BRIDGTON – Shawnee Peak, the oldest continuously running ski area in Maine and the largest night-skiing facility in New England, is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2013.

Employing about 450 workers and bringing skiers – and their pocketbooks – to Bridgton for generations, the area once known as Pleasant Mountain is a fixture in Bridgton, and this weekend’s gala aims to tout the history and importance of “Shawnee.”

On Saturday, Jan. 12, mountain management has put together a host of events to mark the occasion, including a cardboard box race at 2 p.m., a cocktail party and music at 8 p.m., and a 10-minute fireworks show at 11 p.m.

Saturday will likely be a fun day on the slopes, and the mountain is a source all winter long of recreation and delight to Bridgton residents who enjoy skiing or are associated with the mountain in some way.

According to Jim Mains, executive director of the Greater Bridgton Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, Shawnee Peak makes the town, with its lakes and summer activities, a true four-season destination. Mains, a Bridgton native who has been skiing at the mountain since the 1950s, said the ski area’s importance to the local economy can’t be overstated.

“It has a huge impact on Bridgton, both on the people that they bring to the area for the skiing along with the jobs that they provide to the area residents. So, there’s really a double impact there,” Mains said.

Skiers will stop at local stores, motels, ski shops, restaurants and gas stations, especially on the weekends, Mains said.

“You take a Friday night or a Saturday night on a big ski weekend, and you can physically see the impact it has with the people coming up. The grocery stores are packed. There’s a big impact,” he said.

Beef & Ski Restaurant and Pub, located on Route 302 in Bridgton, is one of the businesses that benefits from the ski traffic. It has introduced a Monday night meal discount of 10 percent to coincide with Shawnee Peak’s Monday Night Madness, which offers reduced-price night-skiing tickets.

“Shawnee Peak has a very strong impact on businesses especially on weekends and the Monday Night Madness, as well,” said owner Peter Kopoulos. “There’s a tremendous, tremendous amount of business we get from that and we certainly do appreciate it.”

In addition to the businesses that benefit, Shawnee Peak employees, most of whom live locally, receive free ski passes in addition to winter employment.

“Up to 450 people work at Shawnee Peak, ranging from lift operators, snow groomers, food and beverage staff, buildings and grounds, management, ski rentals, custodial staff, you name it,” said Shawnee’s marketing director, Rachael Wilkinson. “And we are 100 percent American staffed. We hire our employees from the local area, always have as a general rule.”

Some are long-term employees. General Manager Ed Rock, described by Mains as the ski area’s “backbone,” has been at the mountain for 36 years. Ski rental shop manager Rich Jennings, whose son, Chris, is also employed at the rental shop, has worked at the mountain for 30 years.

“It’s awesome,” Jennings said. “We’re a big family because there’s so many of us who come back year after year. We’re from the area. It’s like it’s our mountain.

“It’s always a big reunion in the fall when we see people for the first time that we haven’t seen all summer long.”

Jennings, 55, said most of the seasonal workers have summer jobs as landscapers, carpenters and contractors, and come to work at Shawnee for the cold months. He used to be a vegetable farmer, selling produce that he raised on his Harrison farm, hence the need for winter employment.

Jennings has also gotten to know many of the skiers over the years, having operated the rental shop. He says many of the skiers are from the Boston area. Some come up for the weekend, and many have camps in the Lakes Region.

“We’ve always been a place that attracted people from the Boston area, and it’s still that,” Jennings said. “We’re in the Lakes Region with all the people who have camps here, and this is their local mountain.”

Jennings says it’s been rewarding to see generations come through the ski shop’s doors.

“I see the same families year after year. So you see generations, little kids now are adults with their children or their grandchildren,” he said. “So I see generations of changes from people who come back for as long as I’ve been here.”

Many changes

There has been a lot of change at Shawnee Peak through the years, not just in the type of equipment Jennings rents but in the mountain’s operations, as well.

According to Dave Irons, a Westbrook resident who has penned a ski column for the Lewiston Sun Journal since 1983, Shawnee Peak has a rich history and has played an important role in Maine skiing.

He said the mountain got its start in the 1930s, when skiers driving from Portland to challenge the Sherman Ski Trail and the steep slopes of Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire saw the inviting sloping fields at the base of what was then Pleasant Mountain. They made a lease arrangement with the local farmer that they would replace cattle fencing at the end of the winter season in exchange for him allowing them to use the mountain, Irons said.

The mountain grew in popularity in the early 1930s and the Civilian Conservation Corps cut the first trail, “The Wayshego Trail,” from the summit to the lower fields. Skiers still had to hike up the mountain, however. In 1938, after some local skiers banded together with Bridgton Academy and the local chamber of commerce, Pleasant Mountain officially opened on Jan. 23, 1938.

Under the direction of Russ Haggett, a Bridgton resident who managed the mountain in its early decades, two rope tows were installed on the lower part of the mountain. After World War II, in which Haggett served in the Pacific in the Navy construction battalion, the mountain became even more of a destination for skiers from the Bridgton and Portland areas.

In 1951, the state’s first T-bar, which offered skiers a ride to the top, began operation. That was followed in 1954 by the state’s first chairlift, Irons said, a two-seater that went to the top of the mountain.

“Shawnee Peak is a critical piece of Maine skiing history,” Irons said. “A lot of things happened there for the first time. First T-bar in Maine, first chairlift in Maine. It was also the first ski area in Maine that’s still around.”

The mountain has shifted ownership several times. The town owned it back in the 1950s and sold it to a group of men from the Bridgton area, known as the Pleasant Mountain Corp., who added another T-bar in 1960. In 1969, a group of eight businessmen from the Portland area bought it and expanded the trail system to include a second network of trails on the eastern side of the mountain.

“They put in the east area with a double chair to the top because they needed to expand to handle the crowds,” Irons said.

The group of businessmen, known as the Portland Eight, many of whom were avid skiers, sold it after a disastrous 1979-1980 season that saw no snow except for one week in March when the area was able to open.

“After that season, the Portland Eight decided it was time to sell. They decided they’d been in the ski business long enough,” Irons said.

They sold to a new owner who installed snowmaking capability and converted the double chairlift into a triple. However, the new owner didn’t make a profit and sold it to a group in Pennsylvania in 1987 that changed the name from Pleasant Mountain to Shawnee Peak. The new Pennsylvania owners, Irons said, also made an important business decision.

“They did one thing, but it was a big thing,” Irons said. “They put in the lights. And now, Shawnee Peak is the largest night-skiing operation in New England, so that was key factor.”

Irons said Shawnee Peak ranks third in number of skier visits at 100,000-130,000 per year (Sunday River and Sugarloaf lead the pack at about 500,000 and 350,000 skier visits, respectively). He credits Shawnee Peak’s 19 lighted trails – the mountain has 40 total trails – and its proximity to Portland as why the mountain can boast the most night-skiing tickets sold.

“The only way you can support night skiing is to be close to a population center, and they’re only an hour from Portland,” he said.

The ski area’s owner, Chet Homer of Kennebunk, who is approaching a decade of ownership, Irons said, has made significant upgrades.

Homer added a triple chairlift to the east side of the mountain, a Great Room to the main lodge, and a conveyor belt system for loading chairlift passengers. He has also beefed up snowmaking abilities to combat warmer Maine winters. And since he has a business background as chief financial officer of Tom’s of Maine as well as being a past co-owner of the Portland Pirates and an officer at a bank in Kennebunk, Irons said Homer has the financial know-how to run Shawnee Peak as a money-making operation, unlike the owners of old who were more skiing enthusiasts than businessmen.

“It’s doing fine, and there’s a reason for that,” Irons said. “If you look back on the history of ski areas, most of them were started by skiers, and they wound up being owned by corporations who knew how to run businesses, because all skiers were not businessmen.

“Chet has operated Shawnee Peak without heavy debt and even though he has made upgrades every single year, he has not gone overboard. He’s a good businessman and that’s why they’re doing very well.”

Camaraderie

The skiers who have frequented Shawnee Peak for a long time have gained much from the ski area.

“I myself go two or three times a week, for a few hours at a time,” said Mains, of the chamber, who has had a season-pass for decades. “It’s a great family mountain. It’s a wonderful place for the young families, and you see more of that now. It’s very simple, easy to get to, and the kids can be let loose for the day. It’s not like you have to keep an eye on them all the time. They’re also known for doing a great job on grooming the slopes.”

Mains’ friend, Bruce Cole, 66, also of Bridgton, has been skiing for as long as Mains has, and skis just about every day at Shawnee Peak, especially lately with early-season skiing so “stunning,” as he said during a break from skiing on Monday.

“It’s home,” Cole said. “I learned that it’s people, not the site that you’re at. It’s the people you ski with. And here, I help out with the patrol, and they’re just great people to be around. And that’s what skiing is about – it’s skiing with somebody, not by yourself. And here I’ve developed a lot of friendships.”

Cole has been skiing at Shawnee Peak since the days of the first general manager, Russ Haggett, who Irons said served a total of 39 years until his retirement in 1978, and has seen the mountain expand in that time.

“It’s certainly grown over years. I remember what it looked like when I first skied here, and it’s definitely a lot bigger than it was,” Cole said.

Asked which of the 40 trails he enjoys the most, Cole, like a good fisherman would, didn’t divulge that sort of information.

“I’m not telling,” he said.

Shawnee Peak in Bridgton, the oldest continuously running ski area in Maine, is also the largest night-skiing facility in New England, with 19 lighted trails. As the ski area celebrates its 75th anniversary with events on Saturday, many observers point to the night skiing as one of the secrets to the mountain’s success.   
In the 1930s, when Shawnee Peak, then known as Pleasant Mountain, got its start, the farmer’s field at the base of the mountain served as the only ski runs. Eventually trails were expanded to the top of the mountain. That initial farmer’s field is seen in the above vintage view from the Moose Pond causeway.