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Year Round at Powder Ridge, Connecticut

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surfsnowgirl

surfsnowgirl

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I went to check this out last weekend and it was.... interesting. Powder Ridge is a very small bump in CT and I imagine they just don't have the money to put a lot into this. I could be wrong. It was .... ok. You take a very slow magic carpet up to the top of the 500 foot slope. You then spray this wet solution out of a spray bottle onto the bases of your skis. You spray the sh!t out of them. Off you go. If you don't take off like a bat out of hell you lose speed halfway down practically to a stop. Even if you do take off fast you still run out of juice near the bottom. It's this white bristley material that is supposed to provide natural glide for you skis but I don't know.

I made 4 runs and each one was less awkward than the last which was good. I had to stop as it was 70 degrees out and I was dying in my wind pants and long sleeved shirt.

Looks like there's several different technologies for this artificial snow thang

Buck Hill in Minensota uses Neveplast
http://www.buckhill.com/artificial-snow/

Liberty in PA uses snowflex
http://www.liberty.edu/snowflex/about-lmsc/

Powder Ridge uses 365 Synthetic Snow by Yippi

I'm guessing that powder ridge used the cheapest one simply because they are a tiny place that just doesn't have big resort money. it just seemed to dry out very fast under our skis and you'd near stop in your tracks towards the bottom. Not sure how powder ridge compares to the other 2 places. We were wondering if skiing in the rain would help the sliding, or misters coming up through the bases as you skied down or having a mid station slide through place where you re-wet your bases. It just seems powder ridge could make some improvements to help the sliding. Needless to say we had a lot of amusing discussion about Lube and how things can be improved.

I took out my Redsters but I'm thinking my Auras which are in rock ski status might be better since they are 6 years old and I won't care if I F up the bases. Also they are a lot wider so maybe more surface area would help???

We're going again this saturday so I can do it again and so Michael can try but unless we have a different experience saturday I might be done until the resorts starting blowing snow which will be Killington in October.

One redeeming quality is Powder Ridge has a fabulous bar with $5 beers and delicious eats.

If Liberty wasn't 4 plus hours away from me I'd take a trip there to try that out.

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Jully

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I went to check this out last weekend and it was.... interesting. Powder Ridge is a very small bump in CT and I imagine they just don't have the money to put a lot into this. I could be wrong. It was .... ok. You take a very slow magic carpet up to the top of the 500 foot slope. You then spray this wet solution out of a spray bottle onto the bases of your skis. You spray the sh!t out of them. Off you go. If you don't take off like a bat out of hell you lose speed halfway down practically to a stop. Even if you do take off fast you still run out of juice near the bottom. It's this white bristley material that is supposed to provide natural glide for you skis but I don't know.

Thanks for the report. A little disappointing, but it is consistent with what I heard from other sources too. I've heard the surface isn't bad for getting on edge, but the difficulty is getting speed up to get on edge. I had not heard about the spray solution. The innovation of this material was that it did not require spraying with water every morning! Kind of defeats the purpose if you spray your skis instead of the surface...

Did you hear anything about them expanding next year? Their plan originally was to go to the summit. Your pictures lack anyone else on the slope behind you... were crowds non existent?
 
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surfsnowgirl

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Thanks for the report. A little disappointing, but it is consistent with what I heard from other sources too. I've heard the surface isn't bad for getting on edge, but the difficulty is getting speed up to get on edge. I had not heard about the spray solution. The innovation of this material was that it did not require spraying with water every morning! Kind of defeats the purpose if you spray your skis instead of the surface...

Did you hear anything about them expanding next year? Their plan originally was to go to the summit. Your pictures lack anyone else on the slope behind you... were crowds non existent?

I was disappointed. Hoping for a different experience this weekend but we'll see. Yeah it was hella hard to get up to speed so that you could do anything to get near an edge. I was tempted to straight line it off the "top" to gain some speed and then try and turn a bit. That's what I thought too about the surface in that it didn't need any kind of lubricant and was naturally slide'able but you literally need to spray your bases every time. I'm not sure what was in the spray bottles but it was water based I believe. I was told not to wax my bases but if I don't have much better luck I'm going to slap on some roller wax I have in my bag. It wasn't crowded at all. I'd say there about 15 people there at various times, many were sitting on the picnic benches at the base. Did I mention how slow the magic carpet was. I think the plan is for summit access by next summer but they have to fix the sliding issue IMO otherwise it's going to be a longer mother friggen way down. Everyone there pretty much was a first timer who came to check it out. We all agreed we'd try it again but I think they need to make some improvements if they are going to get any regulars. There were a couple kids playing around on the jumps on the side of the run. I emailed the mountain asking about the sliding issue and am waiting to hear back. It makes me feel better you heard similar things from others as I was thinking maybe I'm doing this wrong.
 
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Jully

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I was told not to wax my bases but if I don't have much better luck I'm going to slap on some roller wax I have in my bag

I've heard both to wax and not to wax the skis before going. I've also been told the wax will rub off onto the surface throughout use.

Hope they can improve on the sliding issue! It would really really stink (to the tune of a few million dollars) if this surface was just a bust in general... hopefully there is something they can either improve or alter...
 

Crank

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I skied Powder Ridge a few times when I was a teenager and we used to straightline it top to bottom.
 
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surfsnowgirl

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I've heard both to wax and not to wax the skis before going. I've also been told the wax will rub off onto the surface throughout use.

Hope they can improve on the sliding issue! It would really really stink (to the tune of a few million dollars) if this surface was just a bust in general... hopefully there is something they can either improve or alter...

I'm very hopeful too. I know Powder Ridge is trying to draw traffic there, they have downhill mountain biking now and now this so fingers crossed that they get this all worked out. There's apparently supposed to be this mat you slide through at the top for extra lube but I didn't see these when we were there. I'll give some wax a whirl on saturday and see how that goes.

@Crank I was thinking that their blacks are probably pretty easy. I'd like to ski there once just to say I've done it. If anything their bar is quite nice so the après ski would be cool. Maybe I'll take a sick day this winter and check it out.
 

Crank

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lol. The bar was the main attraction back then (mid 1970's) They had night skiing until 3AM and the bar right there, usually with a band playing. We would drink a lot and every once in a while take a run or so.
 

crgildart

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I guess they don't make a good wax for 70+ degree bristle skiing hahahaha. We sprayed WD40 on our skis for each run down the water ramp at freestyle camp. They also had soaker hoses on spraying up a mist about 4 feet above the bristles.. oil and water base friction FTW.. It was pretty steep. I can see now a green trail would be futile on that stuff..
 
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surfsnowgirl

surfsnowgirl

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Magic Mountain, Vermont
I guess they don't make a good wax for 70+ degree bristle skiing hahahaha. We sprayed WD40 on our skis for each run down the water ramp at freestyle camp. They also had soaker hoses on spraying up a mist about 4 feet above the bristles.. oil and water base friction FTW.. It was pretty steep. I can see now a green trail would be futile on that stuff..

Ironically they told us to use cold weather wax which I don't understand since it's so warm out but they must know better than me right. Hmmmm WD40...... I have some in my Jeep. I like soaker hose idea too but yeah this is about as green of a trail you can get. The bunny hill at Mammoth is steeper than this thing lol.

I just heard back from Tom Loring who's apparently does everything. he's the Training Center Director for Racing, Rentals, Retail and the Ski & Snowboard School

This was his response to my inquiry about their plans for improving the sliding.

Thank you for your inquiry. We continue to explore ways to improve the sliding experience on the new surface for everyone. Applying a hard (cold weather) wax with an iron, scraping, and brushing is giving both skiers and riders the longest lasting lubrication. The soapy water bath at the top definitely helped as well. We are discussing ways to put another bath on the hill part way down. I do not anticipate that we will have one in place by this weekend but I assure you there is something in the works.
Thank you again for your feedback, we look forward to seeing you on the hill.

I asked him about the lubrication mat that was supposed to be placed...somewhere but I never saw.

At least they are aware and are trying.
 
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surfsnowgirl

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Heard back from Tom Loring again and there's a lubrication mat at the top of the trail and a mid way lubrication station that are under construction.

Wonder if they'll get this done soon. Either way at least they are aware that improvements need to be made and are currently working on them.
 

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