In 1938, Forest Ranger Rufus Hall searched eastern Idaho's frontier landscape for a site for Idaho's second ski resort, following the state's first resort at Sun Valley in 1936. He shared that dream with Alf Engen, a world-class skier from Norway who later coached the 1948 U.S. Olympic Ski Team. In the spring of 1939, looking over a wooded hillside, Engen sketched three ski runs that became Bear Gulch Ski Basin. When the resort opened in the winter of 1940, passenger trains bound for Yellowstone stopped a few hundred yards away and brought skiers to the basin. Using a simple gasoline engine and cables wrapped around large drums, a toboggan carried skiers to the top of the hill for 10 cents. Skiers coined the phrase, "If you could ski at Bear, you could ski anywhere." For the next 20 years, Bear Gulch was regarded as eastern Idaho's premier resort, but its appeal faded as newer ski resorts with longer runs opened, and after several failed revival attempts in the mid-seventies, it disappeared into the shadows.