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Stanley is located high (6,260 feet above sea level) in the Sawtooth Valley, just 60 miles north of world famous Sun Valley. This pristine region was set aside by a Congressional Act in 1972 as the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Though predominately U.S. Forest lands, the Sawtooth National Recreation Area encompasses some private land and designated communities within its boundaries.
For the first two weeks of March this year (1996), Stanley was the site of "RODE TESTS 1997" and "SNOW SHOOT '97". These events were initially hosted (for the first 4-5 days) by Ehlert Publications (publishers of Snowmobile, SnowGoer and Snow Week magazines and was called "RODE TEST 1997". Four of the major manufacturers (Polaris, Skidoo, Arctic Cat and Yamaha) brought their 1997 sleds here to work-out any bugs and then have Ehlert ride, photograph and evaluate the various makes and models. Ehlert rode over 8,000 miles, took more than 3,000 color slides and in excess of 10 hours of video during their four full days of riding; so look for lots of pictures of this area in upcoming snowmobile magazines. Ehlert also produces a video that is available to the public. Beginning the fifth day, the event became "SNOW SHOOT '97". Virtually all US snowmobile magazines and many from around the world (Finland, Sweden, Ontario and Quebec Canada to name a few) arrived and went through essentially the same riding, photography and evaluating for their respective magazines.
It has recently been announced that the "1998 RODE TESTS" and "SNOW SHOOT" will be held again in Stanley, during the first two weeks of March 1997!
The trail system is manintained by the City of Stanley (in Custer County). The City is responsible for grooming all trails from Lowman (in Boise County) 77 miles to the west and to Sawtooth City (in Blaine County) 33 miles to the south. Additionally, the City grooms through Bear Valley and to Deadwood Camp (in Valley County) and numerous trail spurs and loops along the entire trail system. These trails connect with groomed trails at Lowman, which extend to Pine and Featherville, 150 to the south and through Deadwood the trails connect with trails leading to Warm Lake, Cascade and McCall to the north.
This past year the City groomed with an 8 year old Pisten Bulley 130 which was only making about 3 mph on level terrain, but The City has a new Tucker Snow Cat 2000 for the 1996-97 season. In demonstration runs held here this past spring, it was getting 8-10 mph grooming on level terrain and 7-8 mph pulling up a hill; and all this with only slightly less fuel economy. Therefore, we are looking forward to having our trails groomed more often in the coming year and doing some trail expansion as well.
Snowmobiling in our area runs from early-December through March and sometimes, such as this year may go well into April or May. During virtually all of the season, you can ride your sleds on the city streets to stores and restaurants. In the very late season, you may need to trailer your sleds 3-5 miles from Stanley to find the best conditions. As of April 20, 1996 it would be quite a rough ride from town, but there currently is more than 5 feet in the meadows west of Stanley and the snow pack is still accumulating about the 7,000 foot elevation.
The comment we often hear from sledders new to Stanley, is they "can't believe all of this is here and there's not many other sledders." Limited accomodations that will handle a maximum of about 300 guests and only 50 rental snowmachines available throughout the valley keep the lid on the crowds.
Date of last update - February 7, 1997. ©1997