Back To Reality
Thankfully, a couple of miles out of town and you're back to reality and the natural beauty that is the very magnet that attracts so many people to this area. That natural beauty most decidedly includes several mountain ranges that extend north, east and west from Sun Valley.
All those mountains mean there's plenty of room for everyone who likes to play in the heavy blanket of snow covering all those peaks and valleys here to enjoy their own version of winter fun. That's not to say there aren't any challenges to figuring out the legal places to snowmobile around Sun Valley. Indeed you can find some sweet spots to legally ride your sled but you need to do your homework first before just unloading and squeezing the throttle.
Here's an example of what we're referring to when we say you have to do your homework. This comes directly from the Sawtooth National Forest website in referring to specific areas to ride.
"Hyndman Basin - Closed to winter motorized use until March 15. Includes lower Hyndman Creek and Hyndman Basin. After March 15, snowmobilers are urged to avoid the area of the ski hut and two adjacent ski slopes in Hyndman Basin, to assure quality recreation opportunities for skiers."
You'll experience similar Sawtooth National Forest policies throughout the Wood River Valley and surrounding mountains, which is why it's best to check with that national forest before venturing out. The contact number is (208) 622-5371 or stop by the Ketchum Ranger District, located at 206 Sun Valley Road in Ketchum.
Lest anyone think we're trying to discourage sledders from taking in the Sun Valley experience, 
we're simply encouraging you to know the rules before you go so you're not disappointed.
There is a decent amount of snowmobiling opportunity in Blaine County, home to the Wood River Valley and many of the surrounding mountain ranges. With 120 miles of groomed trails and countless other ungroomed trails, it's not like you spend just an afternoon here and then move on to another of Idaho's famous snowmobiling spots. Stay a while and enjoy some of Idaho's best-if not most famous-snow.
Baker Creek
The destination for our day of fun in the sun was the Baker Creek drainage, located north of Sun Valley off Idaho Highway 75 but a few miles south of the Galena Summit (elevation 8,701 feet). There is a decent-sized parking area on the northeast side of the highway where you can unload, cross the highway and get on the Baker Creek Trail.
We shot up the meticulously groomed trail which follows Baker Creek, playing on a couple of hillsides along the way. We then peeled off onto Forest Road 170, which was groomed for a short distance before narrowing down into a single track trail through the trees along Norton Creek. We gradually gained elevation-just more than 2,200 feet from when we left the parking area-as we climbed towards the Norton Lakes and then came upon an untracked mountainside above the lower Norton Lake where we spent a lot of time playing under the blue bird sky. It was an ideally-sized pocket of a perfect mix of challenging terrain and deep snow. Much of the time we played on the east-facing slopes, which held the snow well despite it being mid-March.
After playing that area out, we climbed a saddled and crossed into a large drainage fed by Big Lost Lake and Smoky Lake. Above Big Lost Lake is an imposing ridgeline for challenging hillclimbing, evident by the numerous snowmobile tracks that led toward the top of the ridge. While we never saw any other sledders the day we rode, this is the spot where we saw the most tracks. Other than that, we were the first tracks most everywhere we rode that day in the Baker Creek drainage.
What made riding this area so much fun wasn't just all the ridges and ranges and resulting drainages, but it was how those ridges were lined up. There are about a half dozen ridges (a thousand feet or so above the ravines they create) running east/west. Then you have a 
monstrous range that runs north and south along the western edge of these smaller ridgelines where you can climb and get stunning views of the surrounding mountains. The bigger north/south ridgeline marks the border between Blaine and Camas counties and, depending on where you pick to climb to the crest, is between 9,500- 10,000 feet. All of these mountains are part of the Smoky Mountains.
One spot we chose to climb on that ridge was south of Baker Lake and the altimeter on our Ski-Doo Rev XP read 9,800 feet. When we dropped off the ridgeline we quickly lost 700 feet in elevation and we weren't even down at the bottom of a drainage but on a small plateau above the creek bottom.