I just got back from a 4 day loong weekend to Holiday Valley in NY's finger lakes area. I will post a longer review if folks would like to read about it. Holiday valley is a 7 hour drive from the DC area. The mountina is 750' but is twice as wide as 7springs. It offers more terrain, better snow, and better apres ski than any midatlantic resort. Most of the pistes are groomed, except for black terrain which is often allowed to bump up.

The highlights were a number of beautiful and well maintained gladed trails of varying difficulty scattered arround the resort as well as the Tanembaum area with its number of really nice winding cruisers and I think the most picturesqe glades I have seen in a while. There are also a number of nice fall line black diamonds, which were a welcome change from the headwall w/ run out configuration so common at many local resorts. The trail under the Yoddler Chair is noteable for its narrow width, steep pitch and nice soft bumps (similar to lower high hopes at blue knob). There is also a beautiful glade in the trees to skiers left which shares its same pitch. The 36" in the week before arival, and the 12 additional inches over the weekend made all the natural snow and gladded trails a real pleasure. 3 Well maintined base lodges and the nearby town of Ellicotville, a classic ski resort "village" completed a great long weekend trip. Prices for lodging, lifts and food were all reasonable by midatlantic standards.

We rented a nearby studio condo, at the Wildflower. We used the hourly shuttle service to carry us to the slopes. And we drove into town in the evenings for dinner.

For myself, my girlfriend, and another friend the total cost was $450 per person for 3 nights lodgeing, all meals / food, 3 days lift ticket, and a 4 day rental car.

Thanks for the post Tromano. How were the crowds there? I hear it can get pretty packed with Buffalo goers.

Always looking for a new hill to try out...

There are /were 54 ski areas in upstate New York. I learned to ski at Snow Ridge on the Tug Hill Plateau. 500 foot vertical, 256 inch snowfall average (third highest on the east coast).

We go to Holiday Valley 2 or 3 times a year. It really has it all except for big vertical. They have 2 high speed quads, and their fixed grip chairs are reasonably fast, unlike 7Springs. It can get very crowded on the weekends, but there are 3 or 4 chairs that rarely get backed up. I also like their lift tickets. Your 8 hours start when you buy the ticket. They also have a 4 hour ticket available. Another good thing is Holimont ski area right in Ellicotville. It is a private area that is open to the public on weekdays. They have 50 trails and a 700 ft. vertical. I've only skied there once, and we're going to try it next Friday, then hit Holiday Saturday. I definitely prefer Holiday over 7Springs, Canaan/Timberline, or Snowshoe. That doesn't mean I don't like to go to these places also. It might be a longer drive for everyone from the DC area but it just might be worth it.

That place is pretty near Lake Erie and I'm sure it benefits from a serious dose of lake-effect snow. Too bad there are no 4,000 foot mountains over there, they probably have better snow conditions then many VT resorts. Funny thing about NY, you don't usually think of it as a big skiing state, but believe there are far more ski areas in NY than any state in New England, in fact probably more than any single state in the US with the possible exception of California? Anybody know for sure?

Roger,

On the MLK weekend the crowds were pretty bad, but not worse than a typical saturday at whitetail or 7Springs. The longest lift line of the weekeend was perhaps 15 minutes, but all averaged arround 5 minutes durring the day (10:30 AM - 4 PM) on saturday and sunday.

Sunday night they got 6-8 inches of fresh snow and with the crowds gone on monday morning we had a half day of bliss before we left for home at arround noon.

[This message has been edited by tromano (edited 01-22-2004).]

One added bonus to Holiday Valley is great restaurants and bars in Ellicotville just minutes from the lifts.