SKI GUIDE

Baker Mountain Ski Area, Moscow. 5 trails, 460' vertical drop, T-bar lift, and night skiing. Non-profit and volunteer-run. 717-0404, baker-mtn-ski-tow-club.business.site

Bigrock Mountain, Mars Hill. 980' vertical drop; 29 trails and glades, 2 terrain parks, 800’ snow-tubing park; triple chair, double chair, surface carpet, handle tow; 65% snowmaking. 425-6711, bigrockmaine.com. Big Squaw Mountain, Greenville. A 660' vertical drop, 14 trails, and 10 km of cross-country trails. Backcountry skiing and cat skiing when conditions allow. Ski and snowboard rental shop, deli with beer and wine, live music on Sundays. 695-2400, skibigsquaw.com. Black Mountain, Rumford. A 1,380' vertical drop, 50 trails and glades, 2 chairlifts, T-bar lift, night skiing, crosscountry skiing, back-country skiing, tubing park, and ski school, with 75% snowmaking. 364-8977, skiblackmountain.org. Camden Snow Bowl. An 850' vertical drop, 20 trails, 11 glades, 2 chairlifts, carpet lift, rental shop, 400' toboggan chute, 4 km of Nordic trails, snowshoeing, night skiing, ski and snowboard school, and 2 terrain parks, with 80% snowmaking. Only ski mountain on the East Coast with ocean views. 236-3438, camdensnowbowl.com. Lonesome Pine Trails, Fort Kent. Maine’s northernmost ski resort. A 500' vertical drop, downhill and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, night skiing, rental shop, grinding rail, and half-pipe. 8345202, lonesomepines.org. Lost Valley, Auburn. A 243' vertical drop, 22 trails, 2 double chairlifts, night skiing, 2 terrain parks, 600-foot snow-tube park, 9.3 miles of Nordic ski trails, and ski school, with 100% snowmaking. 7841561, lostvalleyski.com. Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation, Newry. Free winter recreation for children and adults with physical disabilities: alpine skiing and snowboarding at Sunday River, Sugarloaf, and Black Mountain of Maine. (800) 639-7770, maineadaptive.org. Mt. Abram, Greenwood. A 1,150' drop, 42 trails and glades, 450 skiable acres, 4 lifts, snow sports school, and 2 lodges. 875-5000, mtabram.com. New Hermon Mountain. A 350' vertical drop, 60 skiable acres with 20 trails for all skill levels, ski and snowboard lessons, equipment rentals, double chairlift, T-bar, handle tow, night skiing, tubing park, and terrain park with 100% snowmaking. 848-5192, skihermonmountain.com.

Pleasant Mountain, Bridgton. A 1,300' vertical drop, 40 trails, 7 glades, 3 terrain parks, 6 lifts, and night skiing, with 98% snowmaking and views of Mt. Washington. 647-8444, pleasantmountain.com. Powderhouse Hill, South Berwick. A 150' drop, 3 trails, and rope tow. 384-5858, powderhousehill.com. Quoggy Jo Ski Center, Presque Isle. A 215' drop, T-bar, 5 trails, natural half-pipe with grind rails, first-time skier area, lessons, rentals, snowshoeing and fat-bike trails, and Nordic and biathlon center. 764-3248, facebook.com/QuoggyJoSkiCenter. Saddleback Mountain, Rangeley. Back at last with the highest base elevation of any ski area in New England at 2,460', a vertical drop of 2,000', 67 trails, and 3 quad chairlifts on 440 skiable acres with 2 terrain parks and lift access above 4,000'. (866) 918-2225, saddlebackmaine.com. TIME OUT Grouped in lively conversation in front of the large woodstove in the lodge for dinner, nobody cared that it was Superbowl Sunday. Millard Fillmore or Franklin Pierce could have been president and things in Lyford would have been the same.

Evan, Lyford’s camp chef, brought us Beijing-style cucumbers crushed with sesame oil and spices. Kim, who spent a decade in China working for the Department of Commerce, was transported. I recall excellent rice, shrimp, pie, and a great white wine chilled from being in our pack. Bedtime at Lyford was 7:30 p.m..

Waking the next day, we wished we could spend a week. But more snow had fallen overnight, so a er a hearty breakfast of fresh strawberries and blueberries, meat, eggs, and freshly baked mu ns, we picked up our lunch bags and headed north from Lyford toward West Branch Pond Camps, about eight miles away.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Try as I might to hide the trail map from

Kim, a er two days she had the good sense to examine our day’s routes and immediately noted the only section marked as di cult in all four days. Lyford’s lodge chief had reassured her that the designation was due to a pair of steep curved descents along the narrow trail, and we easily identi ed the rst a mile or so into the day, marked with a cautionary sign. It was less than a hundred yards long, but ice and slope made for a di cult ski descent. However, it was a simple matter to unclip our boots from our skis and walk down without a worry.

When we came upon the second curve, the snow conditions were much better, so we both skied to the bottom, where the trail attened and continued along the Pleasant River. e rest of the day, we saw no one except for a lone moose who crossed the trail in deep snow in front of us. Set on a lake with a full view

of White Cap Mountain beyond it, West strapped on our skis. Branch Pond Camps is a non-AMC lodge e main di erence between West owned and run by the same family for ve Branch and the AMC lodges is that Ergenerations. Chuck, ic grooms the ski who had managed Lyford for over a decade before reSeveral guests made the trek to the trails around the West Branch ponds with traditional turning to help run his family’s camp camp simply for cross-country ski tracks, while the with his nephew Er- the morning AMC grooms withic, had prepared our cabin by starting doughnut plate. out tracks, using a method known a re in the Jøtul as skate or cordustove and boiling a kettle of hot water on it. roy grooming. Kim, who had been sliding

Steeped in the tradition of historic Maine laterally on icy portions of the trail for the camps, Eric served hot apple jelly cakes for past three days, reveled in the groomed a dinner appetizer. Faintly sweet, aromat- tracks. Later that morning, ic, and crisp on the outside, they melted we met in my mouth. I inhaled two and was look- Eric as he ing around for a third when he brought out returned homemade turkey soup, followed by crisply along the trail seasoned Cornish game hens. Because West in his groomBranch lies along the lodge-to-lodge trail, it ing vehicle, and participates in the AMC phone reservation he told us that a system and coordinates meals with the oth- large proportion of er lodges, so skiers never get the same meal his patrons returned betwo nights in a row. cause it was only around West Branch that they could ski groomed tracks. DONUT MISS THIS The next morning we were greeted with a plate of hot homemade molasses doughnuts, followed by a hearty breakfast of co ee, oatmeal, We were sold. ree miles out, at the edge of the camp property, the groomed tracks ended and the AMC’s skate grooming resumed. We ascended a wide, icy trail for two more miles and met a cross-country ski instructor who bacon, and French toast. Several guests was skiing our four-day route in reverse. He commented that they’d made the trek to showed Kim how to sit on her poles to conthe camp simply for the morning dough- trol her speed on the long descent that lay nut plate. We waddled out of the lodge and around the next bend—a perfectly timed lesson that allowed us to ski the nal three downhill miles to Medawisla Lodge.

Set directly on Second Roach Pond with tremendous water views, Medawisla is reminiscent of national park buildings, with its soaring spaces, wood beams, and grand central stone replace separating the dining and sitting areas, plus ecologically friendly modern plumbing and lighting. Our luxurious, well-insulated, ADA-compliant cabin was designed to feel like the historic log and timber structures we’d stayed in over the past three nights.

On our nal night, we hit the wood red sauna, showered in the main lodge, and were treated to a dinner of sweet Maine squash rolls, a kale-onion-chickpea salad, carrot-cashew soup, and crisp pork belly in quantities that far exceeded what we could eat. Pragmatically, one of our table companions had her turtle cheesecake removed to the kitchen to nish the next morning with breakfast.

Kim and I are both seasoned travelers with long stints living in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, but this four-day backcountry trek skiing from one Maine wilderness lodge to the next ranks as a very special experience among many in our lives. For us, it was well worth the e ort. n