CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine – Skiers at the Sugarloaf Ski Resort were left hanging for a few minutes when a power outage halted the ski lifts at the state’s premier and left more than 4,000 Franklin County residents without electricity. Ethan Austin, director of marketing for the resort, said the skiers on the lift were forced to wait several minutes until auxiliary power units got the lifts moving again shortly after 3:00 pm.
“Fortunately, all of our lifts, as required are equipped with auxiliary back-up engines so we were able to offload anybody who was on them and they were able to ski down safely but as of 3:30 we’re still out here and CMP is working on it as I understand, so hopefully we’re back up and running soon,” Austin said.
Austin said Sugarloaf closed its lifts for the day once the lifts had been cleared, resulting in the mountain closing for the day about 15 minutes earlier than it ordinarily would have.