Presidents Weekend is never the best weekend to ski anywhere. Too many people on slopes and hard to find places to stay. Luckily our buddy DeadSled had already plans to hit Holiday Valley in New York State, and had a spare room in his cabin. We were there as fast as our truck could carry us – a tad over 3 hours from Pittsburgh.
An early Saturday start gave us a jump on the crowds. Firm but decent ‘roid was all ours, and we followed Sled on a quick mountain tour. Like teenage sex, each run was a brief but enjoyable event. And it was easy to get up and do another one.
Weekend crowds finally crawled out of bed, and it was busy from then on. Not horrendously, but when you wait 5 minutes for a lift, have a 5 minute lift ride and are back at the lift two minutes later, it’s not a recipe for a big vert day. We bailed at 2,30 after 40 (!) runs and went drinking.
Sunday was a whole different matter. 4 inches of incredibly light Lake Erie poop (lake effect snow) blanketed the mountain. We were on 3rd chair, and the reward was an hour of super-fun groomer pow and bumps. It was mighty cold too, hovering around 12F all day with a wind chill that made me appreciate how my namesakes fish products might feel.
The skiing stayed pretty darn good all day, as the attractions of the charming nearby Ellicottville‘s good range of drinking establishment seemed to take its toll on the souls who braved the conditions. The Wall, a steep solid 5 turn pitch was worthy of multiple runs, and the runs off the Eagle and Chute chairs held some soft snow all day. It took 44 runs before we felt we’d got value for money off our lift tickets (~$1.15 per run!) and rolled back to the Steel City. If every day at Holiday Valley was as good as Sunday, even with the limited 750ft vert, I could ski there all the time. If only …
Saturday 6100, Sunday 7200m vert
Season Totals: 50 days, 21 powder days, 462,100m vert
Pacific Northwest Ski blog (and a few other places!) 
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