Bald Mountain Ski Patch, Rangeley, Maine — c. 1960s-70s

A vintage Bald Mt. ski patch from Rangeley, Maine, estimated to date from the 1960s or 70s, a pointed shield with a red merrowed border — a blue sky above a white snowfield cut on the diagonal, a skier in red folded into a tuck across it, BALD MT. in red at the top and RANGELEY ME. in red at the base.

This is the same patch as the Saddleback shield a few listings over — same shape, same sky, same diagonal snowfield, same red skier, same hand. Two rival Rangeley mountains, four miles apart, buying from the same mill and getting the same drawing with a different name stitched across the top. That happened constantly and almost nobody notices it, because you have to own both to see it.

Rangeley is a town of roughly twelve hundred people with a lake, a main street, and at one point two ski mountains. Bald was the smaller one, and it ran before Saddleback took over the region's attention entirely.

This is the most common way a ski area dies, and it has nothing to do with bad management or bad snow. A bigger hill opens nearby with a longer lift and more vertical, and within a few seasons the people who used to come here are driving past the turn. The small mountain does not fail dramatically. It just stops being the obvious choice.

Two mountains, one town, and only one of them still sells tickets. Both of them printed patches.

What is unusual about Rangeley is that both mountains kept operating alongside each other for years. Normally the smaller one folds inside a decade. This one hung on long enough to produce a reasonable quantity of souvenirs, which is why you are reading this at all.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge. Photos are the condition report.