It wasn’t the skiing at Sugarloaf that had everyone excited
Outdoors lovers enjoyed interplay of sun and moon
CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine — Nearly 2 feet of snow had fallen here in the past week. But the late-season skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain on Monday was really secondary to the main event: They came for the show in the sky.
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., the sky grew darker and took on a different shade, then a flickering shadow came across the snow.
More than a thousand people had taken off their skis to gather at Bullwinkle’s, the mid-mountain lodge. The excitement began to peak as the moon slowly crept across the sun. Shortly before the total eclipse, people wearing T-shirts dealt with a sudden temperature drop and shrugged on sweatshirts and coats as the mountain air got just a bit colder. Then they donned their eclipse glasses to look up.
The DJ spun Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” and all got quiet — everyone staring up as the sliver of sun shrunk.
James Clark, 6, of Dover, N.H, began yelling “Go moon!” which brought cheers from the crowd.
Then the sun blinked out, leaving the corona glowing over the mountains. More cheers. Some hugs.
“I had done my research and I knew what to expect, but this was way more than I expected,” said Sonia Berghoff, 27, of Bar Harbor.
On Monday, the eclipse plunged a huge swath of the continental United States — from Texas to Maine — into darkness along its path of totality. At Sugarloaf Mountain, the ski resort was in darkness for three unforgettable minutes. With the sun totally blocked by the moon, a “360 degree” sunset emerged.
On a hill of snow just past the lodge party, Anne Marie and Steven Rowse of Harvard, Mass., lay on their ski jackets waiting for the moment. They’ve spent most of their lives driving to Sugarloaf, where their three girls learned to ski.
Anne Marie, a hospital deacon, said there was something particularly special about the feeling on this day.
“It’s so wonderful to see everyone together for a common good, a common purpose,” she said. “It’s a real sense of community.”
Just beside them, children carved snow castles and friends kicked back in the sun, waiting for it to disappear.
Ben Clark, James’s dad, said he had tears in his eyes.
“I had high expectations and it exceeded my expectations. ... It was way bigger than I thought it would be.”
“Then when it started to get light again, I don’t know, something about that too,” said Clark, an engineer, struggling to put the spectacle into words.
Jason Hearst, of Camden, Maine, had laid out an elaborate spread of meats and cheeses, a charcuterie board served on a snowbank. After witnessing a total eclipse in Hawaii in the mid1990s, he relished the chance to enjoy the spectacle close to home.
“I had to be here with my kids,” he said.
For a weekday in April, the ski resort was packed. The parking lots had been filled since the early morning. Scott Alpert, 60, from Huntington, N.Y., couldn’t have been happier. After seeing the 2017 eclipse in Sun Valley, Idaho, he was inspired to make sure he saw this one, too — this time, with his daughters Mackenzie, 24, and Stefanie, 27.
But they never intended to be on a ski mountain in Maine. Plan A had been Dallas. They had flights, they had a hotel. But the weather got in the way.
A few days out, they shifted gears and planned to go to upstate New York. But the clouds followed them. On Saturday, Alpert took up a colleague’s offer to come to his ski house at Sugarloaf. It paid off.
“It’s amazing. Beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky,” he said.
Indeed it was. Globe meteorologist Ken Mahan said New England had some of the “best eclipse-viewing weather,” with lots of sunshine.
The Sandhu family from Greenwich, Conn., also never intended to be at Sugarloaf for the eclipse but made the pivot from upstate New York to chase the clear New England skies.
Harvinder Sandhu, 62, booked a room in Bethel, Maine, and figured he would decide from there: maybe check out the eclipse from Burlington, maybe somewhere else in New England. But swayed by the fun advertised at Sugarloaf on the Maine tourism website, he and his family headed out at 7 a.m. for Carrabassett Valley, arriving some 2½ hours later.
Sandhu’s son, Arjan, 18, had only one regret: They hadn’t thought to pack their skis. ”We’re already planning a trip back here next year,” said the teenager.
‘It’s so wonderful to see everyone together for a common good, a common purpose. It’s a real sense of community.’ ANNE MARIE ROWSE, on the communal eclipse experience