Skiing across Maine

You know those obnoxious people, who post breathy Facebook updates with lots of exclamation points of glee!!!!! when the groundhog sees his shadow or StormCenter breaks in with another dun-na-na dun-na-na announcement of a blizzard baring down. Don't you just want to send them and their snowy smugness to Canada, where it is supposed to be cold and covered with white stuff in April?

Well, this one all but went.

Hi. My name is Samantha Warren, and I am a winterholic. Luckily, I married one as well and together, we curse the cruel season that is spring for sending our substance downstream. We also ski, skate, shovel, ski, smirk, shoot, ski, scrape and this year, even ski race. As if all that wasn't enough, this season we decided to push our passion for powder to a whole new level to discover if really did descend from snowmen by embarking on a journey that was all about the destinations: every single ski mountain in Maine!

Sponsored by SkiMaine, the Peak to Peak Challenge is a contest to ski/ride all of Maine's 17 mountains (there are 18, but one is closed this year for renovations), from Powderhouse Hill in South Berwick (check) near the New Hampshire border to Lonesome Pines (check) in Fort Kent, a mere 360 miles north in the shadow of Canada.

Kyle and I can't exactly remember whose idea this was (it sounds like the sort of nonsensical scheme I would dream up) but seeing we had bought the SkiMaine quad pack pass, which gives you four tickets to all the big ski areas in the state and two tickets to the smaller ones, it made sense to at least try. The logistics of the thing were a bit tricky. We wrote up a season schedule of when we'd hit each hill, only to discover that some of the smaller mountains have limited hours (take for example Powderhouse Hill, open Wednesdays and Fridays from 7 to 9 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m.) and a much shorter season than the big guys- Sugarloaf, Saddleback and Sunday River.

Of course, the greatest challenge of this challenge was going to be making it up to the three ski areas in the county (Aroostook): Big Rock in Mars Hill (279 miles north of Portland), Quoggy Jo in Presque Isle (291 miles north of Portland) and the jewel in the crown of Maine skiing- Lonesome Pines in Fort Kent (317 miles north of Portland). Somewhere along the way we'd have to hit Mt. Jefferson too, a small town hill in Lee (189 miles northeast of Portland), as well as Hermon Mountain just outside of Bangor but far from western Maine where the majority of the mountains were.

The trip was slated for this coming weekend, but one Thursday in mid February while talking about our ski plans for the coming days, Kyle and I looked at each and said the proverbial "#$&* it!" 24 hours later, we were off on a 750 mile, five mountain tour de force that began Friday night when I picked Kyle up at work in Augusta and ended on Sunday evening when we collapsed onto the couch just as another 25 inches of snow began falling in southern Maine!

Now growing up at Sugarloaf, I thought that mountain was the only one in Maine that mattered but through this county trip and the Peak to Peak Challenge, our love affair with Maine skiing has been rekindled. At every mountain we've been to (some are mere hills actually), the snow has been incredible and the people sweeter than the chocolate cream pie I had at Dysart's at the start of our county charge, which we dubbed "The Other Maine Ski Trip." (Last weekend, we did "The Other Maine Ski Trip, Part Deux" which took us to Baker Mountain in Moscow, Titcomb in Farmington, Spruce in Jay and Lost Valley in Auburn, leaving us with only two mountains to go!)

I won't forget the ladies in the lodge at Baker (where all the employees are volunteers), who made us the best grilled cheeses I've ever had (for $1 each) while explaining to us that the mountain closes each year not because of lack of snow, but because the parking lot gets too muddy. Or the goof balls in the glades at Lonesome Pines who offered us swigs of their Southern Comfort (we declined), then begged me to take their picture as they hit a jump before proceeding to nearly kill me while landing said jump. Or the grandmother who helped found Mt. Jeff and still makes donuts daily in the lodge, croaking through laryngitis her thanks to us for making the trip "all the way from Portland." While it has been exhausting, it is these small moments that have made this so memorable. The pride these people have in their ski areas is something I cannot even start to explain but it made our Peak to Peak push worth it, times 100. And it has been so fun for Kyle and I to pull into a parking lot at a mountain in the middle of nowhere, and see long lift lines of little kiddos (we call them mini rippers), making a colorful ribbon around our next present.

The hidden gem we unearthed this season has been Big Rock, located in Mars Hill. Kyle and I started our Saturday there during the county trip, and so badly wanted to stay there and turn with the turbines for the rest of the weekend. As our waitress at The Blue Moose, a local diner where we had breakfast both days of our trip, warned us: "That's a fast run up there." It sure was!

Kyle works in the energy business, and is in awe of wind power, so he was especially excited to ski Big Rock, where First Wind has a power project. Would you believe that each of those blades is more than 120 feet long, and that the hub where they come together is the size of a school bus! Some people think they are an eyesore, but I found them sleek and oh so cool. And as hard as we tried, you really couldn't hear them.













All my pictures seem to be of Kyle, so I tried to get one of me:


But when Kyle is pulling sweet tricks like this, I have to turn the camera back on him. We are so silly when we ski together (and yes, we realize our tricks are for kids.)


Our next stop that day was Quoggy Jo in Presque Isle. With only 210' vertical feet, it's the second smallest in Maine but is located next to the Maine Winter Sports Center's Nordic Heritage Trails, a Mecca for nordic skiing. Of all the mountains we visited this season, we stayed the shortest amount of time here, but still gave it a good hour which amounted to quite a few runs. Last year, SkiMaine ran a Peak to Peak challenge with a handful of ski writers that took place over a long weekend. At many mountains though, they only did a run or two and they hiked one mountain when the lifts were closed or had the lifts turned on for them at others. They also didn't ski Powderhouse Hill in South Berwick. It was a great event to generate some media attention for Maine skiing and get some needed exposure to some of these smaller hills, but is very different from what we are doing. We have really been trying to spend a solid amount of time to explore each of these hills, which is certainly hard given the logistics, but worth it.

Check out this little lodge. It was stunning inside and smelled like the brownies they'd just pulled from the oven. I thought it was so cool how they'd set up an old tv in the lodge so everyone could huddle around and watch the local basketball team playing in the state tourneys.


This is basically the hill- you can see how flat it is, but the snow was so nice, we didn't care.


Of course Kyle found some freshies alongside the t-bar. I love that the people riding up are all turning to stare at him. We kind of stuck out at some places.


And the lone shot of the two of us (Patagonia or Dynastar, we'd love a sponsorship).


Speaking of lone, our final stop of the day was at Lonesome Pines, which is in Fort Kent less than a mile from the Canadian border. We couldn't find the mountain on our GPS (would you believe that under the Points of Interest tab for "parks and recreation", our GPS listed a local AA chapter's meetingplace) but when we pulled into town, it wasn't hard to miss. It literally grows out of the town, and it clearly was a cornerstone of the community. The place was packed, and the snow was legendary.




This mountain wins the award for best glades. They were freighted with freshies to the point where Kyle nearly needed a snorkel.


Face shots in the East??? YES!!!


Our final stop of the weekend came on Sunday. We drove about two hours out of the way to hit Mt. Jefferson, located in Lee. The mountain's motto of "Small enough to be friendly, big enough to be fun" is certainly true.

My handsome husband (we were a little rough after three days straight on the road):


But that didn't stop us from pulling out some tricks. I love, love, love this shot.


And finally, heading home.


We have two mountains (Black and Mt. Abram) to go, but now our biggest challenge is deciding where we actually want to buy passes next year. There is so much more to the Maine ski scene than the big three, and as much as we adore those mountains, we have some new favorites now. Even if you aren't as ambitious enough to go Peak to Peak in a single season, I urge you to skip Sugarloaf or Sunday River for a day and seek out one of these small ski areas. Maine skiing is much more vibrant and pervasive than many people (including us) may realize and we should support these places and the people who make them worth the drive. Check out SkiMaine or email me for suggestions. Kyle and I joked that after such a successful trip north, we should organize guided ski tours up there. You in?

And, do you think we can complete our quest? By my calculations, we've got at least five more weeks of good spring skiing ahead of us. April is Maine's second snowiest month after all (written with a smirk)!