The ski and snowboard season starts with more ups than downs at regional resorts. Two resorts close, one opens first in the nation, and the Sununus take back Waterville Valley

Sunday River was the first ski area to open on the East Coast each of the previous three seasons. This year, it was the first in the nation to open on Oct. 22.
About two hours from Portsmouth in Newry, Maine, most of the snow currently on the mountain is man-made, a costly feat of modern technology that can make or break a New England resort. Less than two months after opening, Sunday River now has top to bottom skiing with 17 miles of terrain on more than 40 trails open out of more than 130 total.
Early season discount tickets were still available at Sunday River recently, but eventually will cost about $80 for the day. Even in this economy, there seems to be no shortage of people willing to pay steep prices for lift tickets or season passes.
Darcy Morse, communications director for Sunday River, said that’s because of the ski area’s consistent snow conditions and a long history in the area. The mountain celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.
But not all resorts are so successful
Jeremy Davis is an avid skier who founded New England Lost Ski Areas Project at www.nelsap.org and wrote a book on the subject. He has also been appointed to the New England Ski Museum Board of Directors.
“It is fascinating, but also sad when you see photos of a thriving ski area and then visit it in 2010 and see that it has returned to nature,” Davis said.
Davis said his readers like reconnecting with the places where they learned to ski and being reminded of how skiing used to be. He learned to ski about 20 years ago when few resorts had high-speed lifts, and recovering from a thaw and freeze cycle could take weeks. Things were simpler, he said, but the conditions were often poor and the lines long.
Today’s expansive resorts offer better skiing on groomed man-made snow, fast lifts, large base lodges and slope-side lodging. Resorts that can’t keep up often are lost.
Tenney Mountain in Plymouth is closed this year, and will remain so until a new buyer is found.
“Tenney has had it tough,” Davis said. Last year, the small resort barely made any snow and little natural precipitation fell. There were financial problems over the past 10 years, as well as back in the 1990s, and it is now up for auction, he said.
Also, this year, Vermont’s Ascutney Mountain Resort shut down. The expensive purchase of a high-speed quad at Ascutney a few years ago may have pushed it too far into the red.
“Out of the two, Ascutney has the greatest chance of reopening, but time will tell,” Davis said. “No area of that size has ever been lost in New England.”
It can be difficult to maintain a mountain resort, Davis said. There are about 80 ski areas in New England today, but nearly 600 have closed over the years.
Most resorts failed in the 1970s due to high insurance rates, bad snow years, and an energy crisis, Davis said. Some small community ski areas closed when taxpayers didn’t want to fund them anymore or volunteers stopped showing up. Competition with larger, nearby areas also causes areas to fail.
Davis said mountains need to connect with their skiers. Mad River Glen in Vermont is a good example of a large ski area that does that. It is owned by skiers who each have a vote in any major resort decisions.
The new owners of Waterville Valley also have a connection with the mountain.
In October, the Sununu family and a group of investors purchased Waterville Valley from California-based Booth Creek Resorts, restoring local control of the New Hampshire mountain for the first time in about 15 years.
Chris Sununu, one of New Hampshire’s newly elected executive councilors, is heading up efforts as Waterville’s new chief executive officer. He said his family has been coming to Waterville for about 30 years and both his father, former governor John H. Sununu, and his brother, former senator John E. Sununu, own homes there. They preferred it because of its location, “the gateway to the White Mountains,” but also for being family-friendly, something the new ownership is focusing on, he said.
The former owners, Sununu said, weren’t putting resources back into the resort, letting it settle in mediocrity. “It’s something that, to be honest, didn’t really work,” he said.
And so, with a “connection and love” for the ski area, the Sununu family began to look into purchasing it about a year ago. “We wanted to make sure if we did it, it’d be done right,” Sununu said. “We wanted to keep everything local.”
Sununu said the family knows Waterville’s skiers and the community and plans to take an open book approach to management and encourage feedback.
The ski area has one of the state’s highest elevations at 4,000 feet with 52 trails served by 12 lifts. Since the infrastructure is solid, Sununu said, they are beginning with the experience off the mountain, improving facilities and food service.
Major changes to conditions on the slopes might be two or three years out, he said. But an investment of more than $500,000 this year included increased snowmaking by adding 25 energy efficient tower guns, a new grooming cat, and expanded rental equipment with snowboards for children.
Sununu spent a recent Friday morning skiing, his second of the season so far, and 25 trails were open with groomed corduroy. He also welcomed back Olympian skier Tom Corcoran, who originally designed the village. Bob Fries, formally vice president during the Corcoran ownership years, is the resort’s new president.
Despite the loss of two New England ski areas this year, Sununu said he isn’t worried about his family’s new business venture. “Waterville was here in 1966 and it will be here in 2066,” he said.
The key is carrying out careful planning, one step at a time, he said, and doing it under local ownership. “The dollars invested here will not be brought out to another resort for the first time in 15 years.”
But that doesn’t mean he’s going to dump the money back into new trails and lifts right away. “The hard part is separating the passion from the project,” he said.
Some parent companies are supportive of local mountains. Boyne Resorts, based in Michigan, has invested more than $20 million in capital in Sunday River since 2007. Major expenses include the introduction two years ago of a “chondola,” a lift with both chairs and gondolas, and night skiing. This year, the resort added zipline tours in a wooded area, luxury lodging upgrades, lift enhancements, a heated deck at the Peak Lodge, an Outdoor Center with cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, and upgrades to its extensive snowmaking.
It only took 19 hours of nonstop snowmaking for Sunday River to open at 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 22, with terrain from the top of the mountain to its midstation, and remain open through the weekend, although it then closed during the week.
While some have disputed the resort’s first-in-the-nation claim because it did not immediately open full-time, resort spokesperson Darcy Morse says that’s a technicality. “First to open is first to open,” she said.
Several of the 36 alpine and cross-country resorts represented in the statewide association Ski New Hampshire made significant investments in their properties over the summer. 
Cranmore, in North Conway, is spending approximately $6 million on major improvements to the resort, including replacing its south double chair with an energy-efficient quad and the installation of 70 new tower guns. A year-round “Mountain Coaster” allows guests to ride up the mountain and then descend on steel rails at rider-controlled speeds. 
Over the summer Attitash, in Bartlett, also added a Mountain Coaster. The ride goes up more than 1,400 feet on twin stainless steel rails, then descends over 2,800 feet through dips, banked turns and straight-aways at up to 25 miles per hour.
At Cannon Mountain, in Franconia Notch, a new double chairlift was installed at the recently re-opened Mittersill Backcountry Area. This is part of a multi-year, multi-million dollar improvement program. Other improvements include an addition to the base lodge, snowmaking upgrades and new grooming machines.
Smaller areas are holding their niche. At McIntyre Ski Area in Manchester, a bigger base lodge was constructed over the summer, and Pats Peak in Henniker put some $500,000 into the snowmaking system this year, bringing the total spent on improvements over the past six years to $5.5 million.
Up north, Wildcat Mountain, at Pinkham Notch, also continued to improve snowmaking and added two trails. Bretton Woods now has an additional 30 acres of glade terrain.
Loon Mountain in Lincoln, another Boyne property, continued its capital investment, putting $1.8 million this year into an addition of 428 tower snow guns, the largest installation of the latest technology in New England, and a new grooming machine, the first of its size in New Hampshire. Over the past four years, Loon has invested $18 million in improvements, new lifts and terrain.
Loon has also added more chairs on the North Peak Express Quad, as well as a seventh tree skiing area of 15 acres, and a sixth terrain park with all elements made with materials from the surrounding woods. A zipline debuted this summer and will be open on peak weekends and holiday periods during the winter.
Loon opened Nov. 23 with 10 trails and about three miles of terrain on the upper mountain. That has quickly expanded to 40 trails and more than 10 miles from top to bottom.
The money that goes into ski resorts also helps put money in local economies. The most recent economic impact study by Ski New Hampshire, from 2006 to 2007, showed more than $700 million in spending that could be attributed to ski areas in the state, according to marketing director Karl Stone. Of that, $450 million was spent outside of the ski areas on retail shopping, dining, lodging, tolls, gas and more. A new study is expected to be finished in the next month, he said.
“Over the past few years, we’ve faced some adversity given the economic climate, weather and other factors, and have fared very well,” Stone said. “(New Hampshire is) a very accessible and relatively affordable option for those who love to ski and ride, which helps us.” 
This year, Stone said, season pass sales have been strong and the weather has cooperated thus far, which is crucial given that holiday periods account for more than 30 percent of business.
Davis, who is also a meteorologist, has high hopes for the season.
“There were some ups and downs in November, but it’s much colder now and snowmaking conditions are great and will be around for a while here,” Davis said. “Most areas are opening new terrain daily.”
Davis expects the remainder of December to be in the normal to colder-than-normal range, with some good chances of snow in the next few weeks. He said an average amount of total snow is likely this season.
Some expect more than average snowfall due to la nina, a climate pattern with cooler than normal temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that occurs roughly every five years.
But Ed O’Lenic, senior meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, said la nina typically doesn’t give cause for abnormal weather in northern New England. “It’s not particularly interesting,” he said. In fact, la nina years are less likely to have extreme highs or lows than other years. The average temperature during January, February and March is about 30 degrees during a la nina year.
However, also during these months, la nina has been known to bring a bit more snow to the region than usual.
“Based on historical evidence, it tends to be a little snowier in New England during la nina,” O’Lenic said. “That’s obviously a good thing for the ski season.”