Haunting at the Ridge is a Ski Lift Ride and Spooky Mountain Walk Where You Can Spend All Night (4.5 stars)

It’s a delight to be out and about at night on Halloween! Powder Ridge, a ski mountain, in Connecticut has an extensive attraction in October where you ride up a ski lift. It’s one of only two Halloween attractions in New England with ski lifts and they are each different. The other one is Jiminy Peak in the Berkshires, which I only rated 3.5 stars last year for stumbling hazards.

Skiing season hasn’t begun yet, of course, but at Powder Ridge the ski lift is open! You ride their nighttime ski lift to the top of its mountain, and then walk down through a forest trail meeting costumed performers in spooky settings. The entire route takes almost 40 minutes. If you arrive early, at 6pm sunset, the evening begins with some non-scary time that’s appropriate for children.

You’ll find a cemetery with a fog effect, and a scary camp with haunted cabins. You’ll pass through an evil farm with moo-ing cows, and find an animatronic devil in purgatory. There’s also a slaughterhouse and more. Sometimes actors have lines to say and real scenes to act out, but more often they just scream at you — a jump scare.

The decorations and set design are solid, and sometimes exceptional, such as the scene with animatronic werewolves, and the laser lake, where a laser aimed horizontally through fog creates a “lake surface” that you can’t see underneath. What could be hiding down there?

Unusually, Haunting at the Ridge also has extensive gathering spaces. You really could spend an entire evening there. They’ve got a midway called the Zombie Lounge to explore with food trucks selling tacos, pizza, and more, and vendors and Cabaret Sinister, a musical stage show. Try the paintball shooting gallery or shop in the giant inflatable igloo. They’ve got fire pits and many other places just to hang out. Snack shacks sell popcorn, ice cream, and drinks.

Then walk down to Fire at the Ridge, their indoor restaurant and tavern, which being a ski resort of course is well heated! They have a full menu including steak, salmon, sandwiches, hamburgers, and many drinks, appetizers, and desserts. Notable are the Tuna Nachos, Cheese Board to Share, Clam Chowder, healthy pizza (cauliflower crust), and that’s just the appetizer menu! They’ve got salads and vegetarian options, too. Unlike at Witch’s Woods, the Halloween attraction at Nashoba Valley Ski Area in Massachusetts which has no ski lift component, the restaurant at at Powder Ridge feels really “connected” to the Halloween attraction, not separate.

A few nitpicks. The downhill slope of the forest trail is a problem. You ride the ski lift to the summit and then literally walk down the entire mountain. So it’s a steep slope and sometimes has stairs. In the dark, and especially if recent rain has created mud, people are bound to slip, and that must be why Haunting at the Ridge is the only Halloween attraction in New England that makes you sign an injury waiver. That has a domino effect of creating lines. You don’t just wait in line to get to the attraction; you wait in a long line just to sign your waiver.

It’s hard to choose. Jiminy Peak has a better format, in my view. You ride a ski lift to their summit, see a Halloween haunt that is absolutely level, and then ride the ski lift down again, where you get stunning views of the night sky and town lights. At Powder Ridge, you only ride the ski lift up (seeing nothing but the dark mountain in front of you) and then have to walk down a steep slope for 25 minutes.

However, the production quality of Powder Ridge is far better, with special effects like lasers and animatronics, and the extensive midway and large indoor space with a restaurant extend how long you can stay for, making a possibly long drive worth it. I’ll give 4.5 stars to Powder Ridge.

Haunted at the Ridge co-owners Renee Savio and Will Green very kindly agreed to an interview.

Events INSIDER: You have an unusual Halloween attraction! How is it special to you?

Will Green: I think a lot of it has to do with the ski lift. The ride up, plus we have the zombie lounge at the bottom… There’s a DJ, we have live entertainment, we have The Thriller Dancers. There are vendor booths up there, and food, drinks, everything. Fire pits.

Events INSIDER: That’s all in your midway. It’s nice to have a space to hang out, because it can turn into a whole evening activity. It’s more than your forest trail.

Renee Savio: It’s a unique experience, taking the chairlift. It’s a full night. It’s not just a haunt. It gives a whole night of experience.

Will Green: Just about every haunt in Connecticut you walk through, you get at the end of the haunt and that’s it. Here, once you’re through the haunt, you can spend the rest of the night in zombie lounge enjoying the DJ, the entertainment, everything.

Events INSIDER: Do your actors have scenes to act out?

Will Green: There’s 21 or 22 scenes. I can’t think off the top of my head.

Renee Savio: There’s cemetery, cabins, witches, mines, slaughterhouse, clowns…

Will Green: Yes, and an endless hallway at the very end of the haunt. The last house is a 40-foot-long hallway filled with fog. When you walk into the hallway, you can’t see the exit. So you got to kind of feel your way down through the fog.

Events INSIDER: That’s great. Wow. And that’s on level ground, I assume?

Will Green: Yeah, yeah.

Renee Savio: Clowns, purgatory, hell, evil church…

Events INSIDER: And a laser lake, I heard?

Renee Savio: From the Last of Us. And we’ve got dolls.

Will Green: Wendigo, cabins.

Renee Savio: Hillbilly’s farm.

Events INSIDER: What are your creative challenges?

Will Green: The biggest challenge here is I started at the Haunted Graveyard at Lake Compounce. We were there for, I don’t know, 20, 25 years I think, but it was different there because you were on level ground.

Events INSIDER: The space is all very limited too, I know.

Will Green: Yeah. But I mean, you were on level ground, so we built pretty much whatever we wanted. Here, you’re coming down a mountain, so you got to kind of pick and choose where you can put buildings because you’re walking down like this.

Events INSIDER: Unfortunately, my legs aren’t good, partly because of my fatness. So I wasn’t able to walk the trail myself, but I suppose you worked really hard to get rid of small stones and tree roots on the path.

Will Green: The entire trail has a mulch all the way down through the paths. Which we move over. Powder Ridge has their employees walk the path. Every weekend we spread wood chips down through [the path].

Renee Savio: The biggest challenge too is weather permitting.

Will Green: Because we’re on a mountain.

Renee Savio: And obviously for the safety of the customers.

Events INSIDER: Thank you.

See more at powderridgepark.com.