Sunday, January 27, 2013

Sunday, January 27, 2013

A picture really is worth a thousand words.  The top of Sunset.


Keepin’ it safe in the parks at HoliMont



 
We are now in the tail end of National Ski Safety Awareness Week; a time where ski areas across the nation put that little bit of extra emphasis on making sure that their guests stay safe while on the slopes. 

Here at HoliMont, where safety is always of the utmost importance, Area Control Manager Justin Latimer and his staff have been diligent in their efforts to spread the good word of safety.  One of those areas of emphasis has been terrain park safety.

If you’ve spent any time watching the X-Games lately you know that the world of snowboarding and freestyle skiing is now reaching stratospheric levels.  These guys and girls make boosting off kickers, and out of the pipe, look like it’s no big deal.  Just watching their athletic endeavors is enough to get your adrenaline pumping.  Unfortunately for us mere mortals, these feats are accomplished by seasoned professionals who spend hours every day training in order to master their skills.  And even with all of their hard work and dedication, sometimes, bad luck sets in.

Sadly, just over a year ago, the freeskiing community lost a very beloved member due to a totally random accident.  Sarah Burke was seriously injured while training on the Park City Mountain Resort Eagle superpipe in Park City, Utah. This was the same pipe where snowboarder Kevin Pearce was seriously injured in 2009.  After nine days in a coma, Burke succumbed to her injuries on January 19, 2012. 

As fun as the snow sports that we all love are, the reality remains that there is an element of danger in skiing and snowboarding.  And while HoliMont does everything it can to ensure that its members and guests are as safe as possible, safety cannot be guaranteed.  With that said, HoliMont continues to pursue more ways to make the area safer.  A couple of seasons ago we implemented  “Smart Style” signage in the terrain parks.  Smart Style is a Terrain Park Safety initiative that was developed by the National Ski Area Association (NSAA) and Burton Snowboards.  The goal of the initiative is to continue the proper use and progression of terrain parks at resorts, while also delivering a clear, unified, concise, and effective message.

To further the educational aspect of Smart Style NSAA also teamed up with the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) and the American Association of Snowboard Instructors (AASI).  Together they came up with a Get Smart consumer informative video.  The video encourages park users to abide by the four points of Smart Style:

  1. Make a Plan
  2. Look Before You Leap
  3. Easy Style It
  4. Respect Gets Respect. 

The video also highlights the concept of ATML, which is all about looking at a terrain park feature in four steps:

  1. Approach
  2. Take-Off
  3. Maneuver
  4. Landing   

For years HoliMont has mandated that terrain park users wear helmets but a few seasons ago the safety bar was raised another level.  The HoliMont Terrain Park Crew started offering a Smart Style training where people could watch a Smart Style video and then take a short test.  After passing the test, skiers/riders got a sticker to put on their pass.  That sticker signified they were familiar with Smart Style and knew the proper terrain park etiquette. 

“We’ve had a tremendous interest in our terrain park program, which as a result has really increased our safety awareness in the parks,” said Latimer.  “Statistically, our injuries have decreased ever since we implemented the program.”

The Smart Style test program is voluntary.  However, HoliMont is looking to make it mandatory in the near future.  So when you visit HoliMont this year take the test and get your Smart Style on.  You’ll be glad you did…and so will the other people in the terrain park.   


Hot Tips for Cold Days


  By Dan Balkin
HoliMont Snowsports School



One can only approach Mother Nature with awe and reverence.  That said, I’m writing this article to lay down a challenge.  Please, Mother Nature, let it get really cold for string of days in January so that the ground will freeze and our heroic snowmaking and grooming crews (who often work while we sleep) can finish what they started.  I have never feuded with Mother Nature, so I’m hoping that she will heed my request.  When it does get really cold, here are a few tips and tricks that I have learned while whiling away the greater part of my lost youth at ski areas.

Rule #1 – While skiing, warm feet always trump hot legs

* Wait until you are about to ski to put on your ski socks.  Your feet will start to perspire if you have your ski boots on        indoors (eating breakfast etc.) or if you are walking or driving to the ski area.  That perspiration can contribute to cold feet while skiing.  If your feet are more prone to sweating while skiing, it is an excellent idea to switch to a new pair of socks at lunch.

* Buy real ski socks – the thinner the better.  Almost all good skiers ski in thin ski socks.  Thicker socks and ski boots are bad combination as they tend to bunch up a create pressure points on the feet.  Given that your ski boots fit correctly, thinner socks wont pinch the arteries at the top of your feet that keep warm blood flowing through your lower extremities.

* Like all technology, boot heaters have continued to improve.  If you are perennially plagued by cold feet – boot heaters are invaluable.

* Have some means to dry your ski boot liners.  If you put the boots away wet, and the next day is cold – that moisture will create cold feet sooner than you can say “ It is ok to sprinkle a wee drop of water into single malt scotch because it opens up flavors that were not evident by drinking the whiskey straight up.”  Well maybe you would actually have to say that twice – but you get the idea.  I use a ski boot specific portable fan that I can insert in both boots at night. Taking your liners out at night is another option – but that is often a cumbersome process and it creates a lot of wear and tear on your liners if you do it all the time.

* Don’t ever put your ski boots in front of a fire.  The last time that I was multi-tasking by sprinkling water into a glass and gazing affectionately at my ski boots I had an epiphany:  Ski boots are made out of plastic!!!  Plastic gets weird when it is overheated.  Ski boots that morph into new shapes through overheating tend to be uncomfortable.  This is    especially true if one of the great boot fitters in town has grinded, punched, or otherwise adjusted your ski boot so that you can ski in blissful comfort – overheating your boots can undo their expert modifications.

* Don’t stow your ski boots in the trunk on the drive to the ski area.  The warmer and drier your boots are when you put them on – the longer you will ski in comfort on a cold day.

* A product called the “Dryguy Ski Bootglove” also works great on cold days.  It is a neoprene “bootglove” that effortlessly attaches over your ski boots.  It really helps to hold the heat within your boots. 

Rule #2 – Don’t ever let Vladimir Putin get mad at you.  None of these tips work in Siberia.

Why Cake Doesn’t Matter

By Dan Balkin
Holimont Snowsports School


Many years ago when I was about twelve years old I was happily gobbling down a donut at a greasy spoon when a middle aged guy walked by and said “Enjoy that now, for you won’t be able to do that your entire life and get away with it.”  He was, of course, talking about the ability to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, without gaining weight.

Alas, those days have disappeared along with my original Rock Em Sock Em Robots game and 207cm straight skis.  So what does this have to do with skiing?  Everything.  In middle age and beyond, excess food finds a way of clinging to the human body.  Surprisingly, however, it does not greatly impede the ability to be a top-notch recreational skier.   Why?  Skiing is essentially a sport of active legs and a stable upper body.  While you need a balanced and stable upper body to ski well, the muscles that turn your skis are almost entirely in your legs.

Consider this fact:  65% of the average person’s weight is concentrated in the upper body, 35% in the lower body.
No fearless scientist has yet calculated if this is still true after we gorge ourselves on holiday treats in December – but I digress.  This is the mantra of the good skier:  “You ski with your legs, you balance with your upper body.”  In essence, that mantra is saying that you use your legs to turn your skis and your upper body to adjust your balance.  If it is not 100% true, it is essentially true and captures the spirit in which most recreational skiers should approach the sport.

Defining upper and lower body:  In layman’s ski terms, the lower body is everything from the ball joints in your hip sockets and below.  The upper body consists of our hips and everything above the hips (torso, shoulders, arms and head). If you stand up and simultaneously twist your feet to the left and right WITHOUT moving your hips and shoulders you can immediately feel the difference between the upper and lower body – the lower body rotates and the upper body remains stable.

The Problem:    Many recreational skiers use their upper bodies (hips and shoulders) to help turn their skis.  In other words, many people twist their hips and shoulders to the left to help make their skis turn left.  But if you are turning your skis to the left by rotating your hips and shoulders to the left, your skis will most likely be overpowered and the tails of your skis will skid sideways.  This also creates issues with your balance, because you are then turning your upper body uphill.  The last time I checked, we always turn downhill when we ski, so an upper body that is rotated uphill is in a very poor position to start a new ski turn.

The Solution:  Think about twisting (turning, rotating, steering) BOTH your legs to the left to turn left.  As was
mentioned earlier, practice this maneuver by keeping your hips and shoulders stable and facing straight ahead while turning both feet to the left and then both feet to the right.  This works especially well on any safe flat spot at the ski area while standing in your ski boots.  If you can turn both your feet (again, with your skis off)) without turning your hips and shoulders, you will create a shallow “bow-tie” looking impression in the snow under your ski boots.  If you can transfer that sensation into your ski turns, you are correctly using your lower body to turn your skis.  To be honest, you really need a lesson from an experienced coach or instructor to fully understand what I am trying to describe.  But if you think about turning your legs – instead of twisting your hips and shoulders – to get your skis to turn, you are grasping the essential concept.   

Some historical perspective:  (French Royal Minister on the eve of the French Revolution)  “Madame Queen, just as you instructed, the butter-churning peasants are all turning their legs, not their hips or shoulders, to make ski turns in the French Alps.”    Queen Marie Antoinette’s cheeky reply:  Just as I suspected, they can gain weight and still ski well if they turn using their legs instead of their upper bodies - LET THEM EAT CAKE.”

While it may be true that you can’t have your cake and eat it too - you can have your cake and good skiing too.
Isn’t life grand?

Wrapping up the 15th Annual SkiScape


Last Sunday, the 6th of January, the organizers from Kids Escaping Drugs came down to HoliMont to host the 15th Annual SkiScape event.  SkiScape has become a time-honored tradition at HoliMont.  Every year around the beginning of the New Year, Kids Escaping Drugs partners up with HoliMont in order to raise funds for the development of its facilities and the continuation of its programs in Western New York.

Kids Escaping Drugs is an organization that is unique to this area.  In many places, kids who are in need of drug and/or alcohol treatment are placed in facilities with adults.  The Kids Escaping Drugs Campus consists of three buildings that house up to 62 chemically dependent youths ages 12 to 20. Renaissance House is a 30-bed intensive treatment facility for boys, Stepping Stones is a 16-bed girls’ residence, which combines both inpatient and continuum of care programs and the Promise House is a 16-bed continuum of care residence for boys.

“Obviously this organization (Kids Escaping Drugs) works on a daily basis dealing with some very serious issues,” said Dash Hegeman, HoliMont Marketing Director.  “HoliMont is happy to be able to add some on-snow fun to the fundraising process.  This season we had a solid turnout and unlike last seasons event it really looked like it was winter outside, which is always a good thing this time of year.”

With every chairlift open over the weekend, the Kids Escaping Drugs crowd had access to 35 trails and some exceptional conditions on the slopes. 

Each season, one of the main attractions is the Annual Firefighter Ski Race.  Firefighter crews from all over the state traveled to HoliMont to compete for bragging rights and a pretty impressive trophy.  This year the North Boston team, led by HoliMont Safety Patroller Sean Crotty, just missed out on the 1st place trophy when a team from Palenville, NY edged them out.  The North Boston Women’s team took 3rd place.  As always it was an exciting and very entertaining race to watch.

“Every year the firefighters who attend this event look forward to being able to ride the lifts and spend time with the young people who come out for Kids Escaping Drugs,” said Crotty.  “It gives them time to connect with young people who they might not otherwise be able to spend time with on an average day.  Plus, it connects two great traditions that they are all passionate about; firefighting and skiing.”

Back in the Main Chalet the Silent Auction featured some fantastic items that ended up collecting a lot of bids (at the time this article went to print, the fundraising total for the day was not available).  There were donated items from both the Buffalo Bills and Sabres, dining packages, golf and spa packages, products from local ski shops and much more. 

Turning 50 Is Just The Beginning


In 1962 a small group of people embarked on a venture that would eventually change the lives of tens of thousands of people.  These people, all skiing enthusiasts, loved skiing at Holiday Valley but were growing tired of waiting in line at the increasingly popular ski area.  They began to envision an area that provided a family-friendly atmosphere that was void of the lift lines that they were becoming more and more prevalent at the Valley. 

Originally the thinking was that if they could get 300 people to buy a membership to the club at $1,000 a piece it would provide enough funds to be able to build a lift and pay for the land.  They then planned to cover operating costs by a controlled sale of individual guest lift tickets.   And while this original plan isn’t exactly what ended up happening during the beginning years of HoliMont, it did create the foundation of the infrastructure that is HoliMont today.

In the early years there was no ski lift.  Prior to the 1963-64 season a snowcat doubled as transportation to the top of the area where skiers had access to eight different trails to make their way back down to the bottom.   Members and their guests would ski down at roughly the same pace and then take their skis off, load them onto a sled attached to the snowcat and then sit on the same sled in order to get pulled back to the top of the hill.  On very cold days the occasional lucky woman and children were allowed to ride in the snowcat.  There is a saying that goes something along the lines of, “those who wish for the past weren’t really there to experience it.”  Can you imagine essentially cat-skiing at an area with approximately 700 feet of elevation in this day and age?  Instead, 50 years later HoliMont is proud to be celebrating the addition of its first high-speed detachable quad.  The Exhibition Express will help increase traffic to the top of the area and allow people to disperse throughout the area even easier than ever. 

HoliMont’s monthly newsletter, the HoliLeaf (originally The Holly Leaf), was first published in 1964.  In it, the Membership Report states that the Club had 117 members.  Today the Club has over 4,000 Members.  

Just as HoliMont has evolved, so to has the town of Ellicottville.  In fact, Ellicottville as we now know and love it is astronomically different from the early days of skiing in this area.  At one point this quite town didn’t even have a restaurant and every Saturday night one of the local churches would host a potluck dinner where families who were in town to ski could congregate and eat after a fun day out on the slopes.  The price: about $2 for adults and $1 for kids. 

Naturally, as Ellicottville grew so to did HoliMont.  What started out as a small club of friends was, by 1972, transforming into a full-fledged ski area.  The addition of the Plum Creek Chair in 1972 attracted an entirely new demographic of skiing families due to the increased amount of skiable terrain.  By the end of the season HoliMont even had a wait list of people who were hoping to become Members. 

As you can imagine a major reason for the Club’s growth during that time period was due to the number of Canadians who were becoming Members.  There were already a decent number of private ski clubs north of Toronto and once word started to spread that there was a club just south of the boarder that offered skiing equal to, if not better, than the Canadian clubs and at a more affordable price it didn’t take long for HoliMont to develop a Canadian vibe that has only grown stronger over the years.

On the topic of things that have grown stronger over the years, the HoliMont Racing Program once started out as a very laid back, no frills gathering of Members.  Originally, adults with racing experience would teach kids about the art of racing on a pretty informal basis.  However, as time went on and more technology was incorporated into the area, the program began to grow in popularity.  One example of this growth is that when the program first started racers were restricted to racing on slopes the officials could see both the start and end point of the race because the race official at the top of the hill used a flag on a pole to signal the start of the race, which told the official at the bottom of the hill to start his or her stopwatch.  Eventually walkie-talkies were incorporated into the process and this allowed for longer races as officials at the top and bottom of the hill now had a more effective way of communicating.  The program really took off when a Member, using a kit, put together the Club’s first electric timing system.  Having the technology of an electric eye was a true game changer and was probably the catalyst for building the program up to what it is today.  Today HoliMont racers compete all over the east coast and some even compete on a national level. 

One thing that has been a HoliMont fixture from the beginning is the social foundation of the Club.  Members have a long history of pulling together and planning various après ski activities.  Lately, annual favorites include the New Year’s Eve Celebration, Men’s Day, Ladies Day, and the always-festive Jimmy Buffet Party.  On weekends where there are no large parties on the calendar, Member’s and their guests can usually expect to see a local band in the Chalet entertaining everyone who isn’t out on the slopes.  Being in the Chalet on a busy January Saturday afternoon after spending all morning out tearing it up on pristine corduroy is a part of what the HoliMont Membership experience is all about.  Families and friends come together to talk about their powder run through the Sunset Glades or jibbing the new dinosaur funbox or cruising down Greer and are able to escape from the rest of the outside world.  And at the end of the day that is what HoliMont is here for, to be a safe place for Members and guests to congregate, have fun and make a lifetime of memories. 

For more information on HoliMont please call 716-699-2320 or visit us online at www.holimont.com.