Date(s) Skied: Friday, January 1st, 2010
Resort or Ski Area: Ragged Mountain
Conditions: Packed man made
Trip Report:
The good:
Can't think of a better way to ring in the New Decade than out on skis. Made it up for a few hours today with comfortable temps and light snow falling, but not accumulating much; maybe an inch. Even though I arrived late morning at 10:30, I was still able to score a parking spot within 150 feet of the lift in the secondary lot. Conditions were fast with only a few small patches of skied off area here and there. Lift line was 5 chairs maximum wait on the six pack, mainly due to Evelyn who does an awesome job of keeping the chairs near full. If there was more than a three chair wait, she was packing it full. Spear Mountain had no wait.
The bad:
Well, maybe 'bad' isn't the right word. Having not skied Ragged early season before, I think my expectations were a bit high for early season snowmaking and terrain expansion. Perhaps those expectations are/were that way due to the High Speed Six lift, fairly decent lodge facilities and the fact that the mountain is owned by a large real estate development company that has invested big money in other resorts. It was a major let down to find that the only additional terrain open from the prior weekend was New Found Ridge to Town Meeting. While fun, this amounts to about a 1500 feet of slope over 300 vert.
More frustrating was seeing they had finished blowing on Exhibition (evidence not only by the whales, but the removal of the snow guns) yet it just sat there all day. I really don't get why they weren't grooming it out to open. Word is that will happen tonight, but I'm not sure why they weren't working on it during the day. Perhaps their groomers only work at night.
The skiing that was open was quite good for groomed terrain. It's evident that the mountain relies heavily on natural snow. Even at my perceived slow pace, a very nice patroller said that this was the best effort he had seen the mountain make in his ten years there and that it gets better every year.
While after 4 days out, I'm starting to get a bit bored with the limited terrain, I'm still happy with my decision to get a pass at Ragged. It's a double edge sword. I love being able to park right next to the lodge and not have to deal with a shuttle bus or long slog. I love having elbow room to boot up and when I eat lunch. Being able to have as much trail to comfortably ski as fast as you want without worry of traffic is great. No lift lines are also great. The price is hard to beat. But, you sacrifice some in the way of snowmaking.
I'd imagine a good foot of natural and opening of several more trails and I'll be happy as could be; especially if some decent bumps form somewhere and the trees open up.
I'll be back Sunday morning to sample the fresh and depending on how the mountain does, I may repeat that on Monday instead of seeking out Northern terrain.
For those coming up, I definitely wouldn't expect any glades to be open after the expected snow this weekend. They still need at least two feet unless the snow is very wet/dense. Also, I had four chair rides today with different patrollers. I expressed concern for wind on Sunday. They said that wind will shut the Spear down pretty easily, but the six is typically good up to 60mph gusts no matter the direction. It's fairly low with only one area that's very exposed and they said the weight of the chairs really keep it steady. Monday they had 50 mph winds, ran it and you didn't sway at all.
Resort or Ski Area: Ragged Mountain
Conditions: Packed man made
Trip Report:
The good:
Can't think of a better way to ring in the New Decade than out on skis. Made it up for a few hours today with comfortable temps and light snow falling, but not accumulating much; maybe an inch. Even though I arrived late morning at 10:30, I was still able to score a parking spot within 150 feet of the lift in the secondary lot. Conditions were fast with only a few small patches of skied off area here and there. Lift line was 5 chairs maximum wait on the six pack, mainly due to Evelyn who does an awesome job of keeping the chairs near full. If there was more than a three chair wait, she was packing it full. Spear Mountain had no wait.
The bad:
Well, maybe 'bad' isn't the right word. Having not skied Ragged early season before, I think my expectations were a bit high for early season snowmaking and terrain expansion. Perhaps those expectations are/were that way due to the High Speed Six lift, fairly decent lodge facilities and the fact that the mountain is owned by a large real estate development company that has invested big money in other resorts. It was a major let down to find that the only additional terrain open from the prior weekend was New Found Ridge to Town Meeting. While fun, this amounts to about a 1500 feet of slope over 300 vert.
More frustrating was seeing they had finished blowing on Exhibition (evidence not only by the whales, but the removal of the snow guns) yet it just sat there all day. I really don't get why they weren't grooming it out to open. Word is that will happen tonight, but I'm not sure why they weren't working on it during the day. Perhaps their groomers only work at night.
The skiing that was open was quite good for groomed terrain. It's evident that the mountain relies heavily on natural snow. Even at my perceived slow pace, a very nice patroller said that this was the best effort he had seen the mountain make in his ten years there and that it gets better every year.
While after 4 days out, I'm starting to get a bit bored with the limited terrain, I'm still happy with my decision to get a pass at Ragged. It's a double edge sword. I love being able to park right next to the lodge and not have to deal with a shuttle bus or long slog. I love having elbow room to boot up and when I eat lunch. Being able to have as much trail to comfortably ski as fast as you want without worry of traffic is great. No lift lines are also great. The price is hard to beat. But, you sacrifice some in the way of snowmaking.
I'd imagine a good foot of natural and opening of several more trails and I'll be happy as could be; especially if some decent bumps form somewhere and the trees open up.
I'll be back Sunday morning to sample the fresh and depending on how the mountain does, I may repeat that on Monday instead of seeking out Northern terrain.
For those coming up, I definitely wouldn't expect any glades to be open after the expected snow this weekend. They still need at least two feet unless the snow is very wet/dense. Also, I had four chair rides today with different patrollers. I expressed concern for wind on Sunday. They said that wind will shut the Spear down pretty easily, but the six is typically good up to 60mph gusts no matter the direction. It's fairly low with only one area that's very exposed and they said the weight of the chairs really keep it steady. Monday they had 50 mph winds, ran it and you didn't sway at all.
.
