It took a few years but I finally made it to Rumford to actually ski from the top of Black Mountain.

I had skied there years ago, but not since the new triple chair boosted the vertical to 1,150 feet. It was a last-minute decision, and I had forgotten the notices I had received about the big collegiate cross country race taking place last Saturday.

As I drove into the parking lot, I was stopped by an attendant who asked if I was there to ski or for the races. When I answered I was there to ski, he directed me to the upper parking lot, where I parked within a few steps of the base lodge. After carrying my skis to the deck on the slope side of the lodge I checked in with mountain operations manager Bob Chase and learned that directing Alpine skiers to the upper part of the lot was one way of accommodating skiers while directing the racers to the lower lots.

I also learned that it hasn’t really worked. When big cross country races are scheduled at this area with an international reputation for such events, local skiers stay away.

This day was no different, even though the conditions were near perfect – an inch of powder over a packed base. There were a half dozen racers training on a side trail and maybe a dozen or so other skiers riding the summit triple. I could quickly ski each of the runs from the top and swing down a side trail that took me to the top of the beginner area.

There, I found a near perfect teaching area. Set in an area where faster skiers have no reason to ski, the area has its own double chair and several runs with a gentle pitch that won’t intimidate. Three or four instructors were working with some small children and a few adults. The three-story base lodge has lockers, rentals and offices on the ground floor, cafeteria, seating and museum on the second, which is level with the base area around the lifts. Last Run Lounge occupies the third floor.

The design of the lodge and the cross country trails is integrated to assure Alpine skiers are not inconvenienced in any way, even during a major race. The base area is designed so the cross country trails run parallel to the parking lot, set well below the base area. A bridge connects the lodge to the lift area, so alpine skiers don’t have to cross the Nordic trails. This integration of Alpine and cross country is ideal, allowing both to flourish.

The Chisolm Ski Club keeps things humming. The club and the mountain have now teamed with UMF’s Ski Industries program for a junior Alpine program. I saw Ron Bonnevie working with some young racers on a long GS course. Bonnevie is head of coaches’ education at UMF and brings 25 years of coaching experience and certification at the highest levels.

Black is a lot of mountain for $25 a day and don’t be deterred if it happens to be race day. You can also try the mountain free Thursday nights from 4 to 9 p.m. For details, check www.skiblackmountain.org or call 207-364-8977.

Following my trip to Black, I had a talk with Greg Sweetser of Ski Maine, who had completed the Peak to Peak trip the previous weekend. Our conversation moved to Maine’s community ski areas and the smallest among them.

Greg and the others on the four-day journey were struck by how visiting some of the smaller areas must have been similar to skiing in the early years. For example, Spruce Mountain in Jay has three rope tows and Shawnee Peak started as Pleasant Mountain with a single rope tow in 1938. Baker Mountain in Moscow has a single T-bar and the first skiers at Sunday River had a T-bar and a rope tow. Sugarloaf started with a rope tow and had nothing but T-bars until the Gondola was erected in 1965. In these days when we see ski areas putting in new million-dollar lifts along with snowmaking and new runs in a single summer, it’s hard to picture the humble beginnings of Maine’s ski areas. But that’s how they all started. Only a handful, with benefit of geography and size, grew into destination resorts.

While all started as community areas, some have remained that, serving the local area. Greg mentioned how Quoggy Jo, with 225 feet of vertical, had almost all snowboarding kids. “The pitch is like West Side (the nearly flat beginner area at Mount Abram), so they have all kinds of hits (terrain park features), and you can see how the kids practice turning on the way up the T-bar.”

This is the way small community areas survive and turn out the skiers and snowboarders, who will soon travel to the bigger mountains.

Greg and his team got more than a run at all of Maine’s ski areas on their trip. At some, they got to step back in time, an experience similar to the adventure skiing in the beginning. It’s one more reason to visit some of our smaller areas.

Dave Irons is a freelance writer who lives in Westbrook.