BOISE- Most people think of Bogus basin as a place to spend the day in the winter, but after a major facelift, it's now a fully operational summer recreation area.
Bogus opened with its new attractions for the first summer season Saturday.
Those include the mountain coaster, rock climbing tower and trampolines. There’s also summer tubing and the ski lift is running, giving round trips for views and easy access to hiking trails.
“It's great,” said 12-year-old Jacklin Brasher, who is in Boise for vacation. “I'm just here to have fun. It has really great activities for kids our age.”
It took months of work and millions of dollars to make the improvements that general manager Brad Wilson says are paying off.
“We wanted to offer all of this last year and it just took longer than anticipated,” he said. “Now you just look around, and there’s families and children, and everybody's enjoying the mountain activities up here, so we're really happy.”
He says the whole point of all these summer activities is to utilize the mountain year-round.
"As a nonprofit, our mission is to be affordable and accessible and to provide mountain recreation and education,” Wilson said. “It fits our bill perfectly to offer activities and be open in the summer so people could use these facilities year-round now."
The other goal: make sure there's something for everyone to enjoy on the mountain.
“That's the beauty of summer and winter for us now. In the winter we operate the mountain coaster, we had tubing, we had a cross-country center, and we have skiing and snowboarding,” Wilson said. “Then in the summer we have all of these other activities for the non-traditional person that wouldn't normally come to bogus basin. It's really opening up a whole opportunity for pretty much everybody to come to."
During the early summer season Bogus is open Friday through Sunday. Later in the summer, starting June 22, the area will be open seven days a week. You can find more information about hours of operation, pricing and activities here.