Greenville, ME – Vandals on a rampage have caused thousands of dollars in damage at Big Squaw ski resort in Greenville.

According to the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s office, sometime over Memorial Day holiday weekend the culprits smashed their way through the doors of the ski area’s base buildings with an axe. Once inside they threw television sets into the hotel’s drained indoor swimming pool, threw chairs through windows, destroyed a soda vending machine and ransacked offices.

The ski area on the shores of Moosehead Lake, owned by Floridian Jim Confalone, has maintained only limited operations since a chairlift accident in March 2004 that resulted in an occupied chair falling from the cable of its summit lift. That lift never ran again, and in recent years the resort’s hotel, snowmaking and other amenities have remained dormant although the 3,000-foot triple chairlift and pony lift serving the lower mountain continued to operate on an increasingly sporadic basis.

In August 2010 Calafone informally offered to lease the ski area to Piscataquis County for $1 per year for 30 years but the resort did not operate at all during the 2010-11 winter season. With over 1,600 feet of vertical drop Big Squaw is one of the largest ski resorts in New England to close its doors.