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It was mid-December when skier Darren Vickers first heard a “slow down!” command from Sun Valley Guest Services as he carved down College at speed.
“On my next lap, I skied up to the yellow jackets and told them I was an undercover DEA agent on a special, seasonlong assignment to catch reefer addicts on the slopes of Baldy,” said Vickers, who lives in Bellevue. “I told them my sting operations wouldn’t work without their help.”
Guest Services took the bait.
“It was a very serious, high-stakes operation that could go sideways at any moment,” said Marjorie Lamp, a 68-year-old Guest Services staffer. “He named me an honorary undercover DEA agent.”
Vickers even convinced Lamp to dress in disguise several times, including as a Rastafarian with dreadlocks.
“If you want to catch some of these reefer addicts, you have to look the part,” she said.
Over the next four months, Vickers was given everything he asked for, including free day passes for visiting friends he claimed were other DEA agents on special assignment.
He was also granted early ups on Baldy’s lifts whenever he wanted so he could “set up sting operations in the woods” each morning before the mountain opened to the public.
“I skied a lot of fresh corduroy and had some epic powder mornings before the lifts officially opened,” Vickers said with a smile. “I also hot-boxed the ganjala every single day.”
Vickers was referring to the gondola. Hot-boxing is a term used by reefer addicts for smoking the marijuana drugs in enclosed spaces like cars, small rooms and gondolas.
On Sunday, the final day of the 2025-26 season, Vickers presented Guest Services with an award recognizing their commitment to clandestine law enforcement operations on the slopes.
“It was an old Little League baseball trophy I found in a box in my attic,” he said.
