Ellicottville, N.Y. (WBEN) A small avalanche took place Monday at Holiday Valley Ski Resort in Ellicottville. "There was a snow slide on the trail known as "The Wall," Marketing Director Dash Hegeman told WBEN.
It's a result of all of the snow that has fallen this early in the season.
"It's a testament to just how incredible of a winter we've been having so far. We've received over 62 inches of natural snow and The Wall is a very steep hill," added Hegeman.
No one was injured when it happened. The trail was closed.
Hegeman said it was a result of a lot of snow falling on top of ground that wasn't completely frozen. In addition, snowmaking operations were underway. Unfortunately it resulted in a snow slide.
"The good news is that our mountain operations team has been able to take the snow from the bottom of the hill and push it back up the slope."
It has happened before on "The Wall". Hegeman prefers the term "slide" to avalanche.
"The Wall isn't an extremely long slope. Personally, I don't know the exact definition of when it goes from a slide to an avalanche, but snow has previously slid on The Wall before. Our team does a really good job of monitoring that slope for that reason."
The resort is now preparing to deal with a warm-up.
"This is a little bit of a setback from how we started the season. But these weather cycles happen. We've been able to make a lot of snow and our grooming teams will have their work cut out for them," he added.
Holiday Valley, on Wednesday, was reporting a 16 to 40 inch base.
You can check their webcams here.