Snowmaking operations give resort a head start on nature.
By Terry Karkos
Staff Writer

NEWRY – A handful of skiers hit the slopes Monday afternoon when Sunday River Ski Resort opened for the season.

Despite a forecast for high temperatures in the 40s and a wintry mix of rain and snow this week, resort officials threw caution out the window and made snow for 60 hours straight, said spokeswoman Susan DuPlessis.

“The mountain ops guys felt very strongly that we had a very ski-able product up on the hill,” DuPlessis said Tuesday. “They thought it would be a crime for us not to get up on the slopes.”

As of Tuesday, American Express on Spruce Peak and Broadway at South Ridge were open, with base depths ranging from 2 to 5 feet of machine-made snow.

“We’re starting with our core trails in the middle and then we’ll go up and out, left and right, to get the peaks done. We’ll try and get the ski-in ski-out trails to our hotels and condos done between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” she added.

Last winter, the resort opened a week later with 10 to 15 trails ready, but skiers weren’t happy with the late start.

“Last year, we wanted a lot of terrain open so we could come out with a big bang on opening day,” DuPlessis said.

“This year, we really heard from many guests and went with an opening as early as possible. We’re really going to go for it,” she added.

Snow guns on the mountain emerged from hibernation on Oct. 20 and began spewing snow in conjunction with an early snowstorm in the Mahoosuc Mountains that blanketed Jordan Bowl, Aurora and Oz peaks. They kept going whenever conditions indicated the work would be worth it.

“A few hours of effort and the top of T2 was covered with two to six inches of snow, and we just happened to be there to make a few test turns,” DuPlessis said.

Tuesday morning, DuPlessis said she went out on the ungroomed American Express trail and “it was nice. It was really edge-able.”

To complement its aggressive snow-making effort this winter, the resort bought four new groomers.

On Friday, it expects to open Ecstasy and Cascades on Barker.

Besides the groomers, other big changes include placing stronger marketing emphasis in Maine and the Boston area, shifting marketing efforts away from television to radio and newspapers, and a price reduction on early sales of season passes.

“We get 60 percent of our business from the Boston area but Maine is still very important to us, obviously, because we rely on Maine skiers for day traffic,” DuPlessis said.

By reducing prices early for season passes, officials hoped to get lapsed and sometime skiers and riders back and on the slopes more often.

Last year, season passes sold early for $1,049 and jumped to $1,200 after August. But this summer and fall, prices dropped 40 percent to $599 for a restricted pass and $299 with 16 non-valid dates from November through February.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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