(Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the detachable quad)
People have been telling me for a few years now that I should go down and check out Holliday Valley in Ellicottville, NY. With the forecast for this week looking skier's depressing (highs in the 50s with rain) I figured the snow wasn't going to stick around forever so we purchased a couple night tickets for Saturday and made the hour drive south to Western New York's best known Ski Resort. Opened in 1957 Holiday Valley has grown from 4 T-bar serviced trails to 60 runs on 750' of vertical served by 13 lifts with three base lodges, two hotels, and a lot of traffic. At night it drops down two 42 trails and 10 lifts. 96% of the terrain is served by an automated snowmaking system fed from a man made lake on the west side of the resort. An adult night ticket will get you on the hill after 3:30pm and costs $38 ($32 for the 14 and under) which is quite reasonable.
We pulled into Ellicottville just after 3:30pm in a light snow and were on the hill by 4pm. We could see the chairs heading up the Mardi Gras Express, a detachable quad, as we walked down to the main base area from the parking lot and I had to laugh to see my son's reaction to how fast they were going. Apart from a summer ride up the gondola at Stowe a few years ago this was his first experience with a detachable lift. The last time I rode a detachable was the original Adirondack Express at Gore in the mid 90s so I must admit I shared a bit in his excitement. I had been told to expect a heavy crowd around this time and was not surprised to wait about 10 minutes to catch our first chair up the Mardi Gras Express which is one of the two lifts out of the main base area.
Crowds at the base area. Cindy's Quad and Cindy's run are straight ahead with the Mardi Gras Express to the right and beginner slopes to the left.
Hoping to get a run or two in off the Eagle lift before it closed we skied down Morning Star, a nice wide blue cruiser with some "moguls" off on the right side, and made it with about 10 minutes to spare. My son was immediately put out that we had to ride a slow fixed grip lift but they can't all be detachable. The trails off the Eagle quad are primarily black diamond runs with a nice steep bit at the top mellowing out a bit as you go down. We took a run down the top of Hoot Owl and into Raven bringing us back to the Morning Star Express, another detachable quad.
Morning Star and Eagle Base area
Riding up Eagle
Looking down Hoot Owl
Morning Star
After skiing another run down Morning Star we headed for the Tannenbaum area of the hill by way of a nice narrow winding green trail called Peppermint Lane. This part of the hill is more gentle and caters to families with younger kids with mostly green and blue trails winding through a lush pine forest. The pine forest giving the area its name was planted by the CCC in the 30s and the trail names reflect this. A detachable quad of the same name serves the area with a fixed quad called Spruce Lake (closed at night) heading off at a slightly different alignment. Riding up we could see a nice happy looking glade off to the right and decided to give that a try. We ended up making several runs in this area before heading down a short crossover to the Yodeler area.
Riding up Tannenbaum Express passing the summer ropes course.
Looking back towards the base area.
Into the pine forest with Happy Glade to the right, the trail below is appropriately called CCC Trail
Happy Glade
Firelane, one of the winding blue runs
Base of Tannenbaum as the sun set
Mistletoe under the lights in a pine forest.
We stopped at the Yodeler lodge and had dinner. This was the original Holiday Valley and features mostly steep wide black runs served by a quad which is to be replaced this summer with a detachable quad. By the time we got back on our skis the crowds and lift lines had vanished. We took a run down Yodeler and Edelweiss, two of the original trails, and then Chute which had some nice moguls on the right side and its own quad with no line.
Yodeler to the left and the Yodeler lift to the right.
Moguls on Chute
Riding up Chute
Since my goal was to ski at least one run off each open lift we headed back towards the main lodge and caught Cindy's quad (again, my son was put out that this was a fixed grip lift) to check out the runs on the East side of the hill. The famous wall is closed at night so we settled for a run down Maple Leaf, a nice winding black trail, before heading back up the Mardi Gras Express to ski a few more runs off Morning Star and Tannenbaum before calling it a night around 9pm.
Looking down Mardi Gras to the main Base Loge and hotel to the left
Looking out towards Cindy's run area.
Overall I wish I had gone for a day ticket so we could have explored a bit more of the glades and had a crack at some fresher snow. Everything felt a bit skied off and icy with piles of frozen granular scattered about at the bottom but that is par for the course in this part of the state this time of year. I find a high speed lift on anything under a mile long or 1000' of vertical to be pretentious but once the lines disappeared I really appreciated the short ride up so I guess I'll drop my prejudice and love the detachable quad. I have a soft spot for old Halls and T-Bars though and I'm not giving that up!
