As a skier I was pretty happy to have winter start as early as it did. We were booked to head to Gore Mountain for 3 nights. Sadly when I checked the conditions at Gore, the day before we were about to leave, I learned that they weren’t even half open! Since the drive is 7 hours we looked for a closer spot with some great snow. Now if you follow my blog you know I love Holiday Valley but we like to try new spots and HV would be crammed for the holidays. So we settled on Peek’n Peak close to Erie.

We booked ourselves in to the Holiday Inn Findley Lake – closest accommodations to the mountain outside of the resort that was full. We drove down on the scenic trail along the lake and would have stopped at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Graycliff if it had been opened.

We stopped for lunch at Aunt Millie’s Kitchen and Bakery thanks to my Foodspotting app. We had a delicious lunch and took one of these gigantic cream puffs to have on new years eve.

And while we drove down it rain it snowed over night and all the next day we skied. It was a great little spot. Not a super high hill but very scenic and lots of spots for enjoying a snack and a bite to eat. Wood burning fireplaces in the lodges too.

And Findley Lake is a quaint little town that is very scenic. Don’t expect any fine dining if you do go down for ski weekend.