ELLICOTTVILLE, N.Y. — Even when Mother Nature is not cooperating, Holiday Valley and its terrain park staff find a way to make the slopes the place to be.
What You Need To Know
- Holiday Valley typically sees 400,000-500,000 visits per season
- Marketing Director Dash Hegeman said this year is not much different despite less snow on the slopes
- He credits the ability to make snow and the hard work of the terrain park team to keep the slopes maintained
“We’re just making the conditions of snow the best they can for the customer,” said Mike Nenno, terrain park and events manager from the driver’s seat of a $500,000 snowcat.
He grooms the snow that has been packed down by ice to make the top layer more powdery and with ridges like corduroy.
The machine is one of five others just like it, plus one smaller one. It helps when there is already snow on the ground, but when it starts to get bare, they employ 200 snow-making guns — which cost roughly $10,000 each.
“It’s an expensive investment but well worth it when we’ve got these weather patterns that aren’t giving us, say, the lake-effect snow that Buffalo’s gotten this year,” said Dash Hegeman, Holiday Valley director of marketing. “As long as it’s cold out, we’re able to do a really fantastic job of making a lot of snow.”
These tactics together help keep more than half the trails open even on the warmer days of the winter.