Ski area upgrades aim to lure more to slopes

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AUGUSTA – It’s time to grind rails, get some big air and maybe try for a tail grab – all while Mom and Dad go glading.

That is, skiing and snowboarding season has arrived in northern New England. The 2004 season brings an avalanche of changes to the slopes of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont aimed at satisfying thrill-seekers and traditionalists alike.

Skiers and riders will find new and expanded glades on the region’s mountains, offering a varied experience to those who are ready to ease up on the throttle a tad and cruise between the silver birches or snow-brushed evergreens.

“In a way, they’re really seeing winter at its best,” said Greg Sweetser of the Ski Maine Association.

They’re also helping to keep lift lines shorter. Sweetser said ski areas find that the little extra time it takes skiers to run through the glades helps to free up space and expand lift capacity.

Among the areas to add glades are Sugarloaf USA, which calls its new runs Kick Back and Boomscooter, and the smaller Black Mountain in Rumford.

Virtually every ski area in the region has a terrain park, and many have been expanded or modified with new hips, spines, rainbow rails, half-pipes and other devices to keep the boarders – a key segment of the ski market – flying and smiling.

“Terrain parks are very, very big,” said Alice Pearce of Ski New Hampshire.

Ski areas know how popular they are with the lucrative market of teens and young adults, who are as adept at surfing the Net to locate the best half-pipes as they are at influencing their parents’ vacation plans.

“Teens make decisions on where to go,” said Pearce, “based on hits and rails and jumps.”

Mount Abram, a smaller ski area near the seven-peak Sunday River in Newry, got the message and converted a tube run into a terrain park.

Terrain parks are no longer the exclusive playground of snowboarders. The new arrivals are younger, hipper thrill-seekers who use – brace yourself – skis.

“It seems to me it’s definitely in vogue to be a skier again, especially in the terrain parks,” said Heather Atwell of Ski Vermont Areas Association.

Snowboarders who came on the scene in the 1980s were the new breed, the rebels, with their peculiar equipment and affinity for jumping on things.

Then came shaped skis, which empowered even average skiers to do amazing things on the slopes. Now it’s coming full-circle.

Along with expanded glades and terrain parks, downhillers will find a whole lot of building – with a touch of nostalgia – this season.

At the Saddleback ski area in western Maine, new owner Archie “Bill” Berry Jr. is cutting ticket prices and adding new snowmaking equipment and groomers to lure more skiers back to the state’s second-highest ski mountain.

Berry saw use drop to 16,000 last year, down from 45,000 a year during the 1970s when he started skiing there.

He has plans for an advertising blitz and improved conditions to get the numbers back up.

The new owner also wants to give the place a more Maine feel by dropping the Western-style names and renaming trails for fishing flies, such as Green Weaver and Gray Ghost, just as when the resort first opened 44 years ago.

Maine’s ski industry, while including a few giants, is also known for its abundant scattering of small ski areas, which are priced for families and are marked by their down-home informality. Some offer $10 lift ticket prices and two-for-one deals.

Camden Snow Bowl, in addition to offering the unusual slopeside scenery of a sparkling Atlantic Ocean, has Maine’s only toboggan chute, offering skiers and nonskiers alike a thrill that’s not easily forgotten.

With added emphasis on terrain parks, smaller ski areas have learned that bigger is not necessarily better.

As Sweetser said, “You are what you are, so just enhance what you have.”

Making a total re-entry into New Hampshire’s ski industry is Crotched Mountain, which closed about a dozen years ago and has been completely refurbished by its new owners, Pearce said.

The Francestown resort’s three- to five-year development plan includes such improvements as automated snowmaking and night skiing, and it is not alone in ambitious development projects in the Granite State.

Bretton Woods is boasting a new high-speed quad chair lift and a dozen new trails this season, and Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch has 10 new trails and a new quad. Pearce said at least eight new ski lifts will appear in the state this season.

New Hampshire ski areas managed to let the economic downturn of the last few years pass almost without notice, due to the state’s balance of modest, family-oriented areas and all-service resorts.

Some Granite State ski moguls’ decision to introduce low-cost season passes in 1999 helped them to weather the economic storm. And the fact that Interstate 93 snakes through the heart of New Hampshire’s ski country hasn’t hurt, Pearce said.

“I’ve been here since 1991, and I’ve never seen so much expansion,” Pearce said.

Interstates 95 in Maine and 91-89 in Vermont also get travelers from the south within striking distance of the most popular peaks in those states, although some noninterstate travel must be expected.

Vermont, which boasts the nation’s third-highest number of skier visits per season behind Colorado and California, is seeing a building boom, although many of the new accommodations won’t be available until next season.

Okemo Mountain, Sugarbush and Stowe Mountain resorts are in the midst of projects that include hotels, base lodges and condominiums.

Okemo in Ludlow plans to have 16 new trails and glades, a 117-unit hotel, restaurants and a base lodge open in December. Jay Peak has put $10 million into vacation rentals and lift, trail and snowmaking expansion.

Bolton Valley is adding a terrain park and half pipe, and Burke Mountain has doubled its glade skiing area.

Back in Maine, Sugarloaf also has added 50 new low-energy-use snow guns.

A new 20-passenger snow cat with wraparound windows will transport more guests, more comfortably, to Sugarloaf’s midmountain lodge for gourmet dinners on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Trailside and base condominiums are also under construction.

Vermont resorts are offering an array of deals to take the sting out of what can be an expensive sport, such as season passes, vacation packages and one offering a free season pass for purchasing a vacation package.

Ski Maine sells a passbook for $575 that includes 50 discount tickets for all 18 of the state’s ski areas.