Cog Railroad Expanding Winter Operations

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peakbagger

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There is a legal notice in tthe Berlin paper that the Cog is proposing to expand winter operations to include Snowcat Tours and Snowcat skiing. The hearing is Dec 15th in Lancaster NH.

Several years ago, the planning bord reminded the cog that expansion of activities on the Cog property required prior approval. The cog received permission earlier this year to upgrade their warming huts where they are currently ending their winter operations. To date the board has supported expansion of use. I am unsure if the warming huts are high enough to be in the special high elevation zoning district. The Cog hotel and the large expansion of the Cog summit facilities have never formally come before the planning board.

The cog had attempted snowcat supported skiing 25 years ago but it only lasted a couple of years. My guess is as long as they do not actively advertise access to Tucks there will not b lot of objections.
 
There is a legal notice in tthe Berlin paper that the Cog is proposing to expand winter operations to include Snowcat Tours and Snowcat skiing. The hearing is Dec 15th in Lancaster NH....

The cog had attempted snowcat supported skiing 25 years ago but it only lasted a couple of years. My guess is as long as they do not actively advertise access to Tucks there will not b lot of objections.

Interesting. I wonder what terrain they envision servicing. It's got to be more than the cleared swath along their right-of-way. That will get old pretty quickly for experienced skiers.

Re Tucks access: The approach of eastern versus western ski venues is so different. A few years ago we skied at Big Sky in MT for a few days. Some of the bowls there dwarfed Tucks and were positively jaw dropping in terns of steepness and exposure. And yet all were wide open to any skier wiling to take them on. (Only the best did.)

I suppose there will be a great hue-and cry-about the Cog opening up the Ammo drainages and Tucks to skiers, thus increasing accidents and rescues.

Question: How come it works out west?
 
Interesting. I wonder what terrain they envision servicing. It's got to be more than the cleared swath along their right-of-way. That will get old pretty quickly for experienced skiers.

Re Tucks access: The approach of eastern versus western ski venues is so different. A few years ago we skied at Big Sky in MT for a few days. Some of the bowls there dwarfed Tucks and were positively jaw dropping in terns of steepness and exposure. And yet all were wide open to any skier wiling to take them on. (Only the best did.)

I suppose there will be a great hue-and cry-about the Cog opening up the Ammo drainages and Tucks to skiers, thus increasing accidents and rescues.

Question: How come it works out west?

When it ran previously, it serviced the ROW. They began advertising Tuck's access and the FS wasn't thrilled. They had rangers up there for a time preventing people from using the train to access the other side of the mountain.
 
It will be interesting to see, if the Cog will be held liable if skiers do wander off into the other drainages and get hurt. It's bound to happen, skiers can really move around up there if they get a ride up high. I would doubt all would stay within the confines of the tracks.
 
Seems pretty nanny gov to me for FS to block travel around the mountain just because the person took the train up. Pretty sure they don’t do that in Europe. What am I missing?
 
I am not a skier but there has been a least one high profile rescue of an adjacent ravine skier being rescued via the cog ROW with the assistance of the cog. I think a large scale search for a hiker lost hiking down Ammo was staged from cog a few years ago. Hurricane Irene scoured out new or expanded slide paths in the ravines on both sides of the cog and my guess is some folks are capable of skiing them. They look like they are best accessed from the cog but my guess is someone would need to prune a trail to them through thick woods. This is not the first time bootleg access routes get cut and maintained on WMNF land. I had heard from a couple of skiers but no way can verify that when the Cog first established skiing based out of Bretton Woods (before the cog got permission to plow the public end of the baseroad), that the approach was that the skiing was intended to be on the swath with a healthy "wink/wink nod" if one was to go out of the border. Similar to ski areas that put up signage noting ski area borders but tacitly planning for out of boundary skiers. (Thompson Falls on Wildcat to name one) i am aware of. No doubt that if bootleg routes are cut that social media will publicize them.

I dont think the national forest is staffed at a level to enforce access bans on the sides of the cog ROW for any duration. NH does not have the right to ban access to federal land (they do actively ban access to state owned Cannon lands to hikers but tacitly encourage some glade skiing) so IMO beyond lots of dire warnings or new physical barriers, folks will head off into the woods and some rare percentage will get in trouble and need to be hauled out by F&G employees and volunteers.
 
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Skiers have been using The COG ROW for years as access to the Presidential Range. A few train rides part way up the mountain is not going to change what has already responsibly been going on for years. Best to become a skier to understand all of that rather than to infer hypothetical situations just because folks now might get a ride part of the way instead of skiing the whole way. Nothing tacit about the situation IMO at all.
 
Skiers have been using The COG ROW for years as access to the Presidential Range. A few train rides part way up the mountain is not going to change what has already responsibly been going on for years. Best to become a skier to understand all of that rather than to infer hypothetical situations just because folks now might get a ride part of the way instead of skiing the whole way. Nothing tacit about the situation IMO at all.

What’s different this time around is access by snowcat rather than train. Running a cat I think makes it possible to go above tree line on the ROW and way higher than the train’s winter limit.
 
I have no doubt that experienced skiers have used the cog for accessing adjacent terrain for years. Prior to the cog road being plowed, folks used the west slopes but my guess is the numbers have exploded since the state let the cog plow the lower base road. My other guess is that the overall skill level of folks using the west side have decreased. Increased usage multiplied by lower skill level equals more rescues by public agencies and volunteers.

The difference is easier access equals a larger number of potentially inexperienced skiers accessing terrain they may not be prepared for. I believe that was the forest service's rational for opposing the Cog's prior attempt at selling rides to access Tuckerman's ravine. Someone with a credit card but limited skills could make a reservation in Boston, head over to the Tucks head wall from their ride on the cog and ski over the headwall with no clue of the terrain beneath or weather conditions they may encounter. The forest service's contention was someone having to walk up from Pinkham, would have to gain some knowledge of the terrain and signboards could post weather and snow conditions along the way. The walk up and the climb up the upper slopes might give someone a chance to reconsider their plan. The cog by nature is a business to move bodies, recreational liability rules apply to their property and if a skier decides to leave the property than they have no legal liability. Sure, they have participated in supporting rescues in the past as its great publicity if framed well. No doubt social media will factor in with reports of clueless folks successfully surviving terrain above their ability which will encourage more folks of questionable skill to pay the fee and think that qualifies them to do the big stuff. No doubt the highly skilled folks will go elsewhere once the crowds descend.
 
What’s different this time around is access by snowcat rather than train. Running a cat I think makes it possible to go above tree line on the ROW and way higher than the train’s winter limit.

What is the "winter limit" of the Cog and what is the limiting factor? Anybody know?
 
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Easier access to The Ammo has most certainly equaled a larger number of rescues. Interestingly those have mostly ended with hikers being the victims. So should the Base Road not be plowed then? Also of interest two of the most recent rescues in the area of the Cog and Burnt Ravine have involved Hikers not Skiers. So should access to The Cog ROW be shut off to hikers? Without any guessing and please let it be known otherwise it is hard to recall the last time a rescue involved a skier on the west side of the rockpile. It will be interesting to see if The Cog limits Winter rides to Skiers. If not I'm sure there will be Hikers appropriating the resource. Guessing is one thing. The future going forward and the past looking back are where the facts lie. Also to infer that clipping of trees will only inevitably occur by skiers is just pure conjecture. Yes there have been instances of that practice in New England but most of that is now decades old. If anything a heightened awareness of that poor practice on Forest Service Land has occurred. One only needs to look at the extremely proficient, ethical and organized efforts of The Granite State Back Country Alliance. Education and training has increased among the skiing community. With that comes increased responsibility and self reliance. In other words the effort is moving in a positive direction on many levels. Let's not make assumptions without hard facts.
 
Well, there’s one incident. Shut it down…

Given the traffic on the mountain, this incident could be considered an anomaly at best. Further more, skiers and hikers have a certain degree of ownership in their demise. Reading the conditions falls on the user, any 2 bit lawyer could argue that premise.
 
Given the traffic on the mountain, this incident could be considered an anomaly at best. Further more, skiers and hikers have a certain degree of ownership in their demise. Reading the conditions falls on the user, any 2 bit lawyer could argue that premise.

Agreed. Hence, my sarcasm.
 
What’s different this time around is access by snowcat rather than train. Running a cat I think makes it possible to go above tree line on the ROW and way higher than the train’s winter limit.
This is an excellent point. It is a change of use. The operation 25 years ago was via The Train not via Snowcat as stated in the OP. Using a Snowcat and not the Train opens up not only potentially going higher on the Mountain but also potentially better control of the operation. First overall skier volume would be lower. Not the revolving turnstile of continuous skier traffic that some seem to envision. Using a Snowcat would allow for smaller groups not only dropped off but potentially a more intimate experience where prior screening of a skier’s experience and also an opportunity for further education of the clientele.
 
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Well, if this endeavor fails, they can use the snow cat to take folks up the refurbished Nansen jump.
 
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