Erik Mogensen Buys Black Mountain, Indy and Entabeni Will Move To New Hampshire

In a reversal of a plan set to make Black Mountain, New Hampshire, a community co-op, Indy Pass director and Entabeni Systems CEO Erik Mogensen has announced that he bought and took full ownership of the ski area, reimagining it as an “Independent Mountain Laboratory.” 

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Entabeni Systems and the Indy Pass first bought Black Mountain in 2024—then an ailing ski area in Jackson on the precipice of closure—with the goal of adopting a co-op model by the 2025-26 season. In the interim, Mogensen ran the ski area as general manager.

With a new direction in place, The Boston Globe reported that the first community shareholders voted unanimously to sell Black Mountain back to Mogensen.

While Mogensen called the co-op model “solid” in a recent letter shared on Black Mountain’s website, he added that his experiences working at the New Hampshire ski area over the past year and a half colored his decision to stick around.

“Black Mountain has taught me to be a less transactional human in every area of my life,” he wrote. “It has shown me that community matters more than big mountains and western snow quality. This community and its resulting culture is what got me through the hardest moments of this project, and it is what has made it very hard for me to leave. In many ways Black Mountain saved me.”

The buyback includes making Jackson the new headquarters of Entabeni Systems and the Indy Pass. Both will move from where they’re now located, Colorado.

Entabeni builds tech for independent ski areas and owns the Indy Pass. Going forward, Black Mountain will serve as a proving ground for the company’s ideas. Those ideas, according to a press release, will be “shared with independent resorts across North America and beyond.”

“Entabeni has excelled from being on the front lines every day,” Mogensen wrote. “The hardware we construct, and the team we have built during our time at Black Mountain has been extraordinary.” 

He noted that those “short feedback and iteration loops” could only be “accomplished from the third floor of the Black Mountain base lodge.”

Mogensen expects the companies’ relocation will bring more than 30 jobs to the Jackson area, including roles in software and hardware development, finance, marketing, and management.

In a statement, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte called the relocation “exciting.”

“With our unmatched quality of life, beautiful outdoors, and welcoming environment for businesses, there is no better choice for companies looking to grow than New Hampshire,” she said.

As for managing Black Mountain himself, Mogensen plans to fill that role with a “veteran ski industry executive” in the coming months.

The development marks another chapter in one of the modern ski industry’s most unique stories. 

It hasn’t always been smooth: Mogensen and the town of Jackson’s select board had a now-settled dustup involving liquor licenses and snowmaking. 

But under him, Black Mountain, once a relatively unknown ski area, roared back to life, becoming a national icon for the independent side of the resort industry. All of it took place against the backdrop of increasing corporatization in skiing, with major mountains falling into either the Alterra or Vail Resorts bucket. Meanwhile, smaller ski areas have struggled to stay above water, like Black Mountain once did.

“Over the past 18 months a line has been drawn at Black Mountain by people who have demanded that Black be saved. That it remain open and vibrant,” Mogensen wrote at the end of his letter. 

“We will do everything we can to hold that line,” he continued. “This mountain and everything that it stands for will indefinitely be a place where the sport and culture of skiing does not just survive. It will thrive.”