GREENWOOD — For the first time in more than two decades, Mt. Abram Family Ski Resort opened a week earlier than normal last Saturday, offering two trails, thanks to the addition of 60 high tech snow-making tower guns.

Those guns and a return to seasonal temperatures will also enable the resort to quickly rebound from heavy rains earlier this week to reopen this weekend, resort Marketing and Sales Director Kevin Rosenberg said Wednesday.

“We’re snow farmers, so we’re slaves to Mother Nature,” he said. “Rain, as we look at it in our business, it’s just premature snow. It drains into our snow-making pond and we can then turn it into snow.”

As temperatures fell from the high 40s and low 50s on Monday back to more seasonable cold, snow-making resumed.

“Our crews have been working around the clock, and we’ve got our system maxed out when the cold temperatures are there,” Rosenberg said. “With this new technology, we’re able to run our system at three times more efficiency.”

A Sustainable Slopes Project Grant the resort was awarded last spring from the National Ski Areas Association, provided the money for the new snow guns, which replaced all of Mt. Abram’s dated equipment.

“So having the new system means we can open sooner, create a more consistent product on a day-to-day basis, and it makes us able to respond to poor weather events like this past weekend and be able to recover and be open again for this coming weekend.”

“That’s really the value of us adding the equipment from our standpoint,” Rosenberg said. “In the future, with this system, it might start to allow us to be open for more days as our customer base grows.”

After this weekend, the resort will resume its normal operational hours for the season from Thursdays through Sundays, starting Dec. 23. Mount Abram will also be open during all Maine school vacations and school holidays.

Rosenberg said there just isn’t enough skiers and snowboarders coming out on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays to justify staying open then, too.

“It’s a tough one when you just can’t say you’ll be open every day, but our customers don’t seem to mind,” he said. “It’s a few days of less revenue from operations, but it’s also a savings for our operations budget.”

“This way we can maximize for when skiers come to our slopes,” he said. “It seems to work great for us, and the midweek days help make us shine. But once we start having long lift lines every day, then it means our product is good enough to have another day added.”

On Wednesday morning, Mother Nature finally kicked in 4 inches atop the resort’s 100-percent man-made snow base, which rejuvenated spirits. That and the possibility of a typical New England nor’easter looming for Sunday and Monday, Dec. 19 and 20.

“The positive vibes are up,” Rosenberg said. “We’re all doing our snow dance here and we’re crossing our fingers. A nice nor’easter would be great to see. It would mean more terrain for Christmas week.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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