During the November elections, residents of Camden, Maine will get the chance to have their say in a proposal that could breathe new life into the town's ski area. Already a rarity in the industry, the Camden Snow Bowl is town owned and operated and thus rarely sees the funding needed for improvements, yet even as my family and I took breaks from the cold this past winter, it was clear that the beautiful yet cramped A-frame lodge needs expansion. Additionally, planners have decided that along with the expansion of the base lodge, the area is long-overdue for an upgrade to the lift system, which may be the oldest in the state. With a classic Hall double chair as the main lift and two vintage 1960's Hall t-bars, the lifts are showing their age and the highest lift is the main t-bar, which is the only way to access 4 of the 10 trails from the summit. And while a new lift is unnecessary, a good used double or triple chairlift to replace the summit t-bar could keep a lot of families happy and possibly increase revenue.
The main problem to all these ideas is that the Snow Bowl as an annual operating budget of around 300k. The improvements all told would come to about 6 million over 2 years. While this is a drop in the bucket to most ski areas, a town owned ski area can't come up with such funds. So the town is turning to the voters to approve tax appropriations for a quarter of the costs, with the other costs coming from fund raising and private donations. This is an exciting time for Camden. With the town showing that they are willing to raise most of the capital and a town itself having deep pride in this skiing gem, I look forward to a positive news article the day after the vote!
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