On a weekday sandwiched between Christmas and New Year’s, Carl Rominger was doing what he always does in the opening weeks of ski season: taming whales of man-made snow on the slopes of Ragged Mountain into a smooth, grippable corduroy.
His friend Tristan Whitman was also following a familiar routine, succumbing to the tantalizing smell of the Waffle Hut with his young daughter in between runs. Josh Larkin, Bill Morrison and Seth Offen joined Whitman to crank turns down the mountain’s Cardigan run, with eyes peeled for a good jump or side-hit on the trail’s edge. They’ve done this together since they were kids.
“You guys would tell me if I had a gaper gap, right?” Offen said, adjusting his goggles so no skin would show between them and his helmet as photo shutters clicked at them on the ski lift.
More than one member of the group grew up in the mountain’s shadow, able to hear the snow guns or see the snow cats from home. They bonded building kickers and searching for fresh snow in the mountain’s glades, which they affirm punch far above their weight class for East Coast tree skiing – just don’t ask them to show you their secret spots.
Ragged remains the kind of place where parents can let children roam free for the day, while knowing that they are safe and close by, just like theirs did when they were kids, and that constancy is part of why they love it.
This year, however, is different for these five friends. Along with a sixth they picked up along the way, the group now owns the ski mountain that brought them together. Their company, SF – short for “Snow Finder” – Mountain Co., officially closed on a purchase of the 60-year-old Danbury ski area and surrounding land in November.
In an industry where national consolidation has been the name of the game over the last decade, and at a mountain that historically has had its share of financial troubles, they are determined to do the place justice.
“We would basically kick ourselves in 10 years if it sold and we missed the opportunity to take a shot,” Whitman said.
Their vision is to “keep it Ragged” by boosting the mountain they grew up loving. They treasure its consistent snow conditions, thanks both to a stable water source in the Danbury Bog and a weather niche they call “The Danbury Snowbelt.” The mountain’s pizza, they attest, is truly good, and not just good for a ski area. The season passes are among the most affordable in New England, helping make the sport more accessible for families and sustaining a “Cheers”-like, “everybody knows your name” culture.
The “if it ain’t broke” view also means keeping ticket access through Indy Pass – which offers users a few days at a smattering of independent mountains across New England and the world. For at least the next few years, they will maintain their reciprocal agreement with season passholders at Vermont’s Jay Peak, which previously shared an owner with Ragged.
As they grew up, most of the group moved away, embarking on careers and families, and some came back. Consistently, though, they stayed in touch, reuniting to ski both at home and on regular trips afar. Along the way, Michael Kettenbach, a friend of Whitman’s from Bentley University, joined the circle and adopted the group’s love for Ragged. He joined them as an investor-owner.
When the mountain went up for sale near the end of last winter, the six friends tossed around the idea of scooping it up, at first in a shared group chat and then on a group trip cat skiing in British Columbia.
“We were just kind of chirping back and forth,” Morrison said. “Like, wouldn’t it be crazy to own Ragged?”
It didn’t take long for the conversation to become serious. The group formed a company in May and reached out to Doug Anderson, the previous owner, whose Utah-based Pacific Group Resorts has managed Ragged over the last 11 years, alongside Jay Peak and other resorts and golf courses nationwide. Pacific was a steady hand at the wheel for Ragged, overseeing the replacement of one of two summit lifts and upgrading the terrain and lodge facilities. Last year was a record-breaking one for attendance, topping 100,000 visits for the first time. The Snow Finder group didn’t want to risk squandering that progress.
“The idea of it was easy, because we love the place,” Whitman said. “But this group has seen this place go through bankruptcy twice” – most recently in 2007 – “…the last thing we wanted was for the resort to fail.”
The six friends, as much as a seller might, took a hard look at whether they were in a position to be stable owners.
“We spent months on diligence, just making sure that it would pencil out for us,” Morrison said. “That was the big thing, making sure that we were solid and we weren’t just making it an emotional thing.”
Real estate records show their company paid roughly $6.4 million for the resort land and an adjoining property, but that figure likely does not reflect the full sale price, which they declined to share.
Financing came from a combination of their personal funds and loans, they said, including one from local Franklin Savings Bank.
Whitman runs Global Finance for the Converse shoe company, and Morrison is a project manager at a Washington construction company and a previous part-owner of a brewery. Larkin owns property and runs retail stores in Oregon, while Kettenbach and his family are in the New England grocery business. Locally, Offen is an electrician and Rominger is Ragged’s grooming manager. All together, they felt they had the capital and the right mix of business knowledge to make it work.
On the whole, though, the intention is to leverage the expertise of existing staff – including general manager Erik Barnes, who came to Ragged in 2021 after more than thirty years at Mount Snow.
“That’s one of the main objectives, it’s not necessarily to inject a whole bunch of things,” Rominger said. “We certainly have our own ideas, but really we want to support the team that’s here and help them realize their own potential, what they think is the potential of the resort.”
While trail expansion to another peak has been eyed in the past, and an overgrown golf course lies dormant, the group is focused, for now, on getting their feet under them and making the most of what’s already at Ragged.
“We think that there’s still an opportunity to optimize what’s here,” Whitman said. As examples, they are exploring tweaks to fit a few more people into the lodge on the busiest days. They’ve got their eye on dialed in snowmaking to keep supreme skiing conditions at the forefront. They’re brainstorming what can be done to attract more traffic during the summer months. Further upgrades have been tossed around, but they weren’t ready to share specifics.
The purchase included several hundred acres of developable space around the resort. While nothing is imminent, one thing came up when asked what might be in store for that land: more beds.
“There’s no beds, really, here,” Whitman said.
Whether that’s places for people to stay short term or move seasonally, Ragged falls short of some of its peers when it comes to places for skiers – or maybe wedding guests and summer sightseers – to crash for the night and extend their visit.
“We still do have a lot of guests that come from southern New Hampshire, northern Massachusetts, people that probably wouldn’t hurt to have a place they can stay for a night and spend the weekend here,” Whitman said.
As more New England mountains join the portfolios of national corporate resort management companies like Vail and Alterra, the purchase by locals of Ragged and, last year, Killington and Pico in Vermont stand out. In the case of Ragged, especially, the move reflects a continuing protectiveness of the flavor and economy of classic New England ski areas amid consolidation.
For the SF Mountain Co. guys, though, it’s as simple as a love for their favorite sport and home turf, and wanting both to thrive for years to come.
“We’ve all skied everywhere, all over the world,” Whitman said. “This place has something.”
