🔒Blizzard warning: Ski resorts hit with early shutdown, construction delays, cancellations

Sunday, March 15 was a beautiful, sunny day. The snow on the ski slopes in western Maine was awesome. Hundreds of skiers at Sunday River and Sugarloaf were taking advantage of a perfect combination of sun, snow and longer spring days.

That ended at 4 p.m. when the ski resorts ended the season early because of the pandemic.

“We were watching what was happening nationally over the course of that weekend,” says Karolyn Castaldo, director of communications at Sunday River Resort in Newry. “Other parts of the country, like Colorado, had orders to shut down their ski areas. Our corporate owners, Boyne Resorts, had been looking at different options for us and made the decision that all of its resorts should close.”

“We had a full resort that weekend,” says Ethan Austin, director of marketing and communications at Sugarloaf Mountain and Ski Resort, also a Boyne Resorts property. “It was sunny; our snow had been really good. We announced during the day that we would have to close the resort. People got their last runs in. We shut down all of our operations.”

Events were canceled, including the two biggest of the year, Reggae Fest in April and the Sugarloaf Marathon in May.

“Some conferences in April and May had to be cancelled. All of our secondary businesses were closed,” Austin says.

The abrupt closures were in keeping with ski areas and the overall economy throughout the nation. For community ski areas such as Hermon Mountain, the early closure had little impact because many close in March anyway, says Ski Maine Association’s executive director, Greg Sweetser.

But for the larger resorts, which typically operate until early May, it was a loss of about six weeks of revenue from customers who flock to Maine for spring skiing.

“Maine is a spring skiing mecca,” says Sweetser.

That’s because March is Maine’s No. 2 month for snowfall, after February. The days are longer. And with smaller New England ski areas closed by that point in the season, skiers head to Maine’s larger resorts.

By late spring, resorts and businesses in their surrounding areas typically start to gear up for the summer’s onslaught of tourists looking for other recreational opportunities.

“But everyone is concerned about the summer and how this carries forward,” says Dirk Gouwens, who in May became the association’s executive director when Sweetser retired.

Looking ahead

In recent years, ski resorts have repositioned themselves for year-round activity. Sunday River and Sugarloaf have golf courses and activities like chairlift rides, hiking and paddling. The resorts offer restaurants, live music and other events.

Sunday River’s summer business is predominantly based on conferences and weddings.

“Most of our spring and summer business has been canceled or postponed to later this year or to next year in those segments,” says Castaldo. “Fall conferences, meetings and weddings are still on the books, which is encouraging.”

But Sunday River won’t operate its Mountain Park, with activities like bungee trampolines, nor its Sunday River Outfitters programming. Some construction scheduled this summer, including an observation tower for summer and fall chairlift rides and conference space renovations, for the resort’s growing year-round conference and wedding business, will be postponed.

Loss of revenue is significant for Sugarloaf, says Austin.

“It’s certainly a significant loss to lose a month and half of operation,” he says. “And summer operations are still a question mark.”

Sugarloaf might also have construction delays, like a hotel spa planned to start this summer.

“We’re still determining if that will go forward this summer or be pushed to 2021,” he says.

Elbow grease

Mt. Abram in Greenwood closed a few days earlier than Sunday River and Sugarloaf and typically closes by early April, says the resort’s business manager, Greg Luetje.

“We would have only stayed open for another two weeks anyhow, so we decided it wasn’t worth the risk,” he says. “Revenue-wise, this was a setback on how freely we can expect to spend our money. But we’re trying not to let that get us down. There’s still a lot of things we can do that’s elbow grease.”

That includes work on phase two of its new chairlift-accessible mountain bike park.

“We’re spreading ourselves out to build bike trails,” says Luetje.

Phase one was completed last October. The park expands Mt. Abram from seasonal to year-round operation, and remains on track to open June 20 — with new health modifications.

“We won’t be able to queue people up like we would in a normal year,” he says. “We can’t have someone hop off a chair and then someone else hops on. We need a plan for disinfection and spacing. We’re thinking through the scenarios.”

Trickle-down

Uncertainties at the resorts are expected to have an impact on surrounding communities, affecting hotels and inns, restaurants and other attractions.

“Sunday River is a huge economic driver for us, summer and winter,” says Brad Jerome, director of sales and marketing at the Bethel Inn & Resort.

The inn lost some revenue from overnight business when the resort closed early.

“But it wasn’t that impactful,” he says. “The hardest thing is the uncertainty.”

For the most part, weddings scheduled at the inn for this spring and summer have shifted dates to the fall or even 2021, he says. Some golf groups are looking at rescheduling their visits.

“We’re working one-on-one with them,” he says. “They’re going to come at some point. Just maybe not their original dates.”

On the wedding front, Jerome sees an interesting phenomenon.

“I’m seeing an uptick in wedding interest for 2021,” he says. “If they wanted to get married in 2021, they’re seeing that people in 2020 are shifting their dates. So they’re saying, ‘If we want to get married, we’d better reserve our spot right now.’”

Businesses are closely monitoring the activity.

“Those events fill up our hotels and rental homes,” says Jessie Perkins, executive director of the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce.

When Sunday River closed, “Our cash flow stopped immediately,” says Wade Kavanaugh, co-owner of the Gem Theater in Bethel.

The theater closed the same weekend.

“We knew there would be financial risks, but we knew our employees didn’t feel safe being there with the public coming from Boston, which was having an outbreak,” he says. “Within 48 hours, pretty much the entire state, including Sunday River, shut down. When the mountain closed, that set the tenor for the entire community.”

Angela LeClair, president of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors, could see the effects of Sugarloaf’s shutdown when traffic dropped off along the byway leading from Farmington to the mountain.

“There are so many stores along the way where people normally stop to get supplies or something to eat,” she says. “That was a huge impact on our local economy.”

Reopening

The resorts used down time to plan for reopening aspects of their operations. Sunday River and Sugarloaf expected to open golf courses by early June, with extensive safety protocols. Select services and activities are expected to follow. But some, like Sugarloaf’s zipline tours, won’t be offered. Various customer enticements, such as sales on next winter’s passes, are in play.

“Ski areas are moving forward in their planning,” says Luetje. “But there are still unknowns.”

“Other ski areas in the U.S. are working on different models on how to reopen in this new world,” says Gouwens. “That will help us set the standard for what we do when we get to next November.”

Says Perkins, “The question really is, how quickly do we bounce back? We’re geared toward consistent ups and downs. But this is a big up and down.”