Saturday promised clear skies and temperatures in the 40s and 50s. Perfect Spring Skiing weather despite the fact that Spring Skiing should not begin for another month! Upon arriving at Cannon Mountain, I visited Guest Relations to claim a free ski ticket for maxing out my frequent skier card. The morning sunrise brought forth tremendous color leaving an electricity hanging in the air. Today was going to be a great day to be on skis regardless of how little snow fell during the month of February.
Feeling the need for speed and a proper warm up (for once!), I made my first runs on some groomers. Big fast GS turns were had down Middle Cannon to Paulie’s Extension followed by quick and nimble slalom turns down Avalanche. Groomer festivities were continued down the center of Zoomer which featured bumps on both sides of the groomed center.
After my legs were feeling up to task, I tracked down the bumps on Paulie’s Folly since bumps on Zoomer Lift Line and Avalanche looked sketchy, hard packed, uneven, and no fun. Paulie’s has in past years disappointed but this year I have enjoyed epic runs almost every day! This day was no different as I offered verbal praise and cries of joy to the natural snow gods. The snow was soft, pleasant, and edgable. The bumps offered supreme satisfaction. Sure there were some natural terrain features such as rock, dirt, and weeds. And my bases suffered when I let my guard down> But it was a great run that I repeated twice later in the day.
With a proper bump warm up, I decided it was time to get it on. I took Zoomer Triple to the Banshee Glades which I found rather thin and unpleasant. Then I took the tram to the summit and sat down in the cafe to adjust my boots and consume mass quantities of home fries. Yum! After dropping a deuce, I grabbed my sticks and pointed them down Taft Slalom. Taft was a mixed bag of everything from nice edgable packed powder to scraped to fluffy bumps to scraped snow to rocks and back to delightful packed powder. Spying some folks enjoying a few brews by the rocks on Taft, I entered my tuck and sped my way up and into the saddle Mittersill bound.
As I was hiking, I noticed a snow mobile had been up and over the saddle recently and no boot tracks had been knocked into the track yet. First tracks! Upon reaching the summit of Mount Jackson, I partook in my usual summit apple ritual, clicked in, and ventured down the old Taft Race Course. Gliding through the narrow bump trail with ample finesse, the bumps got bigger and more irregular around the bend at Tuckerbrook. Variable snow with occasional thin cover retained the remaining section of Taft. It was decision time once I reached the clearing. I made a really interesting descent doing some traverses and discovering some new lines. It always amazes me how long a Mittersill run can last when you milk it for all the lines you can. I did not quite have my legs fully under me but had a lot of fun on the journey.
After a lunch break, I decided it was time to try out the Hards. After a double quad ride back to the summit, I made haste down Taft to Upper Hard which was disastrously thin up top and hard pack down low with some fluff to enjoy on skier’s left. After a quick photo of Mount Lafayette and the Hards, I picked a deviously fun line down skier’s left taking care to avoid the rocks. I was beginning my most epic run of my life down Middle Hard despite the crap cover. Rounding the first bend I did not stop, and proceeded to make insane poetry through the steeper bumps skier’s right and kept going straight around the next bend to skiers left, again thrashing through the bumps and avoiding the rocks. Bringing me to the final pitch, which I oddly decided to take skier’s left which I almost never do. I made quick and nimble turns through some really thin snow before cutting into the center bump line and ducking into the woods for the cut through. An awesome run in which I found all the right lines and what little quality snow there was left over.
Back to the Front for a jaunt down the Zoomer Lift Line which was a disaster. The bumps were uneven, hard pack, scraped, and not user friendly. I bashed through them though and suffered a pre-released binding towards the bottom of the run. Standing on one ski watching your other ski slide down the steep hill despite the runaway device is not fun. Paulie’s again then the Banshee slopes and then the Tram to the summit for another jaunt over to Mittersill. Now the saddle was more fully tracked and plenty of other skiers were kicking in when I summited for the second time today. I opted to take an exploratory route through some woods and found a few square feet of boot high untracked powdah! Wowzers, could not believe there was still some of the goods around. Then again, it could not be fully appreciated as it was mixed in amid mostly packed snow from traffic.
Bounced back up the Peabody Quad for a shot down Upper, Middle and, Lower Closed. Upper was delightful packed powder and a little thin in spots, Middle was fast and has been a lot better previously this season, and Lower was thin causing my rhythm to get jumbled up. Back up the Quads to the summit for one more Mittersill run. I hooked up with a trio of skiers; two of which knew what they were doing, the third seemed to have gotten lost halfway down! The others hung back while I ducked into a newly discovered treasure: a steep and narrow chute featuring a 4-6 foot wide path requiring hop turns the whole way down about two hundred vertical feet. Sah-weet! I was rather challenged on this chute but handled the challenge well despite fighting fatigue.
Not allowing fatigue to defeat me quite yet with another hours of lift operations remaining, I hit another pair of Quad rides to the summit for one more romp down Middle Hard. I was sucking wind around the first bend and was glad to stop and chat with a fellow skier while regaining my cardiovascular control . I plowed through the rest of Middle Hard without much grace but lots of power. I called it a day with many notable runs and two new discoveries. To hell with this pitiful snow fall… we can still have a blast! As I mentioned to a fellow skier just before descending a steep and narrow chute in Mittersill, “we are New Englanders, we make the best of what we have.”
