As I mentioned in another thread, my kids and I are on a mission to ski/ride every public area in Maine in one season. After this weekend we more or less have this complete, with only 3 easy/reliable areas left to go. The absolute highlight of our weekend was Lonesome Pine Trails.
We booked this trip earlier in the year to coincide with the 2026 Can-Am Crown Sled Dog Race, thinking that if we were going to drive to Fort Kent, we may as well see/do multiple things. It may just become a tradition at this point – the race is a great excuse to get up there and ski Lonesome Pine. For those that don’t know, the Can-Am race starts in downtown Fort Kent and has 30, 100, and 250 mile lengths. Launches start at 8am and continue through the morning, with the first 30 mile race finishers showing up around 11:30 or noon at… the Lonesome Pine lodge! The finish line is right in front of the lodge and you can watch the teams finish sporadically as you ski. It’s pretty cool.
Lonesome Pine has approximately 430′ of elevation from top to bottom terminal and is served by a Hall T-Bar and a handle tow (that I regrettably didn’t get a good look at, but I believe is an O’Connor based on the handles themselves) servicing a small beginner area. Having now been to all of them, it is easily our favorite surface-lift-only area in the state, and actually amongst our personal favorites overall.
The terrain is excellent, with a good amount of variety across the runs. It is an excellent intermediate ski area. The “main” trail that the lodge looks up on is extremely wide and makes for a great carving run, with the rest of the trails all having something unique or fun keeping things interesting. Something about the elevation changes and multi-headwall trails makes for really fun runs. Some of the side trails feel like really classic Maine skiing. I don’t know how to describe it, it’s just great. The only things lacking for trails are some true expert terrain and bump runs (if that’s your thing). The whole mountain is groomed, which leads me to the next section.
The snow quality was excellent. These were easily the best groomed conditions we’ve skied all year. The snow was perfect, soft enough to be forgiving but firm enough to stand up to really deep carves. It’s what I would call hero snow, though personal definitions differ. Coupled with the surprising lack of people (given how busy the town was), we were skiing on perfect fresh corduroy for the majority of the day. Nothing “tracked out” or “skied off” all day long. We were still zipping along on areas of untouched cord at 2pm. It was kind of crazy. Beyond that though, the grooming was incredible – and I really do mean that. The grooming passes blended together effortlessly. No ridges, bumps, voids, death cookies, etc. Every single edge of a tiller pass was perfectly blended. There were no low spots, high spots, dirt patches, or other flaws at all. Half the time I was hard pressed to figure out where one pass started and one ended. The whole mountain was within a half-inch of perfect, no exaggeration. I could find barely any flaws at all in the grooming on the whole mountain. My pictures somehow make it look worse than reality, and even those look good. It was very evident that whoever groomed the mountain for the day cared immensely about how it came out and clearly has a ton of experience. Without a doubt, it was art. Grooming perfection. I wish I could have shook the hand of whoever groomed it and personally told him good job (ski patrol assured me that he would tell him). I haven’t seen anything like it before in my life on snow.
Even with how busy the mountain was because of the Can-Am, it felt completely peaceful on the slopes. I don’t know if it was more of less busy than normal, but we had whole runs to ourselves and we never felt the least bit crowded or rushed by others. It was a great feeling compared to some places we’ve been. Maybe it was the energy of the Can-Am, but the general vibe of the mountain was really great too.
As an aside, my wife who is pregnant and can’t ride this year said that it was her favorite lodge to date. It was extremely busy in the lodge because of the race and she said it didn’t feel crowded or loud at all. The food was very reasonably priced and though standard for lodge fare, pretty good. The poutine (“fry mix”) was excellent. Full day lift tickets were a very reasonable $35/adult and $25/student.
All in all, probably one of our best days on the slopes this season, and I would highly recommend the mountain to any intermediates looking for something different. Particularly the weekend of the Can-Am to add some variety. Maybe make a weekend of it and pair it with a trip just across the border to Mont Farlagne (which I’m very curious about). Lonesome really is one of our favorite mountains in the state – just a great little mountain. I didn’t manage to get many pictures because we were having so much fun, but see the few I did snap below.
