The area probably got its name during the 19th-century gold rush. Crooks in the hills above Boise City, known as "spelterers", would make bogus gold dust by heating lead filings with a bit of real gold dust.
Alf Engen, the father of the American powder technique, selected the site for the ski area at Bogus Basin in 1939. It opened to the public in December 1942 with a
rope tow, and a
T-bar was installed in 1946. In the early 1950s, Bogus had a 30-meter
Nordic ski jump, designed by
Corey Engen, and his brother
Sverre was Bogus' ski instructor. The first
chairlift at Bogus was installed in the fall of 1959 at Deer Point, and night skiing debuted in December 1964. and #2
Morning Star in 2019. Bogus Basin has of mixed runs, bowls, and glades, with groomed. The lift-served vertical drop is on the east-facing "back side," with a summit
elevation of above
sea level at the top of Shafer Butte, the highest point of the Boise Ridge mountains. This back side of Shafer Butte was opened in January 1977, following the installation of Pine Creek (#6), a double chairlift, the previous summer. A fixed-grip double for 23 seasons, it became a high-speed quad in the summer of 1999. On the front side, Bogus Basin's southern lift-served summit is at "Doe Point," adjacent to Deer Point, which is slightly higher and covered with communications towers at an elevation of . Both vantage points overlook
Boise and the entire
Treasure Valley, over below. Bogus' base area and main day lodge (
J. R. Simplot Lodge, formerly
Bogus Creek) are at , at the base of the north-facing slopes served by the Deer Point Express (#1), a high-speed quad installed in the summer of 1996. The original double chairlift on #1 was installed in 1959 and upgraded in 1981. Showcase (#4), a double chairlift that had replaced a surface
poma lift in 1972, is east of and parallel with the Deer Point Express. The original Deer Point lift was relocated and renamed Coach (#7) in 1996, servicing the beginner learning area. It honors Bill "Coach" Everts, an early area manager (1953–58) and longtime director. and cut the ride time of the original lift in half.
Night skiing was added to the Superior area with the installation of lights in the summer of 1986, and Morning Star was converted from a double to a triple chairlift in 1999 then to a quad chairlift in 2019. Historically, Bogus Basin's average annual
snowfall is , but since 2011, the snowfall has been well below average. Due to limited
water resources, there is no significant
snow making, only small portable units for patching.
Night skiing is available on on runs served by five of the chairlifts (none on #5 or #6). Three
terrain parks are also available; two on the Deer Point mountain, one for advanced, the other for beginner to intermediate skill levels. The Sunshine Park is located on the Morning Star side of the mountain. The main day lodge at Bogus Creek was built in 1962 and expanded in 1991; its ground floor contains the ticket office and ski lockers. Simplot bought its ski lifts and other mountain improvements from the Kingcliffe Co. and leased them back to the Bogus Basin Recreational Association for $1,500 per year for ten years. His intervention averted almost certain financial demise and won the everlasting gratitude of a generation of skiers. Simplot was later the driving force behind
Brundage Mountain northwest of
McCall, which opened in November 1961. ==Chairlifts==