Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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May Mountain stood on the east face of a hill that goes by May or Robinson Mountain, on Route 2 in Island Falls, looking across the road to Lake Mattawaumkeag. Glenn Parkinson's book First Tracks says two doctors who had taken up skiing opened it in the late 1960s.1
Read the whole historyTodayThe T-bar's towers and cable and the lodge still stood, without the T's, while the upper trails were filling in with trees. (2005)1
Timeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied May Mountain, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near May Mountain
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 57.1 mi away · MaineA small T-bar slope half a mile south of Caribou on Route 1, later called Caribou Ski Slope, that ran from the 1960s to the mid-1970s.
- Closed 1973 · 95.9 mi away · MaineA ski area on Bald Mountain in Dedham, near Bangor, begun by the Penobscot Valley Ski Club, that had a chairlift, a T-bar and snowmaking before closing in the 1970s.
- Opened 1966 · 97.9 mi away · MaineA ski area on Coburn Mountain south of Jackman, with a double chairlift and a T-bar, that ran from 1966 into the early 1970s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 1 page below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
May Mountain stood on the east face of a hill that goes by May or Robinson Mountain, on Route 2 in Island Falls, looking across the road to Lake Mattawaumkeag. Glenn Parkinson's book First Tracks says two doctors who had taken up skiing opened it in the late 1960s. One T-bar of about 2,800 feet served around half a dozen trails, which dropped off a steep headwall and then flattened out; the longest ran about three quarters of a mile. It ran on weeknights under lights as well as on weekends.1
Guidebooks gave its vertical drop as anything from 360 to 520 feet; NELSAP takes the 1973 figure of 427 feet as the likely one. By the late 1980s the area was run down and its owners were trying to sell it. Local people bought it in 1992 and probably ran it for a few more seasons before it closed in the mid-1990s.1
TodayThe T-bar's towers and cable and the lodge still stood, without the T's, while the upper trails were filling in with trees. (2005)1
Timeline
- c. 1960Two doctors open the area with a T-bar in the late 1960s1
- 1973Guide lists one T-bar, five trails and a 427-foot drop1
- 1982Guide lists the T-bar at 700 skiers an hour and a 520-foot drop1
- 1992Local buyers purchase the run-down area1
- 2005A visitor finds the T-bar line and lodge standing, the trails growing in1
Sources for this history (1)
- 1New England Lost Ski Areas Project · May Mountain, Island Falls, ME
Photos
No photographs of May Mountain we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of May Mountain, in their own words.
Facts
Location
46.0230° N · 68.2452° W · Maine
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain