With all that happened during the summer you might not expect to see many changes at Black Mountain for this coming season. Well, you would be very wrong. We may have gotten a late start, but we have made some significant improvements all over the mountain.

We have cut trees at the bottom of the Lower Androscoggin, to help with race day crowding on the bottom of the trail. We have also cleared a large section of trees on the Sandy. For those of you unfamiliar with the Sandy, it was a goat path through the woods at the bottom of the Allagash. Now it is a large trail, with a full bridge and is perfect for beginners when they get to the bottom section of the Allagash.

Speaking of the Allagash, for any beginners who skied past the stumpy St. John last season to continue on the easier Allagash, take another look this season. The trail has been fully de-stumped and is a great addition to our beginner level summit trails.

Black Mountain has a new warming hut at the top of the mountain this year. Built largely with donated material and the help of volunteers, the summit warming hut will be open to the public as a place to sit down, warm up, enjoy the view, and make a new friend or two.

We have also received a grant from Allagash Brewing Company to expand the Last Run Pub. The goal of this expansion is to create more seating in the lodge.

This season we added five Puma snowguns to our fleet, bringing our total number of snowguns up to 11. Taking into account the improvements we made on our snowmaking system last year, and the ideal snowmaking weather we have had over the past month, we are going to be in a very good place when opening day rolls around.

We also got new snowmaking pipe donated to us with the help of Pete LeCours, a long-time Black Mountain skier, by Abington Group Inc. Thanks to Al Bancroft, of Bancroft Contracting Corporation, the piping was transported to the mountain. It has been added to the novice snowmaking system which now reaches the bottom of the Sandy. It will also be used to expand the snowmaking on the Kennebago to reach to the top of the final headwall at the bottom of the Allagash.

With an ever-growing system of glades scattered around the mountain, thanks to the Angry Beavers, Black Mountain has something to meet every skier’s desire. We can’t wait to see you on the slopes!