Holiday Valley Ski Club Days

Where shall I start ...
Holiday Valley is the ski resort where many of the ski clubs from Western NY colleges go. I wasn't surprised to hear that I should include Western PA and Eastern Ohio. Holiday Valley benefits from a unique location directly in the lake effect snow bands and gets a lot of snow as a result from mid-October until April. I had the opportunity to ski the slopes of Holiday Valley for three seasons and became very familiar with most of the trails. In college, skiing was as much a sport as a social event. I was lucky as my roommates like skiing, too.

Holiday Valley is rated as the #4 ski resort in the East and it is easy to see why. Outside of Manhattan, the one square mile around the resort is the most expense real estate in New York. The area near the ski resort is dotted with cosy chalets with views of the slopes. Additionally, inside the village of Ellicottville is Holimont (Private) Ski Resort. I joined the ski club to despite being a totally broke college student. We would ski at night so a good portion of the mountain runs were not accessible. The signature run Mardi Gras is like the major highway running nearly the length of the mountain to the main lodge and high speed Quad to get right back to the top again fast.

But this isn't how this resort started. In 1956, three friends decided to pursue their dream of opening a modern ski area and shares of stock were sold for $100 from a card table in the parking lot. Four slopes (Yodeler, Champagne, Edelweiss and Holiday Run) were cut out of the mountain and a T-bar and Tow rope would bring the first skiers to the top. The three black diamonds and one easy run were soon followed by Tannenbaum and Mardi Gras. Holiday Valley attracted five of the original Mercury Seven Astronauts who skied there in 1960.

Well, again I was not aware of such things in the mid-80's. Without have ever taken lessons, I was still quite ackward at skiing even after skiing for years in high school, but like I said half the time college skiing was spend socializing. Generally, I shied away from the most difficult runs in order to gain confidence and work on my techique. Surprisingly, I didn't fall coming off the lifts, but did manage to find many ways to wipe-out going down the slopes. Cindy's Run and a few of the trails like Maple Leaf and Foxfire would be enough of a challenge most nights. The candlelight run @ the end of the night was a real treat to watch, the skiers would just moved what looked like effortless motion down the slope in perfect S's almost like a delayed action photograph. I would say to myself afterward that someday I'll ski like that too. By the end of my time skiing in college, I would have skied the slopes of Holiday Valley more than thirty times over the four years and finally became comfortable with the black diamonds - Yodeler, Champagne, Chute, Shadows and Firecracker.