Saddleback ski area announcement expected Thursday

RANGELEY – An announcement regarding the future of Saddleback Maine ski resort is expected to be made on Thursday.

A press conference has been scheduled for Thursday morning at The Trust for Public Land office in Portland “to explain agreement between owners of Saddleback Mountain and potential owners and fund raising,” according to a media advisory sent Wednesday afternoon.

The third largest ski mountain in the state, Saddleback remain closed last winter as buyers were sought. The ski area employed up to 300 people during peak winter season. The resort’s closure also had an economic impact on area businesses, most notably those in the nearby town of Rangeley.

The Berry family purchased the ski area in 2004, at a time when Saddleback employed 66 people and drew about 15,000 skiers annually. In 2012 the family reported Saddleback employed more than 225 people during peak winter season, and by then they had added $40 million in infrastructure improvements, drawing as many as 100,000 visitors annually.

In 2015, Saddleback’s management announced that the ski area would be unable to open for ski operations in the 2015-16 season unless it secured $3 million in financing to purchase a new four-person chairlift. That lift would replace a 51-year-old double chair that accesses the top of Saddleback Mountain.

In October of 2015, it was announced that the ski resort’s management was in “serious negotiations” with a potential buyer and hoped to open last winter. Through the winter there were announcements of possible opening dates, but none materialized.

Expected to attend the news conference on Thursday will be Wolfe Tone, The Trust For Public Land director; Bob Perschel New England Forestry Foundation executive director; Peter Stein, Scientific Solutions president; Steve Philbrick, Bald Mountain Camps owner and Eric Friedman, Mad River Glen’s marketing director.