Ragged 2/26/2017
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
Summit Six-Pack
Spear Mountain Express Quad
Spear Mountain Express Quad
Spear Mountain Express Quad
Spear Mountain Express Quad
At the Top of Exhibition
An Ungroomed and Empty Base Area
Looking Up Spear Mountain
Novice Area
Barnyard Triple
Summit Six-Pack
Summit Six-Pack
Spear Mountain Express Quad
Spear Mountain Express Quad
Spear Mountain Express Quad
Spear Mountain Express Quad
At the Top of Exhibition
- Sam
Comments
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
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?
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."
Agreed, it was easy to set an edge on most trails. Some ice patches began appearing on some trails later in the day.