Most Underrated Ski Towns

Never been to Ellicotville, but a walkable town with 700 vertical of natural snow skiing sounds almost perfect to me. Every day doesn’t have to be 30,000 vertical and there’s always big mountain skiing at the airport.

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It's not the steepness of the ride, the difficulty of the ride or the length of the ride .....its just about "the ride".

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x10003q said:
The title of the thread is "Underrated Ski Towns". Ellicotville is a known apres party spot because Holiday has been overrated for years on best Eastern ski areas lists. The only reason the ski area is even on these top East lists is because so many people ski at Holiday, not because the skiing is any good.

I understand we take the hand we are dealt, but nobody is driving to Ellicotville and Holiday/Holimont if they can drive to real vertical in the same amount of time unless you like partying more than skiing. Ellicotville and Holiday/Holimont are the only game for a vast population area and are very popular because of that, but lets not confuse popularity and ease of access with quality skiing.
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I was thinking more in terms of NY skiblog where eastern/central NY and Vermont dominate the discussion.
Ellicottville is rarely mentioned, despite the fact that EVL is very much a great ski town and located only 5 minutes from 2 mountains. There is no other town like that in NY to my knowledge. So here on this blog at least EVL is "underrated" as a ski town.


Yes HV and HM lack the vert but they both work with what they have to give the best experience possible. Superb lift capacity for hot lapping, nice trail variety, abundant snow making and excellent grooming. They probably also have more true pow days than any other mountain in NY.

There's underrated and undiscovered. We're kind of blurring the lines in many comments here. But frankly it's hard for anyplace in the NE to be an undiscovered ski town in my opinion.

Yes North Creek was on the LIST, and as much as I really enjoy Gore and find North Creek a quant place that I enjoy visiting, it's hardly a town. More like a sleepy hamlet.
 
No doubt skiing is a lot about proximity. Snow, terrain, proximity and of course "other."

Ellicottville is 5.5 hours from me, the Adk is about 4.5.

For me personally it's about the mountains. If Holiday Valley was in North Creek, I would ski there.
 
Andy_ROC said:
I was thinking more in terms of NY skiblog where eastern/central NY and Vermont dominate the discussion.
Ellicottville is rarely mentioned, despite the fact that EVL is very much a great ski town and located only 5 minutes from 2 mountains. There is no other town like that in NY to my knowledge. So here on this blog at least EVL is "underrated" as a ski town.
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Ellicotville is rarely mentioned because this is NY Ski Blog, not NY Apres Ski Blog. The Central NY members do not visit HV because they have similar or better skiing right where they live in the Scranton-Syracuse corridor and have a short drive to the Catskills. They can get to Gore/WF/VT in as much time as it would take to get to HV. Those members that are in the NY Metro- Albany corridor are never going to drive 4-6 hours for HV when 4-6 hours can get you to some of the best skiing on the East Coast/Eastern Canada.
Andy_ROC said:
Yes HV and HM lack the vert but they both work with what they have to give the best experience possible. Superb lift capacity for hot lapping, nice trail variety, abundant snow making and excellent grooming. They probably also have more true pow days than any other mountain in NY.
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HV could get 500" of powder/season and I am still not driving 5.5 hours from NNJ to ski 500 vertical feet lifts. It seems that this is true for most skiers when they have the choice. I can get to Sugarbush in 5hr, WF in 4:15, Killington in 4hr, SVT 3:30, Gore 3:15, Plattekill in 2hr and Belleayre in 1:40.
Andy_ROC said:
There's underrated and undiscovered. We're kind of blurring the lines in many comments here. But frankly it's hard for anyplace in the NE to be an undiscovered ski town in my opinion.

Yes North Creek was on the LIST, and as much as I really enjoy Gore and find North Creek a quant place that I enjoy visiting, it's hardly a town. More like a sleepy hamlet.
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I agree.
 
x10003q said:
The Central NY members do not visit HV because they have similar or better skiing right where they live in the Scranton-Syracuse corridor and have a short drive to the Catskills.
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Huh? C’mon now ... Ya gotta study yer geographical definitions.
Scranton ain’t CNY.
It ain’t even in the dang UpState.
 
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