Ragged Mountain Resort, Christmas day

[evile]

Date(s) Skied: 12/25/2010

Resort or Ski Area: Ragged Mountain Resort, Danbury, NH

Conditions: Machine made packed powder, frozen granular

Trip Report: An awesome deal on Liftopia lured me out of the house Christmas morning. Parked front row, I don't think they saw 50 cars all day. Breezed through the rental shop to get my daughter on skis and we basically skied right onto the 6-pack all morning. Conditions were better than I had expected but very little terrain is open - only 2 ways down from the top. Guns were blazing on upper and lower exhibition which made for a wet cold ride on the lift (I would expect that trail to open soon, it was covered in huge snow whales). There was very little in the way of natural snow but hopefully they get a boost from this storm. As always the staff were super friendly and helpful.

 

[Johnskiismore]

Good to hear, a guy I work with was there yesterday as well

 

[deadheadskier]

I was there today. Rolled into the lot at 8:00, 9th car there, front row. I just lapped the groomers until 11 before splitting home for the Pats game. Ski on the lift all morning, might've been 100 cars there when I left mid-day. Conditions were pretty stellar groomed pack powder. Upper Exhibition was open and had the worst conditions of what was opened, but I'm sure will be great tomorrow after a day with people skiing on it and then another pass with the groomer. They were working on grooming out lower Ex all morning. Don't know if they only have one groomer or one person scheduled, but that's all they were using, so it wasn't looking like they'd have it open this afternoon judging on his progress. Newfound Ridge and Chute skied fantastic.

It's clear that the primary goal for vacation week was to have the terrain park almost fully built. They had some pretty huge airs in there. Large amounts of snow were made there. I rode the lift with one regularl who was somewhat complaining to a mountain employee about them only having two fans guns going. 1 at the bottom of lower Ex, 1 on Main Street. It was explained that they can drain the snowmaking pond much faster than they can fill it pumping it full from the bog. The pond was pretty much empty, so they were only blowing a little snow to enable them to fill the pond up to capacity again.

Tomorrow Main Street and Lower Ex should be open for sure. I was told the next focus will be on Cardigan Turnpike to get Spear Mountain open. Hopefully this snowstorm is substantial enough to really help them along in opening up more terrain. To bad I have to wait until next Sunday and won't get to enjoy the fresh from the storm.

 

[mikestaple]

Thanks for TRs. Damn. I was hoping they would get Lower Ridge open. My family and I can lap that all day (well, at least half a day). I guess they made the call that getting Exhibition open came at the price of Lower Ridge. Wonder if they have any additional solutions to snow making - is it a pump issue getting water to the pond or are they limited by what they can actually take out of the bog.

Maybe (maybe) they will let Lower Ridge bump up?!

Would be nice if Ragged was able to get a nice dump and open up their set of blacks too..............

 

[deadheadskier]

I think the major difference this year is the amount of early season snowmaking they allocated to the terrain park. Last year if I recall correctly, Lower Ridge was the 2nd trail to get blown following the main Chute>Village Green run. This year they've just been hammering the terrain park. If it were me, I'd have blown Lower Ridge prior to Newfound Ridge. It would be nice to have a second option to Village Green (other than the terrain park) to get to the base. Fingers crossed Ullr treats us well.

To answer your question regarding water issues. From the folks I've talked to, it sounds to me like it's a pumping capacity issue from the bog, not what they are limited to take out of there.

 

[mikestaple]

Wow. Not an environmental issue. That is frustrating. And last year they did have Lower Ridge going before the terrain park (I can recall Reggae Glade and the Terrain Park being closed prior to Christmas with Lower Ridge open). Then again, last year I can recall Ragged getting an ok dump of natural snow the second weekend of December too.

Skied there last year on New Year's Eve and at that point they had Cardigan open (and the rest of the green's down to the bottom off of Spear). Sounds like that, again, is the goal to take pressure off Village Green.