NEWRY — After an unusually warm winter with little natural snow, the last three open ski resorts are close to shutting their doors for the season.
Sunday River in Newry, Sugarloaf in Carrabassett Valley and Saddleback in Rangeley are looking to close soon, but not before big event weekends.
Sunday River is closing the season Sunday with free lift tickets. They’re also having a free barbecue and music for New England pass holders. More than 30 trails are still open.
Saddleback will reopen this weekend for a Hawaiian party and pig roast with a snowmobile acrobatics show by RaveX. About 20 trails are open there.
At Sugarloaf, the Reggae Festival begins Thursday night and runs through Sunday. The festival features music by Castafari, CuLLu, Sixth Degree, Dread Rocks, Pulse Prophets and Gorilla Finger Dub Band.
Sugarloaf spokesman Ethan Austin said the resort hasn’t set a closing date yet. There are 22 open trails on the mountain.
Ski Maine Executive Director Greg Sweetser said 2011-12 was a challenging year. “Not for a lack or terrain, but the lack of snow in people’s backyards.” According to Sweetser, the season hasn’t been too bad on the mountains, but with so little snow in southern and central Maine, it’s been hard to convince Mainers there was still snow in the mountains.
“Typically, we can battle this backyard no-snow syndrome,” Sweetser said, but it’s been hard having bare ground all year.
Sweetser said larger mountains were able to keep most of their terrain open this year thanks to robust snow-making operations. Others made do by shifting resources. Sweetser said that when Black Mountain hosted the U.S. National Cross Country Championships in January, it moved snow-making equipment from their alpine trails to cover the cross-country areas.
“That was the right decision,” Sweetser said. “They got national publicity for being able to pull off the national championships.”
He said some resort owners are planning on ramping up snow-making by installing more equipment this summer. Still, bringing in Mainers often requires having snow on the ground everywhere. He said low plowing budgets are good for towns, but it means smaller crowds for ski areas. “I guess we want to see more plows on the street.”
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