Vaughan to Ellicottville and Holiday Valley: the ski weekend by chauffeured car

Ellicottville, and why Vaughan skiers cross

Ontario skiers know Blue Mountain and the Collingwood hills; the ones who cross the Peace Bridge for Ellicottville do it for three things: Holiday Valley's terrain — sixty slopes across three faces with a vertical of 230 metres, the most in the region, a snowmaking system that opens in November and lake-effect snow that Buffalo's weather delivers by the metre; the village — Washington Street's bars, the Ellicottville Brewing Company, Dina's, the Gin Mill and the après-ski that Collingwood does not have in one walkable block; and the slopeside lodging that puts a family two hundred metres from the lift. In summer the hill is Sky High Aerial Adventure Park's ropes courses, the mountain coaster and the Sky Flyer zipline, and the October Fall Festival fills the village with Ontario plates. The Holiday Valley site has the hill; the Ellicottville site has the village; the border guide has the bridge.

The road, in snow

From Kleinburg the 407 and the QEW to the Peace Bridge, I-190, I-90 east one exit and US 219 south — the expressway to Springville, then the two-lane road through the Enchanted Mountains' hills to Ellicottville — three and a third hours by the estimate and three and three-quarters with the booth and the winter road. The 219 south of Springville is the reason the trip is chauffeured: lake-effect snow, hills, and a Friday evening in the dark; the SUV on winter tires with a chauffeur who has driven it is the family's difference from the cars in the ditch, and the ski rack or the Sprinter's bay carries the equipment for six.

Holiday Valley

Sixty slopes on three faces — the Yodeler's steeps, Mardi Gras's cruisers, the Tannenbaum beginner area, the Cindy's Run terrain park — thirteen lifts including three high-speed quads, night skiing on twenty-two slopes, a ski school with a children's programme, the Yodeler Lodge, the Tannenbaum Lodge and the Creekside Lodge at the base, and a season that runs from late November to early April on the strength of the snowmaking and the lake. The resort's site sells the lift tickets and the lessons in advance, which for the Family Day and Presidents' Day weekends is the way to have them.

Holimont, the private hill

Next door, Holimont is the country's largest private ski club — members only on weekends, with its own fifty-plus slopes on a north face that holds the snow — and its midweek days are open to the public; a Vaughan family that skis Holiday Valley on Saturday and Sunday can add a Holimont Monday, and a family with a member friend has the weekend's quieter hill. The club's site has the public days.

The village

Washington Street is Ellicottville: the Ellicottville Brewing Company's taproom, Dina's for dinner, the Gin Mill's après, Madigan's, the Silver Fox steakhouse, the Balloons restaurant, the ski shops and the outdoor stores, Nannen's for the ski wear; the whole village is a five-minute walk from end to end and from the base of the hill, which is the reason nobody drives after four — and the reason the chauffeur's weekend is the drive down and the drive home, with the Saturday released. The village site has the calendar; the Mardi Gras weekend in March and the Fall Festival in October are the village's biggest.

The lodging

The Tamarack Club at Holiday Valley's base — condominium suites with kitchens, the pool, the ski-in access — and the Inn at Holiday Valley across the road are the slopeside choices; the village's inns and the rental houses on the hills around it are the group's. The travel desk holds the Tamarack for a family of five and a house for a group of ten, and the winter's holiday weekends book in the autumn.

The summer version

Sky High Aerial Adventure Park on the hill is the largest aerial ropes course in North America — thirteen courses in the trees, from the children's to the black — with the mountain coaster's two-kilometre track down the slope and the Sky Flyer zipline; the Holiday Valley pool, the mountain bike trails and the village's summer patios fill the rest, and a Vaughan family's summer weekend is the ropes on Saturday and Griffis Sculpture Park's two hundred and fifty steel figures in the meadows twenty minutes north on Sunday. The resort's summer page has the aerial park's hours.

The weekend, in shape

Friday at 3 from Kleinburg with the skis in the Sprinter's bay: the Peace Bridge at 4:40, the 219 in the dusk, the Tamarack Club by 7:15, the village for dinner; Saturday's first chair at 8:30 with the lift tickets bought in January, the children in the ski school at nine, lunch at the Yodeler Lodge, the last run at 3:30 and the Gin Mill at four; Sunday's morning on Mardi Gras, the pool at noon, the Sprinter at 1:30, the Peace Bridge at 4 with the 48-hour exemption on the ski wear from Nannen's, Kleinburg by 6. Two nights, the Sprinter as a return, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

The 219 in lake-effect snow on a Friday night; the ski rack, the roof box and six people's boots in two cars; the Sunday drive home tired from two days on the hill; and the après-ski question of who drives to the Tamarack from the Gin Mill — nobody, because the village is walked. For a couple the SUV is a treat; for a ski family of five or a group of ten in a Sprinter it is one fare and two cars fewer in the ditch.

Seasons

Late November to early April for the skiing, with January and February the deep months and the Family Day weekend the fullest; March's Mardi Gras weekend for the village's party; summer for Sky High and the coaster; the second weekend of October for the Fall Festival, when the village's street is a fair and the hills are red; Thanksgiving weekend — the Canadian one — for the first snow on the hill and the village quiet.

Pairing it

Ellicottville pairs with Buffalo's wings and a Sabres game as the Friday night for a group that arrives early, with Chautauqua an hour west for a summer family, with Letchworth ninety minutes east for the October gorge, and with the Bills on a Sunday for the group that skis Saturday and tailgates Sunday.

The Friday night, in order

A ski family of five from Kleinburg on a February Friday: the Sprinter at 3 with five pairs of skis and boots in the bay and the children in their base layers; the QEW in the last light, the Peace Bridge at 4:45 with a fifteen-minute wait and the passports in the envelope, the 219's expressway to Springville, the two-lane road's hills in the dark with the snow starting and the chauffeur on winter tires at the speed the road allows, the Tamarack Club's door at 7:30 with the skis to the locker, and Dina's on Washington Street at 8:15. Four and a half hours in the snow, and the cars in the ditch on the 219's last hill are the trip's argument.

The Mardi Gras weekend

Ellicottville's Winter Carnival — the Mardi Gras weekend in the second week of March — is the village's biggest ski weekend: the parade down Washington Street, the costumes on the hill, the bands in the bars, the Holiday Valley pond-skimming contest and the spring snow; a group of ten from Vaughan books a rental house on the hill and the Sprinter for the weekend in December, because the village's beds are gone by January. The village site has the weekend's schedule.

Costs, plainly

The Ellicottville weekend is a return in the booking engine — the Sprinter for a family of five with skis or a group of ten, the SUV for a family of four — and the lift tickets, the lodging and Nannen's ski wear are the family's own, with the 48-hour CAD 800 exemption per person on the way home. Against the fare are the 219 in snow twice, two cars' worth of racks and boots, and the Sunday drive home after two days on the hill; a couple does this in a car, and a ski family of five or a group of ten books the Sprinter for one fare and a driver who has done the 219 in a whiteout.

The Fall Festival weekend

The second weekend of October is Ellicottville's Fall Festival — Washington Street closed for the craft fair and the food, the hills at their colour, Holiday Valley's chairlift running for the view over the Enchanted Mountains, the Sky High ropes in the red trees, live music at the bars — and it is the weekend Ontario plates fill the village; a Vaughan family books the Tamarack in the spring, the Sprinter drives down on the Friday, and the chairlift's ride at ten on Saturday is the photograph. The village site has the festival's schedule.

The ski school and the children's day

Holiday Valley's Snowsports School takes children from four in its Mountain Adventures programme — a full day with lunch, the magic carpet and the Tannenbaum beginner slopes, the badge at the end — and a Vaughan family's Saturday is the children in the school from nine to three and the parents on the Yodeler's steeps and Mardi Gras's cruisers between; the lessons are booked with the lift tickets in January on the resort's site and the school's meeting point is at the Creekside Lodge, two hundred metres from the Tamarack's door.

The group's rental house

A group of ten from Woodbridge sleeps in a rental house on the hills around the village — the hot tub, the kitchen for the Saturday breakfast, the ten pairs of skis in the mudroom — with the Sprinter dropping at the door on Friday and collecting on Sunday, and the village's five-minute walk making the vehicle unnecessary between; the travel desk holds the house, which for February weekends is gone by November.

Booking it

Book a return from your Vaughan address for the weekend with the skis, the boots and the seats counted; tell us the lodging, the lift tickets' days and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the 219's forecast on it.

Book the Ellicottville weekend