Ragged 01-25

[bobbutts]

Went out for the afternoon with kid to meet with some friends doing the Ride and Ski card 2-1 weekend tour. Lodge and food service were packed. Nobody buying tickets to pair up with for a few min, so got antsy and took a bath on a $54 rack 1/2 day. Lots of HS age racers from the S. Shore of Mass for some event.
6-pack going up every chair full due to good organization from a worker there kept lines under 5 min
Most if not all blacks closed for lack of cover, so not as many options as I'm used to at ragged. Except for Main St. the trails were not too crowded on the main side. The trails were mainly down to hard pack and loose piles, not a terrible thing since I want my daughter to learn on ice too.
Spear was less than a min line and less crowded and scraped off. Cardigan had just opened and didn't have the scratchyness of the others. Lift too slow and time running out, so didn't check out anything else over there.

Not a bad day and impressed with how the hill handles traffic for the most part. Lodges not so much. Not impressed by the weak snowmaking job and failure to open blacks.

Lots of trail cutting seems to have been completed on Pinnacle Peak since my last visit. Not sure how that's progressing overall.
Sry, no pix.

 

[xwhaler]

Nice report. I will be at either Ragged or Cannon next Sunday......Ragged does need to step up their snowmaking if they wanna realize the ROI benefit of pinnacle peak IMHO

Sent from my VS980 4G using AlpineZone mobile app

 

[Abubob]

All their snowmaking muscle went into the park and Showboat. It's amazing what they did with Showboat. I'm not amazed in a good way but more dismayed. I'm working on getting a still frame from a movie at this moment. What they did was totally change the characteristic of the hill and not in a good way but in a paving the natural landscape way.

 

[Abubob]

It's twice as wide as previous years and with the frozen snow boulders from the groomer it obliterates half the slope.


Showboat 01 by Bob Misu, on Flickr

 

[deadheadskier]

wow.

I wonder if they will install a culvert and bury the river that splits the trail to reduce the amount of snow it requires to open.

Too bad they groom that run.....

 

[Abubob]

Well there really isn't enough natural snow to cover that trail as it is but the amount they've made here is ridiculous. I'll be skinning up that in May.

 

[rocojerry]

I was hoping to make it to Ragged this weekend, thanks for the TR and pics. Was that pic of showboat from this weekend too?

 

[LonghornSkier]

They did make a ton of snow on showboat, but I like it because you can now make wide, wide turns on Showboat... Also, correct me if I am wrong, but the only trail they haven't made snow on that has the capability is Birches.

 

[bobbutts]

It would be cool if they made snow wall to wall on Showboat, maybe when/if a quad goes in there.
I've had a good time when snow was more plentiful picking my way down the neglected side.

 

[Abubob]

I was hoping to make it to Ragged this weekend, thanks for the TR and pics. Was that pic of showboat from this weekend too?

Taken Sunday Jan. 26

 

[mikestaple]

I was there on Saturday too. We started around 9am and went down Showboat - it is insane the amount of man made they have on that trail. Then we hit the all the open off the 6 pack (no Ragge Glades or just plain old glades). The snow was decent. Later in the day it was scratchy in spots. Flying Yankee was scrapped off as folks were "scared" off of the black diamond on Showboat and Cardigan didn't open until 11. We were up top when they dropped the rope (or really just lifted it up and everyone scooted under the rope) at 11am. Nicely groomed. Which was decent since a lot of the mountain was getting scratchy. The youngest had to go through the barn a few times before we left. Run of the day - Lower Ridge. It's my favorite run at Ragged. You can really see them going to town on the next mountain over cutting trails. Too bad they need such a large amount of natural to get the ravine open.

 

[hammer]

wow.

I wonder if they will install a culvert and bury the river that splits the trail to reduce the amount of snow it requires to open.

Too bad they groom that run.....

Well there really isn't enough natural snow to cover that trail as it is but the amount they've made here is ridiculous. I'll be skinning up that in May.

Do they really need to make that much snow on it? IIRC the trail is a bit rocky in places but I didn't think it needed that much snow.

 

[deadheadskier]

Do they really need to make that much snow on it? IIRC the trail is a bit rocky in places but I didn't think it needed that much snow.

right at the bottom of the steep pitch before the flat there's a pretty significant river that crosses the trail and carves pretty deep into the landscape. That section requires a snow depth of probably close to 10 feet over a 20 foot width to open up. If they buried the river in a culvert and regraded over it, you could get away with a one to two foot base or so like most snowmaking trails in the East require to open.

The amount of snow overall they've blown on that trail looks like overkill though. It looks like they could achieve the same width they were going for with half the amount of snow if they worked the snow over via groomer. It is rocky though. Perhaps they didn't want to damage their fairly new grooming machines.

It will be interesting to see how long that patch lasts in the spring. The reality is the whole river section could cave in mid-March if it gets too warm and they'd be stuck with a mountain of snow above that can't even be used.

I have to imagine if/when a new lift goes in on Spear, some significant regrading of Showboat happens.

 

[Abubob]

It will be interesting to see how long that patch lasts in the spring. The reality is the whole river section could cave in mid-March if it gets too warm and they'd be stuck with a mountain of snow above that can't even be used.

I skied over that late April last spring. It only got dicey nearer the lift where there were more "normal" amounts of snow made. No where near a problem mid-March.