The epic early New England ski season marches on! Today was my eighth day of skiing for the current season and sixth day earning turns. Why pay over thirty dollars for crappy scraped up man made snow when New Hampshire’s best powder stash was begging to be pillaged? Instead of paying for the ‘privilege’ of skiing crappy snow, I opted to take one run for the price of none.

I have been fairly harsh in my criticism of Cannon Mountain’s decision not to open Thanksgiving Weekend as scheduled. However, I would like to offer a big ole’ thank you to Cannon management for keeping New Hampshire’s best powder stash off limits to any one not willing to earn their turns. Powder lasts for days on end when the masses can not access it, whereas it normally only lasts a few hours when the lifts are spinning. So here it is, thanks cannon! If cannon wants to join NELSAP, I might even be okay with that if this weekend is the result!!!

Skinning up to cannon’s summit yesterday, I felt like superman. Today my legs were tired but not completely shot. I originally planned to yo-yo some locations a few times and sample some virgin lines. However, the weather was mighty fine and the summit was begging for a visit. So i skinned all the way up, making a leisurely tour of the mountain looking for other skin tracks. I found a blow down on a traverse and wished I had brought the tools for the job.

Views from the summit were excellent today, unlike yesterday which had the summit socked in by snow and clouds. I found a foot deep all over with drifts slightly deeper and wind blown areas not so deep to not deep at all. Mostly light and fluffy powder with exception of the summit which had dust on top of slab on top of dust on top of a nice frozen base. Mid-winter form! WOW! I couldn’t believe I was skiing this stuff in november, many of these lines i wasn’t able to touch until February last year!

I managed to get about 500 vertical feet of completely untouched trail all to myself and suffered only minor scratches for my efforts. I pushed my luck big time but it paid off without any significant base damage or core shots, incredible! The rest of the descent was occasionally untracked but mostly looking for fresh snow amongst other tracks, not a difficult proposition by any means.

November will soon come to a close with two epic storms on the books for the current season. Even with the impending warm spell and rain forecasted for the next week, an incredibly solid base has been laid for the season already. I expect December storms will open up worlds not typically experienced until late in the season for many adventurous skiers. I am currently on track to beat my previous record season by fifty percent at the current rate. Here is to an excellent beginning to what should be an amazing season!