The Gray-New Gloucester High School Alpine ski team is hard at work training for the upcoming ski season. Yet to a casual observer, they look nothing like a ski team. Instead of waxing their skis and descending snowy mountainsides, team members are building their endurance by training on bikes and grassy trails.
The balmy temperatures this December is a bittersweet introduction to winter for Mainers. There are those embracing the warm weather, while others are wondering where Old Man Winter is hiding. Most skiers fall firmly into the latter category.
“The weather is really hard for the ski industry in general,” said the ski team’s head coach, Evan Mancini. Weather permitting, his skiers train and compete at Shawnee Peak Ski Area in Bridgton.
Rachael Wilkinson, director of marketing at Shawnee Peak, knows all too well how the unpredictable weather can affect the ski season. Last year, Shawnee was open the first weekend in December, but this year the temperatures have kept the mountain from opening on a regular basis. Although a few trails were open on Dec. 16, it has been difficult to make and maintain enough snow to open the mountain for the season.
Wilkinson said this has “impacted skier numbers,” but likely won’t have a great impact on Shawnee Peak’s finances, due to the resort’s lower operating expenditures during the past month.
“We would have loved to have been open,” she said, “but (the bottom line) is not a huge concern for us right now.”
On Dec. 19, temperatures dipped to the mid-20s, which Wilkinson said is “ideal” for making and maintaining snow. As temperatures decrease, the snowmaking gets better and more efficient.
“We can make snow as long as it’s freezing,” Wilkinson said.
Pictures of snow blowing across the mountain were posted on the Shawnee Facebook page during the weekend, while the snowmakers pushed to get the mountain covered in white. Wilkinson says the mountain is closed Dec. 20-25, during which time workers will be making as much snow as possible, a tall task considering temperatures were barely freezing. Shawnee Peak plans to open for business Dec. 26, two weeks later than last year.
The story is similar for other local ski areas, as well. Matt Sabasteanski, outdoor recreation director at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, said the lack of snow and warm temperatures is “frustrating” for the cross-country ski area. The warm weather has enticed people to Pineland for walking, running and playing on the disc golf course, which Sabasteanski says they recently took down “in anticipation of snow. We’re being hopeful we’ll get some winter.”
For Pineland, this season isn’t much different from last year, when they “didn’t get snow until right after Christmas,” according to Sabasteanski, who checks weather reports daily. “Right after Christmas if there is no snow, it will start to impact (Pineland’s bottom line).”
Seacoast Adventure in North Windham, which features snow tubing in the winter, is experiencing similar frustrations. When asked about business, Park Manager Chris Guerette responded, “Well, we don’t have any.”
“(We’re) set to lose a lot of money, but we hope to make it up. We will have the ropes course open on Saturday and Sunday to bring people in,” said Guerrette, referring to an obstacle course suspended in trees at the fun park on Route 302.
The park has put away the go-carts, miniature golf course, and other features in anticipation of colder weather that has not come.
To make snow, the park “pretty much need(s) five nights in a row where we get temperatures in the mid-20s,” said Guerette. Until then, “we’ll just have to wait for Mother Nature to help us out a little bit.”
According to Eric Sinsabaugh, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in Gray, the warmer weather can be attributed in part to El Nino, “a strong warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific (Ocean). The pattern it sets up tends to give us warmer than normal temperatures, especially in winter,” Sinsabaugh said.
This year has been “a record breaking event,” he said. “We haven’t seen a strong El Nino since 1998, and this one is stronger than in 1998.
“The forecast for El Nino has it stretching right into the spring, so we can expect more of the same as far as warmer weather,” he added.
Cold outbreaks, when they do happen, will not last nearly as long as they did last winter, Sinsabaugh said.
The snow report “is pretty dismal looking forward,” Sabasteanski said, “and this is New England – we’re supposed to be a four-season state.”
Mancini says for now, the Alpine team will take advantage of the warm weather with their dryland training, which the skiers enjoy. And until winter arrives in force, Sabasteanski encourages everyone to “keep doing their snow-dance so we can enjoy winter.”
The Gray-New Gloucester Alpine ski team cross-trains on mountain bikes on trails in the Libby Hill Forest in this Dec. 11 photo. The team is usually out on the slopes of Shawnee Peak by this time of year.Send questions/comments to the editors.
