RUMFORD — With 14 inches of snow already on the ground, Black Mountain of Maine is prepping the trails, moving the snow guns and getting ready to welcome visitors Dec. 26 for skiing, riding and tubing.

“We’re looking forward to another good season. Snowmaking weather has been absolutely perfect,” said Roger Arsenault, chairman of the board of directors for Black Mountain of Maine.

Speaking Dec. 8 at the River Valley Rotary Club, Arsenault said the numbers are up across the board — ticket sales, season pass sales. But most important is the ski school.

He said the ski area at 39 Glover Road has hired snow sports school director Brent Chapman of Aspen, Colorado, who has nearly two decades of teaching and coaching experience. He also spent five years as head coach for competitive snowboarding in freestyle and racing with United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association.

Chapman’s career has taken him to three countries, sharing his passion for skiing and riding around the world.

“He had no idea what this was going to bring, but the numbers for ski school are off the chart,” Arsenault said. “He’s managed to hire an awful lot of adults with experience. Numbers for all the programs are way up, and he was able to get additional blocks for kids.”

In October 2024, Black Mountain received $1.2 million in grants.

The first was for $483,000 from Northern Borders Regional Commission to purchase 15 new snowmaking guns.

The second was $775,000 from Congressionally Directed Spending to enable the ski area to double the size of the snowmaking pond so it will have an ample water supply to make the snow.

“We’ve introduced some of our new snowmaking guns that we got through the grant, and they’re performing really well,” Arsenault said.

Arsenault said getting the grants was just the beginning of the work.

“After that, the reporting, the paperwork, the waiting was enough to drive ya nuts,” he said.

He said they received the money in April, but the authorization didn’t arrive until near the end of July.

“So we weren’t able to do anything — spend any money, make any purchases — until that time,” he said.

Because of the delay, the mountain missed out on getting the snowmaking pumps installed, which had a 23-week waiting period.

“We won’t see those until late January,” Arsenault said.

The plan was to buy two new pumps to increase the capacity from 500 gallons a minute to a 1,000 gallons a minute.

The snow guns have been positioned up and down the Allagash and St. John’s trails, Arsenault said.

“In the past, it would be mid-January or a few days before to have that trail (St. John’s) open for the public. With a little luck, this year, we’ll be open probably for the holidays,” Arsenault said. “Next year, we’ll probably be open two weeks ahead of the Christmas holiday.”

In addition to that, Arsenault said they reconfigured some of the lines with the snow guns and “we’ll be able to have the tubing park and the beginning area open for the holidays, which is really big because that’s a big revenue draw.”

During the summer months, the base lodge and power system were updated.

“We’ve been working for years on the old base lodge, converting that to additional seating because we’ve started to max out the base lodge,” Arsenault said. “This summer, the staff has been working at putting in bathrooms in the facility, so that will be for people who are looking for a quieter experience.

“We also brought primary power to the top of the mountain, which we’d always been lax in doing so. That meant digging a trench from the top of the T-bar all the way to the summit, lining that with sand, putting in electrical wire, sand on top of that and backfilling. That took a long period of time, but that will provide power to the entire mountain and for future growth.”

Some small ski resorts in Maine have been struggling to get by as they work to stay affordable and relevant as a source of winter fun — all while trying to compete with the larger resorts.

“There was something in the paper recently about small community slopes really struggling and having a difficult time making it,” Rotarian Joe Sirois said. “Black Mountain is really an exception to what is going on.”

Arsenault pointed to climate change as a factor in the struggle.

“I look back on this climate change …The weather is changing. It’s affecting snowmaking in the industry worldwide,” he said. “This (project) is a game changer for Rumford.”

Arsenault said the next goal for the mountain is to bring the cross-country course back to life.

“We have, in the past, handled some very large competitions. But today, they require snow conditions that are World Cup standards before we’ll be given another event,” he said. “Now that we have the pumping horsepower and the guns, we’ll invest some energy in that direction in the future.”