RUMFORD — With more than $1.25 million dedicated to increase its snowmaking capacity, the small Black Mountain of Maine ski resort has worked to stretch those dollars in the wake of the ever-increasing cost of equipment.

Included in the work the resort did this summer with its employees and volunteers was building a new pumphouse and installing a new higher capacity pump system that will more than double snowmaking output, according to Roger Arsenault, chair of the Black Mountain board.

Arsenault, also a leading member of the Chisholm Ski Club, spoke at a Business After Hours event Sept. 30 at the ski resort.

He said the resort had four snowmaking guns in 2003, and “since then, we bought, bartered and stole 47 snow guns, 20 were purchased through the Northern Border Regional Commission grant for $388,000. We’re looking to get, maybe 10 more, and with a little luck on the cross-country course, we’ll have five.”

Besides the Northern Border grant in 2024, Black Mountain received $775,000 from a Congressionally Directed Spending. Community supporters contributed $102,555 in matching donations to secure the Northern Border grant.

Phase one of the project began in May 2025 with the purchase of five new mobile snow guns and 15 new tower guns. Throughout the summer, the tower guns were installed on the Upper Allagash and Saint John trails. A second transformer was also installed at the top of the triple chairlift to provide adequate power to the snowguns on those trails.

Building the new pumphouse and installing the new pump system was part of phase two, which is slated to be completed for the 2026-27 snowmaking season.

“Obviously, we don’t use it until we need the snow,” Arsenault said. “If Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate, we can make it happen. In the events that we run, we have to make a national commitment, and a guarantee.”

As part of the Business After Hours event, Black Mountain Outdoor Operations Manager Rob Wutzdorff gave a tour showing the work done over the summer.

“We’ve kept on some snowmakers year round and they’ve been helping us through this,” he said. “We’ve had some great volunteers, people that Roger (Arsenault) has known for a number of years and we appreciate their help.”

Their team, he said, is fewer than 10 people.

“I’m super proud of the guys for making this happen because none of us are professionals. I don’t want to sell us short, too. I’ve been in the construction trade somewhat since I was in my teens,” said Wutzdorff, who is in his 6th full year with the mountain. “I love it up here. My parents were a bunch of ski bums from New Hampshire and I found myself in the ski industry again after getting my feet wet years ago.”

Wutzdorff said phase two began in early June.

“We got the pumps in place and we’re just connecting some pipe right now,” he said. “We’ve been doing some welding out there, and that will connect us to the mountain from the new pumphouse. And we’re waiting for a transformer to be dropped and we can have power to those pumps down there.”

Arsenault estimated that in another two weeks they’ll be close to operational. Then, the manufacturer comes in and starts the pumps.

“And they give us the once over, because this is all new technology and computer programmed all variable frequency drives and a panel to run it,” Wutzdorff said. “So, we’ll be learning a bit as we get into this.”

Wutzdorff said the new system will allow them to start the system quicker and stay running in between the trails without having to shut down the whole line.

“We can send a crew up, shut the guns down first, and just switch lines in the pumphouse,” he said, “and that will save us hours, probably a good half day total from the start to finish of the process of shutting down and starting back up.”

Wutzdorff said snowmaking is the most expensive operation on the mountain.

“They’ll be some growing pains with the new system, I’m sure, but it’s a much more efficient system, pumping much more water,” he said. “You’ve got to have a good snowmaking system these days or you won’t make it. You’ve got to be efficient and can’t be wasting money out there.”

For the snowmaking reservoir, Wutzdorff said they excavated a hole of 150 by 250 feet that’s about 34 feet deep.

The pumphouse lines will run to five different areas of the mountain and will likely include the trails of Allagash, Summit, Upper Sunday, Novice and Nordic, supplying a thousand gallons per minute at 900 pounds of pressure out of the pumphouse.

“We were 500 gallons per minute and 645 pounds of pressure previously. So, we’ve doubled our volume going up the mountain and not quite doubled our pressure, which should help us at the top of the mountain because we’ve always been low on water pressure up there,” Wutzdorff said.

The pumphouse is also known as the mountain operations building, which Wutzdorff said will eventually be called the Skip MacFawn Building. MacFawn was a lifelong volunteer, ski patroller, patrol director and board member who dedicated more than 50 years to the ski resort.

The expansion project is slated to be complete for the 2027-28 snowmaking season with the final phase being to expand the snowmaking reservoir by more than 150%, increasing the water capacity to roughly 5 million gallons from the current 1.9 million gallons.