After 30 years, Smiling Hill Farm has permanently closed its cross-country skiing program due to insufficient snowfall and rising costs. This decision reflects a broader trend in Southern Maine, where warmer winters and decreased snowpack are impacting the sustainability of outdoor winter sports.
After 30 years offering cross-country skiing on its network of trails, Smiling Hill Farm made the tough decision this winter to permanently end the skiing program.
"Hey, we're in the middle of January, and you need a good five or six weeks of revenue coming into this place in order to make that pay for itself. And I'm smart enough to realize it ain't working." "We haven't gotten on snow at all. That's our only chance to get on snow and actually ski," Baybutte says.
"You might expect, if you warm a degree, that your snow season will shorten by, say, a week, but that next degree might not shorten it by another week, but by, say, 10, 11, 12 days," Gottlieb explains."So each additional bit of warming is going to take a larger and larger chunk of either the length of your snow season or the amount of snow that you're accumulating."
"You just end up taking a really old junky pair of skis, maybe something you outgrew from back when you were 14 or 15 years old and kind of all beat up and scratched up. And take those out and find a find a beach or a dune, that has the sand is not too coarse, and the ski will actually slide on it," Alsobrook says."Or, if you can find a nice grassy slope, a hill somewhere,"Waynflete high school teammates practice at Quarry Road Trails in Waterville.
"We're always shocked, at how much snow they have, at how groomed it is, it's really amazing," Noto adds. But he acknowledges it won't be possible for everyone. Making snow is a costly, labor-intensive process. Quarry Road, a non-profit, has over two dozen volunteers, in addition to the Parks and Rec staff, who are trained to help out with the process.in New Hampshire and Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Vermont, have started investing in snowmaking, too.
CLIMATE CHANGE SNOW SKIING FARMING MAINE
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