Now, the skiers and snowboarders who spend their winter weekends here are being called on to keep it from closing again: For $3,000 apiece, they can help save the mountain.
Taking a cue from the Mad River Glen resort 85 miles north, thought to be the only cooperatively owned ski area in the country, Magic’s president, Jim Sullivan, has been offering shares since last summer and has sold 146 so far. He needs to sell about 150 more by Aug. 1 to raise nearly $1 million, or Magic may be no more.
“A lot of people would mourn its passing,’’ said Sulli van, a former lawyer and ski racer. “It’s really kind of the last standing area in Southern Vermont, in my opinion, that represents traditional Vermont skiing.’’
Magic did not invest in snowmaking as heavily as its competitors did in the 1970s, meaning poor conditions on its 40 trails sometimes cost the mountain precious customers, who head to nearby Bromley Mountain, a resort of similar size with five more lifts and far greater snowmaking ability, or Stratton Mountain Resort, which has 92 trails and a high-end ski village.
This season, Magic is open Friday through Monday only, to cut costs.
Sullivan does not exactly have a marketing budget, so he’s relying on his mailing list of about 3,000 condo owners and season pass holders - and on the passion of Magic Mountain devotees like Greg Williams.
Williams, 38, learned to ski at the mountain in 1978 and still skis there every weekend in the winter. He wasn’t content just to buy a share - he started a campaign, selling Save Magic T-shirts, beer cozies, and bumper stickers and raising enough money to buy two additional shares.
Williams rents a house each ski season with a group of friends who drive to Londonderry - population 1,700 - from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts to ski and hang out at their regular tables at the lodge, right next to the bar.
His high school friend Jay Henneberry and his wife, Lisa, scraped together $3,000 to buy a share in Magic Mountain. When Lisa, a nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital’s open-heart intensive care unit, asked for more shifts, her supervisor asked her if she was redecorating her house.
