Indy Pass purchases Black Mountain, intends to create a co-op

Erik Morgensen said on Oct. 5, 2024, that Indy Pass is buying Black Mountain and wants it to become a co-op. (Getty Images)

Less than a year after saving Black Mountain from being shuttered, Indy Pass and Entabeni Systems purchased the Jackson, N.H., ski area from John Fichera. The announcement came Saturday before a standing-room-only audience inside the base lodge and was streamed by Indy Pass.

Entabeni Systems CEO and Indy Pass managing director Erik Mogensen will be the general manager and Doug Fichera, John’s son, will be the director of mountain operations.

“We want this place to be the soul of skiing,” Mogensen said. “We want this to be the best little ski area that’s ever been.”

He said the season will run Dec. 20 through April 6, operating Thursday through Monday. The rope tow will also run on Friday and Saturday nights.

Mogensen said he had no interest in owning a ski area, noting that he doesn’t want to be seen as competing against other ski areas that use Entabeni or Indy Pass, noting that Entabeni has much more reach than owning a single ski area. Also, having Entabeni going around and buying properties would go against everything the Indy Pass is about.

“Ultimately, this place needs to be owned by the people that are in this room,” he said. “We’re going to operate the ski area this year, we’re going to get it to a successful place. We’re going to make it the soul of skiing, then it is my intention to form a co-op and invite everyone in this room to own a piece of Black Mountain.”

Andy Shepard, who was recently the CEO/general manager of Saddleback following its long closure and has led other community-based ski areas in Maine, was tabbed to help the transition to a co-op, like Mad River Glen, for the 2025-26 season. Shepard had been trying to find a buyer for Black, meeting with what he estimated to be 30 people about their interest in running a small ski area, including some who were in the base lodge for the announcement.

Those who have season passes this season will have the first chance to join the co-op. Season passes with complete access are $499 for adults (22+) and $299 for youth (6-21) and passes with holidays and weekend blacked out go for $249 and $149.

There will be some modernizations to the mountain with RFID cards and online ticket ordering, which will use Entabeni software.

Doug Fichera, who said he has been making snow at Black since he was 8 or 9 years old, said that snowmaking capacity this winter will increase 20 percent and the mountain is close to finalizing a deal for new HKD snow guns, which would allow Black to make snow from the summit down both sides.

He said he will start on Dec. 1, as soon as he finishes up his fall work for Summit Resources, his company that installs and modifies snowmaking systems.

Black will also have a new PistenBully winch cat, allowing for better grooming of its steeper terrain, and a backup groomer will be coming from Colorado.

“We’re going to groom stuff that we haven’t groomed before, or that Doug tried to groom when he was a kid and just went down, could never go up,” Mogensen said. “We’re going to go up now and we’re going to consistently groom steeper trails and we’re going to manage that natural snowpack really well.

“We’re not going to groom everything. There’s still going to be ungroomed, this is a classic New England ski area that has incredible trails, but we are going to keep stuff in really good shape.”

Mogensen said the time freed up from not having to try to keep an aging fleet of groomers running will allow the mountain to make more snow.

Fichera said Big Dipper and Jackson Standard are trails the mountain has consistently struggled to keep open and a winch cat will change that.

Mogensen said the double chair, the only chairlift to go to the 2,350-foot summit, will be used whenever possible. Black has 1,100 vertical feet when open from top to bottom, but only 725 vertical feet when the triple is the only chair running.

There was a big cheer in the crowd when Mogensen said that Black will lean into having a strong uphill culture, including the reintroduction of Friday Night Lights.

“Some of the most passionate skiers and riders that I know go uphill as much as they go downhill,” said Mogensen, who added that he intends to work with Jackson Nordic.

The learning center and rope tow will be moved closer to the lodge, Fichera said it will create a gentler pitch. There will also be new rental equipment.

Mogensen said that he is looking for Black to be a place for the community, and wants to have speakers and workshops presenting at the mountain.

(Keith Pearson is the editor of the New England Ski Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].)