The Governator is a lifelong skier

Schwarzenegger has a house in Sun Valley and hangs with Hollywood and Austrian buddies there.

By Morten Lund

It may be good news for the sport: newly elected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has been an avid skier since he grew up in Austria.

The governor has a thirdhome in Sun Valley that's almost as big as the Sun Valley Lodge. (Maybe now the state of Idaho will see fit to enlarge the minuscule Sun Valley airport to match.)

The day after he won the California recall election and became governor, Arnold flew with his wife Maria Shriver and their children to Sun Valley in time for the Running of the Sheep. This is a colorful, not to say fragrant, annual event in Sun Valley to celebrate its continuity as sheep-raising country. On that day, the region's sheep ranchers drive their flocks from the high country through the streets of Ketchum to warmer pastures below. (In the process, unlike Pampalona's Running of the Bulls, hardly anyone is ever gored.)

Schwarzenegger has always been a celebrity citizen in town. "Arnold's Run" on Sun Valley's Mt. Baldy is named after him. Maria arranged to have the honor come as his birthday present a few years ago after persuading General Manager Wally Huffman to rename Flying Maid trail. Of course this was well before anyone had any inkling of the heights to which Arnold would rise. (Will they rename it "Governor Arnold's Run"?)

In Sun Valley, Schwarzenegger sometimes skis with Clint Eastwood, and often in company with Rainer Kolb, former head of the ski school. Schwartzenegger is very much at home with his compatriot Austrian ski instructors in the Sun Valley ski school. In the summertime, one of five Hummers he owns is often observed parked at the Sun Valley Lodge, where he takes his children ice skating. The kids also ski. Last year, the day after the Academy Awards, Maria was seen leading three ski-booted children through the village sans the usual dragon's tail of paparazzi now mandatory elsewhere. She was still wearing the spectacular swirled-up hairdo with which she was shown on the Awards TV broadcast the night before.

It is still mostly true that celebrities at Sun Valley are treated as neighbors and no more. For one thing, there are usually a number of the celebrated of various radiance in residence. All of them cherish Sun Valley as a refuge of sanity for those like themselves afflicted with money, glamour, or fame -- in Schwarzenegger's case, all of the above.