Ragged - December 23, 2003

December 23, 2003
Ragged, Danbury, NH
Beautiful weather, but limited operation

Yesterday my folks and I skied at Mad River Glen, then stayed over at my friend's house in Stowe. The original plan was to ski a full day today at Stowe. But when we got there at about 9:30 AM, it began to rain. We decided not to spend the $ to ski Stowe, and instead drove down to New Hampshire to avoid the rain and ski cheaper at a smaller place on the way home. We decided on Ragged since we had already skied Sunapee this month. Ragged just edged out Gunstock. A little while ago, most of Ragged's main mountain was open (but not Spear Mountain). Today, however, there were only about 4 ways down. The half day ticket was only $25. The conditions were almost springlike, without the holding back. Some of the trails had some obstacles like pebbles, but there was fairly good cover on most of them. The sun was shining and it was a nice little half day of skiing. They've blown snow on a couple short trails, and the snow mounds are ready to be spread out. But they do need to make snow on the main trails soon.


Beautiful lodge and 6 pack chair


Watching my folks ski Blueberry Patch


Plenty of soft stuff

Another shot of the lodge

very nice color on that last lodge pic. what image editing software do you use?

Thanks Steve. I use Photoshop 7. But I think the real quality is in the camera, Canon G5.

>>> But I think the real quality is in the camera, Canon G5. <<<

Nice report and great pics.

The trick is the right exposure. Camera exposure systems, and light meters “see” the bright snow as medium gray. Light readings directly from snowy scenes would result in underexposing the scene. Compensating for this potential exposure error requires a wider lens opening or longer shutter speed. Manual cameras can be set to the wider opening of between 1 and 2 f-stops. Or an exposure compensation of +1 (2 stops).

The G5 saw enough dark (prolly the red lodge/barn) so as to not "grey out" the snow and white lodge. I've been setting my Canon point and shoot to a +1 exposure compensation on the mountain to correct for the snow fooling the camera.

If you're not using exposure compensation with most point and shoot cameras you'll get snow that looks more grey. I'd be interested in what Jon has to say about this?