The deal: Another Western NY rail jam, before winter? Yeah, Holiday Valley in Ellicottville NY hosted the second local rail jam of the fall. It was on the bottom of the Mardi Gras which is Holiday Valley’s main run. Riders from all over New York came to throw down and participate in some early season shred.
The Setup: Holiday was able to blow a forty foot long, forty foot wide patch of snow due to recent cold temperatures. Their park staff put up a jib barrel, and two flat boxes.
The Story: When I first got there I didn’t see anything too impressive, just some local snowboarders getting back on their board for the first time this season. It wasn’t until the local shredders showed up that the contest lit up. Big Supa (David Glover) and the Revolution crew (Johnny Centi, Tim Cooley, Bill Cooley, Andrew Williams, Caleb Erb, Greg Mareri, and Brett Mason) arrived to throw down. Everyone started catching the positive vibes from Big Supa. I mean, he was throwing down Jackson slides like it was his job. Then a kid named Frankie (15yrs old) started doing SMOOTH backside 270’s onto the bigger box. At this time all the riders starting reaching into their bag of tricks. Other tricks were thrown like Caleb Erb’s 270 on 270 out, Brett Mason did a sick cab 270, One foot stalls, and even a hand plant on the barrel.
The jibbing was supposed to end at 3 but people wouldn’t leave. At around 4 the park crew started to take down the boxes and barrel. They threw the boxes and barrel into the wet grass. So everyone started hitting the jumps. The crew got a little annoyed, so they tore down the jumps. Then Greg Mareri had a brilliant idea to have a train going through the grass and popping onto the boxes. About five people actually did this. It was like a whole new challenge. We had to ride through a couple feet of wet grass and pop an Ollie onto the boxes.
After a couple hits of this, we were told to stop and leave. We were bummed, but of course they would get a little ticked. They were super nice people. We thank them a lot for having a rail jam in November.
Big thanks to Billy Bacon from Peek n Peak and Pat Morgan from Holiday Valley for showing their support for the local rippers.