IDAHO FALLS, Idaho ? Many Utah residents seeking to avoid the revelry and traffic expected with the 2002 Winter Olympics this month are heading out of state, with Idaho apparently one of the favorite destinations.
Reservations are up at tourist destinations around Idaho, including Sun Valley Ski Resort, manager Jack Sibbach said.
"The phones have been ringing," he said. "We've been doing a lot of advertising in Utah, and it looks like we're doing well with it."
The eastern Idaho economy also seems to be getting a boost from tourists traveling through Idaho to Wyoming ski resorts and Yellowstone National Park, said Ron Gardner, a Commerce Department spokesman.
"I've talked to a lot of people from Utah making reservations in Yellowstone. They said they were planning to escape, to avoid the chaos," said Steve Brashear, a reservation clerk for two winter lodges in Yellowstone.
"The first week of the Olympics, we're extremely busy. There's almost nothing to be had in Yellowstone or West Yellowstone."
Quinn Stern, a desk clerk at the Best Western Desert Inn in West Yellowstone, Mont., said the 78-room facility is booked solid for the first two weeks of the Olympics and is filling fast through the last week of February, when the Games end.
"I'd say 90 percent of the people staying up here are from Utah," Stern said. "This is normally a pretty busy time from people from Idaho coming to snowmobile, but we've been getting most of our calls from people from Salt Lake who say they want to get away from the Olympics."