Ragged 2/26/2017

NewEnglandSkier13

After a rain storm the night before it was a day of poor conditions at Ragged. The weather situation presented a unique challenge to mountain ops, and unfortunately I cannot say I’m very impressed with how they dealt with it. When I arrived at 8:00 the snow report listed over 30 open trails. However the groomers had only touched Flying Yankee, Cardigan, and Barnyard so far, and not even the base area had been groomed yet. When I asked about the status of opening I was told, in a rather rude manner, that the Six-Pack would have a delayed opening. The Barnyard Triple and Spear Mountain Express Quad opened a few minutes late and the only options down from Spear were Flying Yankee and Cardigan. Showboat had plenty of cover, but no ungroomed terrain was opened all day. What had been groomed was frozen granular with some ice patches and the ungroomed edges of trails were bulletproof ice. The ski patroller at the bottom of the Six-Pack said that it wasn’t open yet because there were snowcats still on the trails. He also said something about wind, which seemed like an excuse because they were cycling the lift like they normally do before opening and when it finally opened, around 10:30, it was just after the snowcats finished on Exhibition. Two runs were open from the Six-Pack, Exhibition and Birches. Exhibition Glades were open, but had ridiculously thin cover and many areas required walking. Basically four trails were open until around 2:00 when they finished grooming and started opening a few more trails off the Six-Pack, but they never came close to the advertised 30+ trails open. There were never any real crowds and lines were never more than a chair or two long, but trails became skied-off because of the minimal terrain open. By the time more terrain was opened many had already left for the day which made for some good skiing later in the day. Temperatures were in the 20s and 30s throughout the day, but a light wind made it feel colder.

An Ungroomed and Empty Base Area

Looking Up Spear Mountain

Novice Area

Barnyard Triple

Summit Six-Pack

Spear Mountain Express Quad

At the Top of Exhibition

ciscokid

Wow you guys got hit hard by the torch too

Sounds like Ragged is living true to its name lol

Regardless a great detailed report

Glad you had great conditions the previous week

I layed low in anticipation of a Boyne trip this Fri-Sun

mapnut

Funny how photos can sometimes make poor conditions look decent - until we get down to the “Spear Mountain Express Quad” photo with all the glare! And the ones below.

mtsnow123

That glare is rough! Let’s keep our fingers crossed for some more dumps.

dcapbtls

Oh, how spoiled and entitled you all are…..You do realize the temperature on Friday was close to 60 degrees, and Saturday in the 50s…..with heavy rain Saturday night followed by a rapid freeze in the early morning hours?  Exactly what were you expecting?  They did everything they could to get you on snow….safely.  No access to ungroomed - well, who in their right mind wanted to be on the ungroomed yesterday?

NewEnglandSkier13

<blockquote class=“Quote” rel=“dcapbtls”>Oh, how spoiled and entitled you all are…..You do realize the temperature on Friday was close to 60 degrees, and Saturday in the 50s…..with heavy rain Saturday night followed by a rapid freeze in the early morning hours?  Exactly what were you expecting?  They did everything they could to get you on snow….safely.  No access to ungroomed - well, who in their right mind wanted to be on the ungroomed yesterday?  </blockquote>I’m not saying they made the wrong choice by waiting until morning to groom, but I am saying that they shouldn’t have advertised 30+ trails open and they could have been a bit more informative about what was actually happening.

bubblecuffer

Since it is NH and VT break right now, do you all think post-MA-NH-NY-NJ-CT-RI-Feb-break snow making is in order for most resorts this year?  I do.  Clearly Ragged would benefit.  

ski_it

<blockquote class=“Quote” rel=“ciscokid”>Wow you guys got hit hard by the torch too </blockquote>

Yeah, some places went from Epic to Crapic in less than 8 days. I went to Mt. Snow Sunday not expecting much. They were pretty forthright on their report, explaining delayed openings, etc… Still they managed to open quite a bit. Reminded me more of December with a thicker base. I missed skiing the softer conditions at the end of the week & Saturday. I read Wildcat’s Sunday report and they had some good phases, (I’m paraphrasing); “the edges of groomed trails will remain firm while the ungroomed will be technical.”

Remski

Yah the mt. report was not very accurate but the snow surface was not as bad as I expected because of low skier, boarder traffic was so minimal the granular never got pushed to the trail edges and you could set an edge and it would carve without sliding out. Like I said better than expected.

NewEnglandSkier13

<blockquote class=“Quote” rel=“Remski”>Yah the mt. report was not very accurate but the snow surface was not as bad as I expected because of low skier, boarder traffic was so minimal the granular never got pushed to the trail edges and you could set an edge and it would carve without sliding out. Like I said better than expected.</blockquote>

Agreed, it was easy to set an edge on most trails. Some ice patches began appearing on some trails later in the day.

dcapbtls

Snowmaking, at this late date, no.  Revenue ends this week…..no appreciable snowmaking (maybe Ragged runs the fan gun in the base area) until next November……..

4aprice

I just wanted to bump this as we enter this thaw period.  Basically 1 year ago.  Hopefully it will offer a little pick me up as March and April delivered last year and will hopefully do so again this year.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ