Idaho’s Incredible Cosmic Tubing Hill Must Be on Your 2023 Winter Bucket List

Living in Idaho, we’re incredibly blessed to be surrounded by 19 beautiful ski areas. However, not all of us are graceful enough to enjoy them on skis or snowboards! 

We’re not judging. We’re one of you. When our youth group went on a ski trip, we were told “you’re allowed to go tubing, that’s it.” Bless our chaperone’s heart. They didn’t want us to break a leg in the middle of track and field season. They were right…we probably would’ve! 

And so our love of snow tubing was born! That was a long, long time ago so it’s been fun to watch how this super fun winter activity has evolved since then. It’s tough to track down exactly when “Cosmic Tubing,” began but based on YouTube videos it looks like we have Mt. Hood Skibowl in Oregon to thank for the concept. They posted the first cosmic tubing video on YouTube 11 years ago and it’s still the best party on their mountain in 2023. 

When night falls, the O.G. cosmic tubing hill flights up with over 600,000 LED Lights, laser light shows, blacklights, colored lights and a rocking playlist. Basically, the tubing lanes turn into a kaleidoscope of beautiful colors.

The trend quickly spread from the Pacific Northwest to other tubing hills like Peek’n Peak in New York and Snow Trails in Ohio. 

Idaho’s home to 7 pretty epic tubing adventures and we always wondered when one of those hills would embrace the colorful idea so that we didn’t have to drive over six hours to Mt. Hood to try it!

Well, it turns out that Magic Mountain in Kimberly introduced their version of “cosmic tubing” last season. They offered it on Fridays and Saturdays in February and it was a hit. The ski area received so many positive comments that they’re bringing it back and extending the number of days they’re offering it in 2023! 

It’s been rebranded as “Twilight Tubing” this year and they’ll start offering the sessions on Fridays and Saturdays from January 13-February 25. At $28, Twilight Tubing is a little more expensive than their normal tubing tickets ($23) but still a great value compared to Mt. Hood ($39.) 

Magic Mountain will also cost you way less in gas money to enjoy. It’s a little over 2.5 hours away from Boise.