Tubing at Peek N Peak

The snow had been falling at a good clip, so we decided to take the kids tubing. They haven't done this in our area before, though they did go tubing when we took a trip to Park City a couple of years ago. Neither boy could remember having done it, though, so it was a "new" and exciting thing to do.

Unfortunately, we forgot the simple fact that it was President's Day weekend. Apparently, everyone in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Western New York goes snow tubing on this holiday. The line to get a lift ticket was impressive. In actuality, they oversold the hill.

We were lucky enough to get onto the tubing hill before they had sold too many tickets. Soon, there were far more people on the hill than there were tubes. The staff was extremely unhelpful and told people to take tubes from those who already had tubes as they came down the hill.

You can imagine how popular this was: an adult taking a tube away from a little 5 year old child, or harassing other adults to get a tube for a run down the hill.

Large groups of people began leaving and asking for a refund. Some of them had driven hours to go snow tubing. We tried trading off tubes, but once you let your tube go, it was nearly impossible to get one back. Fortunately, the crowds thinned considerably as people left and demanded refunds. We had gotten to the hill in the nick of time, and were ahead of the insane rush.

We did have a great time, but the stress and people begging/bullying/pleading for tubes was awful (especially after paying $54 for two hours of sledding time). Next time, we'll go to Holiday Valley or to a new little tubing hill in Warren, PA. The staff at Peek N Peak was completely apathetic and did nothing to facilitate the exchange of snow tubes as people came down the hill.

The kids absolutely loved sliding down the hill, so the hassle was worth it in the end. They laughed and yelled and shouted for a full two hours of sliding time. When our time was up, we headed back to our car and took two happy (and tired) boys home.

A Second Trip to Holiday Valley

We decided to take a second ski trip to Holiday Valley on February 10. It was 9 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left Jamestown, and the temperature dropped as we headed toward Ellicottville. Thank goodness for Gortex and long underwear!

The ski school area was packed, and we couldn't get Nolan into the morning session of "Little Troopers." He is under the age of 6, so he can only take a half day lesson in a small group - we managed to get him into an afternoon class, but this meant Dennis and I couldn't ski in the morning. Matt made it into his class with no problem, since the group sizes are bigger as the kids get older.

We dropped Matt off with his ski school class and took Nolan over to the tow rope area to practice turning. Nolan was born without any sense of danger, so his idea of skiing involves rocketing down the hill at the highest speed possible. His motto is, "Let's ski in the trees! Or off a cliff!" Fortunately, we have convinced him to control his speed and he is getting better at using the tow rope without assistance.

Nolan skied for quite some time on this small hill. I love Holiday Valley for the variety of terrain for little kids: there is the magic carpet for very small kids, the tow rope slope, and the bunny hill (School Haus run) with a chair lift.

Soon it was time for Nolan's class, and Dennis and I took off to ski for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, my skis had been sharpened and waxed just before this trip. This is usually a wonderful thing, but they waxed my skis with "high performance" wax, which meant I was flying down the slopes at an incredible rate of speed. I went past Dennis, which is saying something since he normally is ahead of me by quite some distance. I far prefer a more leisurely pace (my thoughts while skiing were something along the lines of "I'm going to die -I'm going to die"). It was a bit much for me and I was ready to quite skiing by the time Nolan's class was ready to let out. I picked both kids up from ski school while Dennis enjoyed a few more runs.

Matt's ski instructor said he was ready to move up to the Trail Blazers group, which means Matt is ready to "explore the mountain." The Trail Blazers group does the blue and black runs. Apparently, every time the instructor turned around, Matt was on her heels. He skied several greens and an easy blue run with her.

There is a kiddie terrain park on the side of the School Haus run area, and the kids loved this. I took them there while waiting for Dennis. Matt liked the jumps and Nolan liked the flat rails to skid across.

Dennis arrived from his jaunt down a few different runs and we went to the coffee house to share a cinnamon roll. Matt showed me the runs he did on his trail map.

Since Matt is now able to ride a chair lift independently and can ski green and blue runs, he went with Daddy to explore the resort a bit. They went down Mardi Gras a few times, which Matt enjoyed.

In the meantime, Nolan and I waited and played in the snow until they returned.

Once Dennis and Matt returned from their trip down the ski hill, we all headed over to School Haus so Nolan could take a ride on the chair lift. Matt and I skied together, and I could hardly keep up with him!

After skiing down the bunny hill a few times, the kids wanted to return to the terrain park. They played on the features there, and I decided this is one of the best new additions at Holiday Valley for kids. It is just the right size for little kids who want to practice new tricks!

The kids didn't want to leave. They love skiing so much! The sun started to set, however, and we were all tired. We took one last look at the lights on the trails, turned in the kids' rental skis, and bid farewell!