Telesnowmonkey
Active member
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2020
My friends Amy and Don have extended several invitations to me to join them at HoliMont in Ellicottville, NY over the past two or three years. Amy is a coach for their racing team, and they spend just about every weekend out there between late December to mid-March. I finally had an opportunity to join them out there this past weekend. Friday night, we arrived around 9:30 and headed over to the Ellicotville Brewery for dinner and some pints. The brewery is undergoing a massive expansion and is going to be a beautiful building when it’s finished. The food and especially the beer was quite tasty, too. I highly recommend a stop there after a long day of skiing. We went back again on Saturday night after we were done tearing up the trails.
Saturday morning, we were at the mountain by 8:30 and on the slopes by 9. Amy was busy coaching, so Don took me on a tour of the ridge. There isn’t much vertical, 600ft totally, but the terrain is interesting and it has some challenging pitches. There are a few glades, but nothing very big. The mountain (which is actually more of a ridge) is divided into 50% black diamonds, 25% greens and 25% blues. Don and I started off on the green trail, Sunset, and took a couple runs to warm up. That trail was perfect for rippin’ big, arcing GS turns, and had a nice, consistent pitch to it. It was still early, so barely anyone was on it. We started working our way to the skier’s right, on a couple more blue trails, and then started down for the black diamonds. The black diamonds are tougher than my home mountain, Greek Peak, in that the pitches are more consistently long and a bit steeper. Not as challenging as at Gore though. The groomers had done an excellent job on the snow and conditions were fresh corduroy Saturday morning, which was quite hard set due to the cold temps and stayed throughout much of the day. My skis picked up some chatter at times, but it wasn’t too bad. Sunday we awoke to 3” or so of fresh, powdery lake effect snow, so that was really nice for the morning.
I telemark ski, and I still haven’t quite “gotten” the cult that seems to surround it. I started doing it because alpine skiing never really interested me that much, but one of my friends is an avid telemarker, and the more he talked about it, the more interested I became. So, I still don’t quite “get” it when a complete stranger skis up to me, gives me a nod and says “Tele-mark-eeeer” and skis off. So, this happened to me on one of my first runs, and I just kind of gave the guy a blank smile until after he skied off, and I then realized he was also on teles. Interesting. Later in the day, I got chased down by one of the HoliMont ski instructors who was also on a tele set up so that he could tell me about the HoliMont Telefest on March 8th. Unfortunately, that’s a Friday, and unfortunately (or fortunately??) I plan on going up to Gore that afternoon. He also offered some helpful tips on how to improve my form and showed off his new Bulldog NT bindings that he loved. I have to admit I was pretty intrigued by them, myself. Anyway. It’s just this interesting phenomena that I am experiencing.
As with most ski areas I’ve been to, the people were friendly. HoliMont is a privately owned resort. You can ski there during the week if you’re not a member, but during weekends, and I think holidays, you have to be a member or have some sort of guest pass. Amy had a couple guest passes for me, so I had used those. As a result of this set up, there are a lot of families on the hill skiing, which is very cool to see, and keeps the atmosphere pretty laid back, but in control. You don’t see too many people shooting down the hill out of control. I only saw one, in fact, who almost took out Don on his way by, and then he promptly face-planted when he hit a patch of exposed ice. We couldn’t help but snicker at him. One of the really cool things about HoliMont is that they have gas grills out on the deck for people to cook their food. People left their bags full of food and gear all over the place, crockpots were going inside the lodge; there was obviously a huge level of trust amongst the people who come to HoliMont. It’s a pretty cool place to go, and I had a great time!
Saturday morning, we were at the mountain by 8:30 and on the slopes by 9. Amy was busy coaching, so Don took me on a tour of the ridge. There isn’t much vertical, 600ft totally, but the terrain is interesting and it has some challenging pitches. There are a few glades, but nothing very big. The mountain (which is actually more of a ridge) is divided into 50% black diamonds, 25% greens and 25% blues. Don and I started off on the green trail, Sunset, and took a couple runs to warm up. That trail was perfect for rippin’ big, arcing GS turns, and had a nice, consistent pitch to it. It was still early, so barely anyone was on it. We started working our way to the skier’s right, on a couple more blue trails, and then started down for the black diamonds. The black diamonds are tougher than my home mountain, Greek Peak, in that the pitches are more consistently long and a bit steeper. Not as challenging as at Gore though. The groomers had done an excellent job on the snow and conditions were fresh corduroy Saturday morning, which was quite hard set due to the cold temps and stayed throughout much of the day. My skis picked up some chatter at times, but it wasn’t too bad. Sunday we awoke to 3” or so of fresh, powdery lake effect snow, so that was really nice for the morning.
I telemark ski, and I still haven’t quite “gotten” the cult that seems to surround it. I started doing it because alpine skiing never really interested me that much, but one of my friends is an avid telemarker, and the more he talked about it, the more interested I became. So, I still don’t quite “get” it when a complete stranger skis up to me, gives me a nod and says “Tele-mark-eeeer” and skis off. So, this happened to me on one of my first runs, and I just kind of gave the guy a blank smile until after he skied off, and I then realized he was also on teles. Interesting. Later in the day, I got chased down by one of the HoliMont ski instructors who was also on a tele set up so that he could tell me about the HoliMont Telefest on March 8th. Unfortunately, that’s a Friday, and unfortunately (or fortunately??) I plan on going up to Gore that afternoon. He also offered some helpful tips on how to improve my form and showed off his new Bulldog NT bindings that he loved. I have to admit I was pretty intrigued by them, myself. Anyway. It’s just this interesting phenomena that I am experiencing.
As with most ski areas I’ve been to, the people were friendly. HoliMont is a privately owned resort. You can ski there during the week if you’re not a member, but during weekends, and I think holidays, you have to be a member or have some sort of guest pass. Amy had a couple guest passes for me, so I had used those. As a result of this set up, there are a lot of families on the hill skiing, which is very cool to see, and keeps the atmosphere pretty laid back, but in control. You don’t see too many people shooting down the hill out of control. I only saw one, in fact, who almost took out Don on his way by, and then he promptly face-planted when he hit a patch of exposed ice. We couldn’t help but snicker at him. One of the really cool things about HoliMont is that they have gas grills out on the deck for people to cook their food. People left their bags full of food and gear all over the place, crockpots were going inside the lodge; there was obviously a huge level of trust amongst the people who come to HoliMont. It’s a pretty cool place to go, and I had a great time!
