RUMFORD – “It’s called snow. It’s white and powdery, and we haven’t seen much of it,” Black Mountain of Maine spokesman Craig Zurhorst said Tuesday afternoon to skiers and snowboarders marveling at a world of white atop the 1,150-foot-high mountain.
About 8 inches had fallen Monday and Tuesday, adding to the 16- to 40-inch base of groomed packed powder. Eight of 20 trails were open and three of five lifts running.
The marketing and development manager from Andover stood to one side of the Summit Triple Lift, looking back down at Upper Androscoggin Trail and began snapping pictures of people and snow-plastered trees.
“We’ve had a weird January, but it looks like February will do good things for us,” he said of long-range weather projections.
“The weird part is that January has been both dry and warm. Normally, it’s cold enough for us to make snow, but we got bit by both. We’ve had plenty of precipitation, but it was the wrong precipitation,” Zurhorst said.
“Every inch of rain is roughly equal to a foot of snow, so 40 inches of snow is what we should have had,” he added.
Despite opening for the season on Dec. 26, Zurhorst said Black Mountain’s season unofficially began last Saturday and Sunday. More than 700 visitors enjoyed the mountain Saturday; another 300 did the same the next day.
“It was just amazing! This weekend was the way it’s supposed to be!” he said.
Of those 700 plus, 363 teens from nearly 30 Maine high schools were competing in the largest Nordic event in Maine this year, the Jon Sassi Memorial 5-kilometer Cross Country race.
“We had so many Nordic racers and the mountain was full. We had a tremendous amount of traffic in spite of the Nordic race,” he said.
What made Saturday even more surreal for January was the day’s 48-degree high temperature.
“Spring skiing in January! That’s unheard of until you get to March,” Zurhorst said.
Ski patrol member Victor Collette, who skied off the lift delivery area at the summit at that moment, said, “Saturday was very nice in the afternoon, because it was warm, and there was plenty of snow.”
Before heading downhill, he yelled back to ski patroller Jim Carter, “This is the best we’ve had all year! All of a sudden, I can ski again!”
And that mentality is what Zurhorst believes brought people out in droves last weekend.
“If people are thinking they have to mow their lawn, they’re not thinking about skiing. That’s the negative psychology of this weird weather,” he said.
“People saw snow earlier in the week, and started thinking about skiing again,” Zurhorst added.
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