CARRABASSETT VALLEY — Sugarloaf’s snowmaking team ran a test of its snowmaking system Tuesday morning in preparation for the beginning of ski and snowboard season.

“It was a great success,” said Charli Sayward, communications manager for the the ski resort. “The equipment operated properly and our snowmaking team is ready for winter.”

The overnight temperatures dropped into the 20s Monday night, which allowed the test to take place.

“We do it every year to make sure everything is working properly and ready for operation,” Sayward said.

About 75 snowguns came online on the Scoot Trail at roughly 6:30 a.m., blanketing the trail with an early season snow. Scoot Trail is just below Bullwinkle’s Bistro, Sugarloaf’s mid-mountain restaurant, she said.

The lower “temperature allowed the resort to test a system that saw substantial upgrades over the summer, including the construction of a new mid-mountain booster pumphouse that will enable the snowmaking team to run more guns simultaneously,” according to a release posted on the ski resort’s website. “Sugarloaf also added an additional 100 HKD low energy snowguns to its fleet, as well as a number of fully-automated fan guns.”

Sugarloaf, a member of Boyne Resorts, is the largest ski area in the east and home to the only lift-serviced, above-treeline skiing and riding in the east, according to the company.

Sugarloaf anticipates opening the mountain by Thanksgiving Day, Sayward said

“We’re waiting for a window of colder weather for multiple days” that will allow the snowmaking team to start making snow for the season, she said.

“We usually try to get one trail open in the beginning and then move on to the next trail,” she said.

For more information on snowmaking, conditions and resort updates, visit www.sugarloaf.com/daily.