he was born at the local Moritz hospital. In his years as a professional skier, Karl has amassed many accolades, from being named King of Corbet’s in 2018 and 2021 to being featured in various free ski movies from Warren Miller Entertainment, Teton Gravity Research, Red Bull Media House, Matchstick Productions (to name a few) to competing in the Dew Tour and War of Rails. Karl’s focus of late is on his own production company, Native Earth Productions, and making his own ski films with his hometown crew in the mountains he grew up in. He and his long-time girlfriend, Sierra (who attends vet school in Logan, Utah for the time being) live in Warm Springs, but he also spends a good deal of time brapping and skiing in the winter, and preparing for brapping and skiing in the summer. “I do everything I can to take advantage of this awesome opportunity to live my dream as a pro skier and having such an awesome backyard to go out in.” Visit Sun Valley caught up with Karl to see how …
24 hours with a Local: Flourish Foundation’s Abby Mills
A local now of fourteen years, Abby Mills traded out one mountain town for another, having grown up in Park City, Utah. After graduating college, Abby moved to Ketchum for a job at Idaho Bioscience, where she worked for five years before going back to school for medical lab science while working simultaneously as a lab assistant. After graduating, she was a medical lab scientist for three years, but found herself searching for more purposeful work. She attended a yoga teacher training in Bali—and still continues to teach yoga, at Gather—but got involved with the Flourish Foundation when she was invited to a Compassionate Leaders Program (CLP) meeting, a weekly meeting that impart skills like attention, kindness, and compassion to students. After attending many CLP meetings and participating in environmental stewardship trips with CLP in the summers, Abby Mills was offered her current job at Flourish as Development Director and Compassionate Leaders Co-Leader. She has now been with Flourish for three years and feels so grateful to be part of a program that is describes as “such a gift to the community.” Her and her husband, Tate, and cattle dog, Ollie, live in Ketchum. In her free time, Abby loves …
24 hours with a Local: Johnny G’s Subshack Owners Sinjin and Trevor Thomas
If you’ve eaten at Johnny G’s Subshack in the past year, then you’ve been served by one or both of the Thomas brothers, who purchased the business in November of 2022. Sinjin and Trevor, both locals, were already enmeshed in the casual dining scene of the area before taking over Johnny G’s, with Sinjin already working at the Subshack as well as Grumpy’s and Trevor bringing about twenty combined years of working for Grumpy’s and Lefty’s. When not at the Subshack, you can find Trevor playing for the Suns hockey time, working out, and staying active. Sinjin lives with his girlfriend Hayley Hinojosa (of Hayleywood Salon) out Warm Springs with their cat and “chiweenie” (a dachshund-chihuahua). While Sinjin used to play on the Suns, he now devotes his time to pond hockey and A-league hockey, as well as golf and watching sports. Check out how each of these brothers would spend their ideal 24 hours on a December day in Sun Valley. How does your morning start? Trevor: I would wake up at 5, go to High Altitude Fitness and work out with Kevin. Afterward, I’d probably go to Java or Maude’s and get a coffee and a muffin. Then …
24 Hours with a Local: Sawtooth Mountain Guides’ Lindsay Mann Davis
Backcountry ski guide Lindsay Mann Davis didn’t move to the area until 2018, but skiing has always been in her life. Growing up on the east coast, she spent most of her youth exploring the White Mountains of New Hampshire and competitive ski racing, which took her to mountains around the world. Her passion for skiing took her to Dartmouth, where she helped her team win an NCAA title in 2007. After college, she spent time working as an alpine ski racing coach, mountain guide, and avalanche instructor. Before making the move to Idaho, Lindsay and her now-husband Leon were living in Jackson Hole. After he accepted a pilot job in the state, she got a job offer with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) to coach alpine and do avalanche education. She’s now a guide for Sawtooth Mountain Guides and also works at Andy Gilbert’s Press Print House and Keely’s Camp for Girls as operations manager. The flexibility of Lindsay’s employers has been instrumental in being able to spend time with her 1-year-old daughter, Matilda. Lindsay and her family live in a house in Hailey, and in her free time she loves to mountain bike, climb, backcountry ski, …
24 hours with a Local: TNT Taproom’s Max Lemman
Though he didn’t move here until 2018, TNT Taproom owner Max Lemman grew up coming to Sun Valley, learning to ski and then snowboard on Baldy. Both of his parents are avid skiers and Max spent his winters and summers visiting the area from Seattle. In the winter of 2018, he invited his now-wife Ashley to come to Sun Valley for the holidays. While participating in the local nightlife—or lack thereof, in Ashley and Max’s opinion—they started hatching an idea for opening a new kind of brewery and bar. Back in Seattle Max had been trying to open a bar but found the city to be too busy, both for his business or for him to want to stay. The couple moved to Ketchum and, after looking at several spaces, opened TNT Taproom in “the Dynamite Shed,” which used to house the town’s railroad and mining dynamite and has affectionately been referred to by locals as “the Boom Shack” or the “Boom Room.” Max got his dream of opening a simple taproom, one that serves only beers on draft and delicious wine. While you can often find Max behind the bar, Ashley is behind the scenes building the menu, ordering …
24 hours with a Local: Hemingway Steam School Teacher Ross Parsons
Life has come full circle for Ross Parsons, a teacher at Hemingway Steam School, where he himself went to elementary school. The school expanded to pre-k through 8th grade in 2017, which was Ross’s first year teaching back at his alma mater. Before returning to the Valley and becoming a teacher, Ross worked as a field instructor at the McCall Outdoor Science School, ski patrolled at Snowbasin in Utah, and was a U.S. Forest Service/BLM River Ranger on the Salmon, Rogue, Owyhee, and Bruneau Rivers. He now teaches 6th grade science, 7th grade math, and 8th grade advisory, and works a second job as a ski patroller in the winters (taking after his father, Ron Parsons, a ski patroller since 1979). Ross’s wife, Mya, is a fellow teacher at Hemingway (5th grade). The two met through Mya’s brother, Ross’s best friend in college, and after dating long-distance between Ketchum and Breckenridge, Ross convinced her to move here. “You gotta import the good ones,” he says of his wife, describing her as his “best friend on the planet.” The two live on Warm Springs out Board Ranch, just past Penny Lake, with their eight-month-olds twins, Redd and Maeve (the birth of …
24hrs with a Local: Miles to Go Fitness’ Miles Fink-Debray, November
Ski season is almost upon us which means it’s the perfect time to start leveling up your training! And when it comes to training for ski season, Miles Fink-Debray is your man. The elite athlete has worked with high-level trainers and athletes in multiple sports for his whole life. He has taken that experience and directed it into his own training gym, Miles to Go. When he’s not training clients at the gym of the portable van gym that makes house calls, he’s practicing what he preaches by participating (and often winning) local events like the Baldy Hill Climb or Suffer Fest, the “World’s Toughest 10K” which he created. He’s also in the top 75 world rank in skiing, an amateur national mountain bike champ, and 2012 Sun Valley Athlete of the Year. Before the intensity of the ski season begins, Miles walks us through an ideal 24hrs in Sun Valley fall day. How does your perfect fall day start? Miles: I work and workout all week, so Saturdays are designated for me. I love having the access to the outdoor right out my doorstep in Warm Springs to mountain bike, hike, run, and skate ski. I start by making …
24 hours with a Local: ERC Executive Director and County Commissioner Lindsay Mollineaux
A native of the Wood River Valley, Lindsay Mollineaux felt like many do when leaving their hometown—that they can’t get out of there fast enough. But after working for the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve, and then as Deputy Chief Analytics Officer for the City of New York, she realized that she missed the mountains. In the fall of 2016, she came back to Sun Valley with the plan to ski and only be back for a year when she realized how much she enjoyed being back in her hometown. After working for the City of Ketchum and Kraay’s Market and Garden, the Executive Director position at the Environmental Resource Center (ERC) opened up. Though Lindsay says she “knew nothing about the environment,” the econ major with experience in operations and finance took the job and three years later is now an expert environmentalist. Lindsay Mollineaux also became county commissioner two months ago when the position was vacated by the late Dick Fosbury. In between working part-time for the ERC and part-time as commissioner, Lindsay lives in Picabo with her father and two cats, Kukla and Fran (named after the 1950’s sitcom Kukla, Fran and Ollie) and enjoys knitting, …