I'm not sure it is fair to compare the rebirth of Saddleback to the planned rebirth of Moosehead Mountain. For one, Upper Moose has been basically abandoned for two decades now and was never in the shape that Saddleback's terrain was in terms of snowmaking coverage or general maintenance. Where Arctaris could basically step in, do some brush cutting, a bit of valve maintenance, change a lift long needed to be changed out and slap some new snow guns in place, Moosehead will need a ton more care than that to get back in shape. They did have a pretty big mechanical on the lower mountain Triple this year that has been run as a non-profit. So that lift may need a lot of defered maintenance attention and/or replacement in a nearer term. And it is WAAAAYY up North! So they need all the additional trappings of the hotel/resort, brewpub and probably a bit more to attract enough attention. Tying the Mountain resort into the Lake resort will be critical to long term success, even if they are not immediately adjacent. And that far North, the State of Maine desparately wants this to succeed froma jobs standpoint. I'm sure the state wants Saddleback to succeed as well, but in Saddleback's case, they won't be the big employer of their region that Moosehead could be.
Last point, if you can secure government financing, I would think you want to go for the maximum you can get on first take. They may not need all of the finance line they have now acquired through the state, but it's easy to not use all of it. It's quite a bit harder to go back to that well if you didn't ask for enough up front and find you need more.
I'm not sure it is fair to compare the rebirth of Saddleback to the planned rebirth of Moosehead Mountain. For one, Upper Moose has been basically abandoned for two decades now and was never in the shape that Saddleback's terrain was in terms of snowmaking coverage or general maintenance. Where Arctaris could basically step in, do some brush cutting, a bit of valve maintenance, change a lift long needed to be changed out and slap some new snow guns in place, Moosehead will need a ton more care than that to get back in shape. They did have a pretty big mechanical on the lower mountain Triple this year that has been run as a non-profit. So that lift may need a lot of defered maintenance attention and/or replacement in a nearer term. And it is WAAAAYY up North! So they need all the additional trappings of the hotel/resort, brewpub and probably a bit more to attract enough attention. Tying the Mountain resort into the Lake resort will be critical to long term success, even if they are not immediately adjacent. And that far North, the State of Maine desparately wants this to succeed froma jobs standpoint. I'm sure the state wants Saddleback to succeed as well, but in Saddleback's case, they won't be the big employer of their region that Moosehead could be.
Last point, if you can secure government financing, I would think you want to go for the maximum you can get on first take. They may not need all of the finance line they have now acquired through the state, but it's easy to not use all of it. It's quite a bit harder to go back to that well if you didn't ask for enough up front and find you need more.