By Carol Fisher-Linn
It’s that time again….
Since 1958, Holiday Valley has celebrated a spectacular, fun-filled Winter Carnival weekend for the entire family, with activities for both skiers and spectators. This biggest event of the winter season at Holiday Valley features a fabulous Snowbar, winter cookouts, a bar crawl, scavenger hunt, face painting, hot dogs, ice cream, wine and cheese, music, and more fun than you can even imagine having on snow.
In the book For the Love of Skiing, by Holiday Valley co-founder, Edna Northrup and her close friend, Lillian Congdon, they tell us about the many fun events started by the Ellicottville Ski Club. “From the beginning, the Ellicottville Ski Club brought the drive and enthusiasm for torchlight parades, ice sculpture competitions and spring festivals to give thanks for hearty winters.” Elaborate table settings were set up on the slopes of Yodeler and Independence complete with tablecloths, silver candelabras, and great silver trays laden with cakes, biscuits, and fruit. These accompanied the pancakes, sausages, and freshly made maple syrup that were served on site, with vases of winter bouquets decorating the center of the lavish tables. Fun-loving people that they were, the Ellicottville Ski Club members enjoyed dressing up in crazy costumes, so every spring they showed up in costume as part of the winter carnival activities. In 1958, Penny Cox from Canada was crowned the first Queen in the Village Square. As years went by, the parade became an annual event, moving to Holiday Run and led by fun-loving Al Kohler in top hat and tails.
The highlight of the spring festivities was the Hardware Heights Ball. Edna tells us this in her book, “A group of skiers spent the ski season living in a large, barn-like storeroom over the Ellicottville Hardware Store which was at 14 W. Washington Street. At carnival time, formal invitations were sent to select skiing friends for a formal ball in their decorated storeroom. A parachute was draped to catch the falling plaster from the ceiling. Tuxedos and long gowns were required. Invitations for the Hardware Heights Ball were the most sought-after prize of the ski season. If you were dancing in that cold, barn-like hall, you made it to the top.”
To add to the fun of Winter Carnival at both Holiday valley and HoliMont, a Mardi Gras parade was added in 1991 to the festivities in the village to bring some of the fun and celebration to the people in the community of Ellicottville. The idea for it came from the crowing of the queen in the village in 1958. It was time to bring that back, and so a new chapter of Winter Carnival was added. This year, the Mardi Gras parade is held in the village on Saturday, March 9 at 6pm, beginning at Katy’s Café and marching to the gazebo in the center of town. Once again, as he has for many years, Punxsutawney Phil and his handler AJ Dereume, will be Masters of Ceremony for the event.
One of the highlights of the events that take place at Holiday Valley during this fantastic weekend is the traditional costume parade on Sunday at noon on Mardi Gras (hence the name of the village parade). This year’s theme is Outer Space, and what’s really out of this world is that the BEST costume winner is awarded a ski pass for next year. As if that’s not enough, this crazy, fun event is followed by more music, wine and cheese, hot dogs, ice cream and at 2:30, an even wilder event called the Dummy Downhill. No, people do not race in this – in the Dummy Downhill, participants use their creative talents to build any kind of dummy on skis or a snowboard. The dummies are then pushed down the hill and sent over a ramp, much to everyone’s delight. So, don’t you be a dummy. Be sure to participate in as many fun events as you can during this very entertaining winter holiday weekend. And remember to come into town on Saturday night for the festivities before and after the Magical Mardi Gras parade.
A schedule of Winter Carnival events at Holiday Valley can be found online at Holiday Valley: https://www.holidayvalley.com