By Abigale Kreinheder
Allie Doro is the Snowsports Director at Holiday Valley, where she has worked for the past 6 years. Prior to her current role, Allie started as a ski instructor and worked her way up the ranks. Currently, she is busy organizing the end of the season events including the Winter Carnival. I took the opportunity to speak with Allie and get an update on how the winter season has been progressing at Holiday Valley.
Villager (V): How has it been for snow sports this year?
Allie Doro (AD): It’s been a pretty solid winter; we had a huge amount of pass sales and our Ranger program is bigger than I think it’s ever been: we’re over 200 kids. We’re still staying busy, there are new trends with passes…we’ve got the new RFID ticketing systems, so I think that’s been an adjustment. It’s been going well.
(V): Where are you from and how’d you end up at Holiday Valley?
(AD): I am from Ellicottville, I graduated from high school in Ellicottville. I was a ski instructor at HoliMont and did ski club at Holiday Valley. I went to school in Boston and then I went out and taught out west for about 7 years. I was in Steamboat and Aspen and this is my sixth winter back home.
(V): Holiday Valley has a unique community feel partly because it is still independent despite neighboring resorts being bought up by larger players in the industry, what’s your take?
(AD): It’s been interesting to watch that evolve and sort of take over resort after resort over the last few years and see how we’ve been able to stand on our own. I think they’ll stand independent for as long as they can…it’s definitely a family here at Holiday Valley.
(V): Are you directly involved with the hiring process of ski instructors?
(AD): I have a hiring committee and we’ve been doing that together for about 3 years with the same few people. I’ve overseen that whole process. We get a preseason team together and then work from there to get all the hiring together and schedules. We have a huge turnover from summer to winter as far as buildings and facilities go so, I help with a lot of that.
(V): Are the instructors mainly locals or are they coming in from out of the area?
(AD): It’s kind of a mixed bag…I would say probably half local like Allegheny, Olean kids, and Ellicottville kids, Great Valley, a bunch from Salamanca, and they’re all super close it’s really fun. They go to each other’s school dances, which is good, but they have work, and all ask to get off!
(V): How is the process and what advice would you give to someone looking to be an instructor?
(AD): We definitely put people through an equal opportunity, we try to have the process be as least biased as possible and look at how they interview with us, how they present themselves with each other, how we think they’ll be with children…I always ask them, are you fun? Personality is one of the biggest things we look for.
(V): We’re there any other new changes to programs or additional programs introduced this year?
(AD): Eagles were able to get back to doing a lot of the activities they couldn’t do over COVID. Our night crew, night lessons have been way up with a lot of school groups returning and getting our Canadian schools back this year. The Ranger program…a big change we did was started accepting every level, so they start their journey with us.
(V): How do you see the future of the ski industry here at Holiday Valley?
(AD): I think its important people don’t let light snow seasons affect their views on the ski industry. We’ve done an amazing job as a resort getting as much of the hill open as possible, maintaining as much of the hill as possible. Skiing is very much still alive…In the long run I think we have a really good system in place here to make man-made snow if we’re not getting any from mother nature and we just keep improving that…we’ll definitely be okay.
(V): Can you tell us what’s going on this weekend at Creekside for Mardi Gras?
(AD): We try to have a big party down here, so we’ll have music going, we have hot dogs being handed out on Saturday, there will be ice cream sundaes on Sunday, and we have face painting on Saturday, we’ll have a little bit of a candy scavenger hunt open to everyone. We’ll participate in the costume parade, it’s really fun, that starts at the top of Yodeler at the firepit down Mardi Gras. We decorate Creekside every year, we’re the reigning champions of the parade and of the decorating contest for Holiday Valley so we’ll see what we can do!
A full list of events for the Winter Carnival is listed on the Holiday Valley website under the Events page and can be found on page 8 of this publication.