Big A

The iron rusts where the snow once lay deep. A T-bar, the summit wheel of the old chairlift, and a few heavy grooming rollers are all that remain of Big A. The mountain is still there. It simply has different stories to tell now.

For me, one of those stories began in 1972 or so, when I first strapped on a pair of borrowed skis at Big A on Mount Agamenticus. Like so many southern Maine kids, it was where winter became adventure.

Big A opened in 1964 with ambitions that reached beyond its modest summit. Complete with a chairlift, T-bars, snowmaking, night skiing, and a bustling lodge, it became the place where generations learned to ski. But the challenges of coastal Maine winters and rising operating costs proved too much, and after the 1974–75 season, the lifts stopped turning. The mountain would eventually become the treasured conservation area it is today.

Whenever I come across these rusting pieces of steel, I don’t just see the remains of a ski area. I see a cold Sunday afternoons with my friends Ben and Ray, riding the T-bar to the top, laughing more than skiing, and learning lessons that had little to do with carving turns. Those afternoons seemed ordinary at the time. Looking back, they were anything but.

Sometimes history doesn’t disappear. It simply rusts in the woods, waiting for someone who remembers.