Silver Mountain Resort

Overview

Silver Mountain Resort sits above the town of Kellogg in Idaho's Silver Valley, part of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains in the state's Panhandle. Coeur d'Alene is about 35 minutes west and Spokane roughly 75 minutes away, putting the resort within easy reach of two regional population centers, and it sits directly off Interstate 90, making it one of the more straightforwardly accessible Idaho resorts by car. The resort's terrain spans two peaks, Kellogg Peak, with a summit elevation of 6,297 feet, and Wardner Peak, together offering about 1,600 skiable acres and a vertical drop of roughly 2,197 feet across 67 trails served by seven lifts: a gondola, a quad, two triples, two doubles, and a surface tow. The longest run, Centennial Trail, extends about 2.5 miles, and annual snowfall ranges from roughly 239 to 300 inches depending on the season.

What sets Silver Mountain apart from every other resort in Idaho, and from nearly every resort in the world, is how skiers reach the mountain in the first place. Rather than driving to a base area at the mountain's foot, visitors park in downtown Kellogg, at the valley floor, and ride a gondola 3.1 miles up to the mountain village, one of the longest single-stage gondolas anywhere, climbing more than 3,400 vertical feet over a ride of roughly 15 to 17 minutes. That gondola, and the town-to-summit connection it represents, is the defining fact of the Silver Mountain experience, and it means visitors never need to negotiate a separate mountain access road or a remote parking lot the way they would at most ski areas.

Winter at Silver Mountain

Once at the top of the gondola, skiers and riders have access to 67 trails across the resort's roughly 2,197 feet of vertical, terrain that spans both Kellogg Peak and the adjoining Wardner Peak. Night skiing operates on about eight runs covering 50 acres, extending the ski day for local and regional visitors who want to ski after work or after the gondola's daytime scenic traffic has thinned. Snow tubing and snowshoeing round out the on-mountain winter activities for visitors who aren't skiing or riding.

The resort's other defining winter amenity has nothing to do with snow at all: Silver Rapids, an indoor waterpark with year-round warm water, opened in 2008 and sits at the base of the mountain village, connected to the resort's main lodging. The pairing of a ski resort with a full indoor waterpark is unusual in the industry, most resorts that offer water recreation do so seasonally and outdoors, and it gives Silver Mountain an all-weather, all-season draw that doesn't depend on snow conditions, particularly useful for families with members who don't ski.

Summer at Silver Mountain

Summer operations center on the same gondola that defines the winter experience, which continues running to carry hikers, sightseers, and mountain bikers up from town. The resort operates a lift-served mountain bike park with both downhill and cross-country trails, taking advantage of the same vertical drop that serves skiers in winter, alongside a network of hiking trails. The gondola ride itself functions as a scenic attraction independent of biking or hiking, giving casual visitors access to Silver Valley views without requiring any particular fitness level or gear.

The resort's 2,500-capacity mountain amphitheater hosts summer concerts, giving Silver Mountain a live-events dimension that distinguishes its summer program from a purely outdoor-recreation offering. Silver Rapids indoor waterpark continues operating through the summer as well, giving the resort a dependable warm-weather draw that complements the gondola, biking, and concert programming.

Where to Stay

Lodging is concentrated in Morning Star Lodge, a slopeside condo-hotel located in the mountain-top village at the upper gondola terminal, offering unit sizes from studios to multi-bedroom condominiums.

Morning Star Lodge is directly connected to Silver Rapids waterpark, meaning guests can move between skiing, the waterpark, and their rooms without leaving the village complex, a convenience factor that matters given the resort's unusual town-to-summit access model, since guests who want to head back down to Kellogg for any reason still rely on the gondola rather than a car.

Dining

Dining options are concentrated in the mountain village, led by Noah's, a restaurant and bar serving the village. Morning Star Lodge itself operates dining service for guests, and a mid-mountain lodge provides additional food service for skiers and riders during the day.

The overall dining footprint is smaller and more centralized than at larger destination resorts, consistent with Silver Mountain's identity as a regional resort built around its gondola and waterpark rather than an extensive village dining scene.

Getting There & When to Go

Silver Mountain's location directly off Interstate 90 makes it one of the easiest Idaho resorts to reach by car, with Coeur d'Alene about 35 minutes away and Spokane roughly 75 minutes away, putting the resort within a comfortable day-trip or weekend range of a large regional population.

The ski season runs roughly late November through early April. Because the resort combines lift-served winter and summer recreation with the year-round indoor waterpark, it has a more continuous visitor season than resorts that shut down entirely between the end of ski season and the start of summer programming.

History: From Jackass Ski Bowl to a Mining Town's Reinvention

Silver Mountain's history traces back to 1968, when the area opened as a modest operation called Jackass Ski Bowl, later renamed Silverhorn. The resort took its current name and identity in 1990, when the gondola opened, a name that nods directly to the Silver Valley's mining heritage. Kellogg and the surrounding valley were, in their era, among the richest silver-mining districts on earth, and the resort's name and branding tie it explicitly to that history rather than treating the mining past as separate from the ski area's identity.

The gondola itself was not simply a resort amenity; it was a roughly $6.4 million federally funded economic-recovery project, built to help convert Kellogg from a mining-dependent economy into a tourism-based one after the nearby Bunker Hill mine closed. That closure had eliminated a major share of the valley's employment base, and the gondola project represented a deliberate civic strategy to replace mining jobs with a recreation-based economy, a strategy that also explains why the gondola terminates in downtown Kellogg rather than at a remote base area, since keeping visitor traffic moving through the town center was part of the economic goal from the outset.

Frequently Asked Questions