Ragged gets a new GM

[Abubob]

Average temps well above freezing. Many nights above freezing including the week of Thanksgiving. What about that is good for snowmaking?

 

[SkiNewEngland.net]

Average temps well above freezing. Many nights above freezing including the week of Thanksgiving. What about that is good for snowmaking?

November in Central New Hampshire is normally above freezing according to the National Weather Service's Concord data. All but 5 days went below freezing in November 2025, which is colder than average based on the historical data.

 

[drjeff]

The one thing you always have to remember, especially when it comes to early season "cold" temps and snowmaking, is that the differnce between say the temp + humidity combo to give say a 30 degree wet bulb and a 27 degree wet bulb may not objectively be that great, but when it comes down to production from snowmaking, it often makes a big difference, and very well could be the difference between the decision to fire the system up vs not and wait for a better, longer run of good wet bulb temps

 

[deadheadskier]

The one thing you always have to remember, especially when it comes to early season "cold" temps and snowmaking, is that the differnce between say the temp + humidity combo to give say a 30 degree wet bulb and a 27 degree wet bulb may not objectively be that great, but when it comes down to production from snowmaking, it often makes a big difference, and very well could be the difference between the decision to fire the system up vs not and wait for a better, longer run of good wet bulb temps

Sure. Yet, save for Vail properties and Ragged, almost every single ski area in the state has more terrain open for 12/5 than they've offered this early in several years. Gunstock, Cannon, WV, Loon are all killing it. Heck, Black Mountain probably has more terrain available today than Ragged.

I'm willing to give Ragged's new ownership a pass this season, but slow terrain expansion there has always been a problem. Whether it's a water storage issue, infrastructure or labor, improving their early season terrain expansion should be their top priority as new owners.

 

[Newpylong]

I disagree with the assessment that this is the best snowmaking start. The ground even at elevation wasn’t completely frozen right up to last week. I know because I was there. Temperatures had been above average all of November this year. That coupled with an ongoing drought plus New Hampshire got none of the early snow that Vermont got. I really feel your complain is unwarranted.

I do not make these comments, or really any comments lightly. I have been making snow in the Upper Valley and working on other various snowmaking systems (including Ragged's) in New England for a decade now. Temps have been below average and I can't recall as many decent snowmaking hours in late fall as we have gotten this year. Up at Black, despite being able to pump half as much water as Ragged, compress half as much air, and facing due south we were able to open top to bottom on 11/27. They are going to open another near T2B trail tomorrow, the longest at the mountain. Granted the product expectations are far different between the two mountains, I am merely using this as an example of how favorable things have been.

Ragged year over year chooses to make considerably more snow on new terrain than what is required to open. Their philosophy is to never have to resurface. One only needs to take a look at the place in mid-April after closing to realize this. They typically have enough coverage to stay open ~2 additional weeks if the customers were still coming. When Erik Barnes joined the mountain and he learned this he basically said, "wow okay, that's not how anyone else does it, but I am not going to change what works."

I think it's time to switch up "what has been working" a bit and attempt to get terrain open faster. It is insane to not be opening with the Barnyard (which HAS to run when the system is operational because they refuse to valve the area off) and something else like U. Ridge/Headwall and Newfound for an opening day offering. Blueberry Patch has been done and draining for a week now.

 

[AdironRider]

Granted the product expectations are far different between the two mountains

I don't necessarily agree with the strategy, but this is ultimately quite important. We internet die hards bitch and moan about it, but we aren't paying the bills. They lose money on guys like us.

Ragged IMO can't afford to get the decision wrong. It barely makes it as it is, and risking the core clientele for frankly, marginal returns (at least in the short run) is a play I'd really be hesitant to make given their individual market conditions. I think people need to be realistic that trying to chase the Loon's, Sunday River's and Killington's of the world when you are the size of Ragged is dumb. Comparing them to Black, which is clearly losing money (although nice marketing) is also dumb, because it is clearly unsustainable from a business standpoint (Erik can keep throwing Indy cash at it, but at a certain point, the eventual coop won't be doing that).

At the end of the day, their location sucks for natural snow (as does most of the upper valley) and generally is pretty marginal temp wise every year, so they do need to blow it deep the first pass as a general practice if you ask me.

 

[Newpylong]

I do not disagree with any of this, I get 100% WHY they do it. The decision is also made more prominent by relying on 100% leased air that disappears at the end of January.

My point was it might be time to start playing the odds a little bit. Ragged is not the only ski area with little natural and a similar financial situation. I am not saying skimp on your core trails, that would be silly. Those need to survive a blowtorch. But once you have those covered, then play around with running 48 hours instead of 60, etc on everything else. They don't need to run for that long on non-core trails. We were skiing on the same opening route last year nearly 2 weeks after opening because they kept going, and going and going elsewhere. As I wrote above, the place could keep going with 100% coverage on average 2 more weeks after close. From a business perspective, I did not like to see that quantity of snow sitting there once the lifts stopped, and I imagine someone at some point at Ragged will feel the same eventually. I chose to not renew our passes (and just use Indy) because for all of the advantages to skiing there for us, the slow rollout was becoming an impediment to enjoying the place.

 

[AdironRider]

Yeah, if you are leaving snow on the table so to speak at the end of the year it does feel like a waste of limited resources to an extent. Hard to predict just how much its going to take to make it though, so probably better to overshoot than have to close in early March because you missed the mark and their is the inevitable rain event.

 

[drjeff]

I am guessing that most GM's today, if you got them to be completely open about it, could tell you the date on the Calendar that they have in mind as closing day for the season. And with the advances in actual data that one can get about how much snow has been made and if their snowcats are equipped with the the software, how much actual snow is on basically every inch of every trail, and based on that objective data and what a "typical" weather season will be, they can manage fairly well about how much snow they need/want to have on the trails they target for late season operations to make that targeted closing day, and they tend to be fairly good at that these days, as long as mother nature is relatively cooperative. Now you can certainly debate the opening strategy of really bury a trail before opening so as not to risk a melt out should an extended blow torch show up before the all important Christmas week, vs getting an adeqaute base down and moving on quicker to more expansion and rolling the dice a bit that a catastrophic melt out won't hit. Some years the lay it on thick call makes the mountain look like a hero, other years it makes them look like they are adverse to getting more trails open faster for their customers. Kind of the old damned if you do, damned if you don't situation

 

[deadheadskier]

I view Ragged's main competition as Gunstock, Sunapee, Crotched, Pat's and maybe Cannon a bit. Essentially the 93 corridor of day trippers, not the destination skier. I do think they lose out on a significant amount of pass buyers because of the slow expansion. They do have the worst location of that grouping. So, if folks have to deal with a worse commute for less available terrain, they'll buy a pass elsewhere. Its what caused me to leave after having a pass there for 2 years a while back and what lead me to choose Gunstock for my local pass option when I was ready to leave Vail.

If Ragged made snow like Gunstock, there's a chance I'd go back. Ragged plus Indy add on would save about a grand for my family vs the Gunstock + Indy I buy now.

 

[millerm277]

I don't necessarily agree with the strategy, but this is ultimately quite important. We internet die hards bitch and moan about it, but we aren't paying the bills. They lose money on guys like us.

Ragged IMO can't afford to get the decision wrong. It barely makes it as it is, and risking the core clientele for frankly, marginal returns (at least in the short run) is a play I'd really be hesitant to make given their individual market conditions. I think people need to be realistic that trying to chase the Loon's, Sunday River's and Killington's of the world when you are the size of Ragged is dumb. Comparing them to Black, which is clearly losing money (although nice marketing) is also dumb, because it is clearly unsustainable from a business standpoint (Erik can keep throwing Indy cash at it, but at a certain point, the eventual coop won't be doing that).

At the end of the day, their location sucks for natural snow (as does most of the upper valley) and generally is pretty marginal temp wise every year, so they do need to blow it deep the first pass as a general practice if you ask me.

Eh the internet die-hards wind up with substantial influence over where the general skiing public actually goes. I'm one person with an obsession. But there's probably 20-30 friends/family members that get most of their days on snow either by coming out with me or by asking me when + where to go.

I can tell you with certainty that it's why I don't ski there often - even though I really would like to with it's proximity to where I live (<1hr). It's 100% the glacial pace of expansion that makes the terrain they have on offer typically far less than it feels like it should be before mid-Feb.

I get making sure you can stay open with the most important routes, especially if you've got a shaky forecast, but I agree with gist of NP's point here.

Otherwise, really the only other issue I feel like there is with the place in it's current size is that I wish they'd cut another trail off the Quad, even if they have to sacrifice a glade to do it.

 

[Abubob]

Yup. Ragged sucks. Tell your friends.