I spent today in New Hampshire at Ragged Mountain. We drove up in the crazy snow storm last night (took us 5 hours to get from Providence to Concord) and got up early today to hit the slopes. Ragged is only about 45 minutes from Concord, but what a ride. It’s way off in the middle of nowhere, way off the beaten path (though the path there is pretty beat up). The ride is frost heave hell. There’s nothing but frost heaves the entire ride, and the snow storm didn’t help as the road up to the mountain was packed with it and had 2 nice ruts for my tires to bounce around in.
Anyway, we made it to the mountain before the lifts opened. I figured we’d go here to avoid crowds at other mountains, including our beloved Cannon Mountain, which is normally not crowded, but with the school vacation week and the fact that it’s right off 93, I figured even they would be crowded. Ragged, if you don’t know anything about it, is smaller, about the size of Gunstock. They had some financial issues in the past, but were bought up and the new management installed a whole bunch of new snowmaking equipment. The biggest issue they had in the past was not being able to compete with the other mountains because of their lack of snowmaking. I figured they’d get a couple inches of fresh snow last night (which is all they got, about 2-3″). The skiing was great. There were no lift lines, no crowds on the mountain, and even the lodge was pretty empty. While I know the reason is that it’s so far off the main road and kind of small and not as well known, it was good for us. More fresh powder, nice groomed trails and no lift lines. I did just about every blue trail that was open and a couple of the blacks. The skiing was great with only a few patches of ice. There are actually 2 peaks at Ragged with nothing but glades in between. I don’t do glades (or harder blacks), but I was told that’s the reason people go there - for the great tree skiing. Spear Mountain, the western peak, was nice and soft (probably because the snow couldn’t get pushed off with the lift being extremely slow and only having 3 non-glade trails (and tougher trails, so fewer families). The other peak was a little crusty, even into the afternoon after getting some sun. I preferred Spear because the snow was much better and I could easily cruise down without worrying about the ice.
Ragged is a nice little mountain and great for beginner skiers and riders, and it’s probably awesome for families (so long as no one gets carsick easily). The blues aren’t too tough, and even the blacks are reasonable. I am not a huge fan of it because everything flattens out at the end and the trails aren’t terribly interesting (I prefer the nice curves of a classic New England trail, such as those at Cannon, and even Sunday River to extent). It was great day though. I’m glad we chose Ragged, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with crowds.
Published on January 8, 2008
in Skiing.
Since I decided to write a little about my ski experiences, I’ll do a little post about the 2 days of skiing I had between Christmas and New Year’s.
Thursday, December 27, we went to Mount Snow in southern Vermont. It was a milder day, but it was supposed to be decent up there with some snow showers. Not bad for skiing. We got there and I left Susan off at the green trails after doing a couple runs with her and headed up to the summit. The lift ride up was interesting. About halfway up the mountain it got really foggy, to the point where you couldn’t see more than 5 feet in front of you. That makes for really great skiing, not knowing what’s coming up. I did a few runs from the top. By the time I made my last few runs, it was getting misty. I had to remove the goggles so I could see. On my last run, I was soaked and then frozen (literally) by the time I reached the summit, and finally soaked again upon getting to the base. I was hungry, and went in for lunch. Susan came in shortly after and we decided we were gonna call it a day. By then it was starting to actually rain and it was just not fun skiing in the rain. I liked the mountain and will definitely return at some point. I was surprised that it was as easy as it had been.
The next day, December 28, we picked up Susan’s younger cousin (she’s 10 I think) and headed to Jiminy Peak in western Massachusetts. I had been there once before, on a day like Thursday, in the rain. I was having issues with my knees that day so it was also a shorter day and the rain didn’t help. This time, however, it was great. The trails were a bit moist, so the snow was heavy and it was tiring. It was also very crowded. I like Jiminy Peak. It’s a smaller mountain, but a great little spot for a day of skiing. The trails were decent. I took mostly blues, but did a black for my final run of the day, around 3:00. Then we headed home.
I try to avoid smaller mountains or mountains that are classified as family mountains because they easily get crowded and that’s just no fun. It’s a pain trying to dodge people and the conditions deteriorate faster. I also try to avoid mountains that snowboarders favor. They just push away all the snow and generally get in the way (like when they sit in a row on a trail blocking most of the trail). I’m going to try to get to Mount Snow again, hopefully this season. It’s a bit farther than most of the other places because we don’t have anywhere nearby to stay, but I really liked the mountain.
I spent this weekend in New Hampshire and Susan and I went skiing at Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch. We had been there once before last winter with her uncle, who, unfortunately, is no longer able to ski (which I miss because he skied at my level). Back from the winter holidays, we decided to go skiing this weekend because the last time was pretty sucky. I chose Cannon because of its varied terrain and lack of people. Susan likes it because it offers some decent beginner trails that she likes and because of the lack of people.
Cannon is pretty old fashioned. They tend to only groom half the mountain, the bottom half and they only have 1 detachable express chair. The trails are classic New England trails and the feel is just very old school skiing. It tends to be pretty uncrowded, even on weekends, because of this (so don’t you all start going there now). The snow this weekend was perfect. Back from a cold spell and never having got the rain that plagued the southern mountains between Christmas and New Years, the conditions were great, though there was that classic Cannon ice and some wind.
Being in the notch, the mountain has its own weather pattern that is different from even the surrounding areas. There tends to be a cloud hanging over the mountain so there’s little sun. If you go, bring clear goggles as they will help.
So this weekend was great, the slopes weren’t crowded (often I was the only person I saw on the trails from the summit), the snow was good (though patchy in spots), and the weather was perfect. The views from the summit are amazing. I was able to see Mount Washington at one point during the day. I only took one picture of Mount Lafayette, but I have some others I took last year. Cannon has become one of my favorite ski areas, if not for the terrain for the lack of people that go there. I love skiing on a weekend and not having a huge crowd. Next ski trip is in 2 weeks for Martin Luther King weekend. Perhaps we’ll try Cannon again and see how crowded it is then.
On our drive back, we stopped by the Woodstock Inn and Brewery to pick up some of their Wassail Ale (hoping they would fill a growler). Unfortunately, they only fill growlers when bottling the beer and didn’t do any of the Wassail. So we stopped at a convenience store in North Woodstock and picked up a 4 pack of that and a 6 pack of Tuckerman’s Headwall Alt. I’ll do a writeup about each of them when I try it. I hope they didn’t go bad sitting in the car overnight (though they shouldn’t have as it didn’t get too cold).
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