RANGELEY – The route to the Black Fly Festival was covered with purple, pink and white lupine on Sunday, a perfect setting for an event meant to welcome wildflowers and send off the black flies.
To take care of the pesky and sometimes painful pests that did remain, everyone at the festival received their own bug repellent.
Festival headquarters were at the Rangeley Lakes Trail Center on the Saddleback Mountain Road.
“It’s a little off the beaten path, but I like that,” Ana Weatherill of Dallas Plantation said. “I’m excited they’re doing this. I hope they bring it back again.”
Event coordinator Carol Sullivan is already making plans for next year. “We’ll have more vendor spaces, live music, more games and more competitions and other fun stuff for kids,” she said. “But for the first year, it’s good. I’m happy.”
Vendors of arts, crafts and homemade food items lined the area where the Rangeley Cross Country Ski Club plans to eventually have a permanent lodge instead of the yurt they use now.
The trails system served as the course for a family treasure hunt.
Admission to the festival was free, but any money raised from registration fees for the treasure hunt and ticket sales to the Maine Hysterical Society Sunday night will be put toward a lodge and other improvements, like a starting area for cross-country races. Excavation for the start area and a 5K loop that will meet race standards will begin this year so they are ready for events in early December.
“We’re expanding the trail system, which is something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and we’re making some refinements to the trail system,” Sullivan said.
Cross-country skiing isn’t the only purpose of the Rangeley Lakes Trails System. The facility is also for hikers, walkers and mountain bikers.
“They’re making it year-round, and I’m ready for that,” Weatherill said. She and her husband and their children ski on the trails and look forward to doing more.
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