Originally, I was planning on returning to Cannon Mountain for a Tuesday Two-fer, but changed plans to ski at Loon with Greg from AlpineZone.com. Having skied with Greg once before, I knew we would have a fantastic time skiing together despite the limited expert and natural snow terrain at Loon; which barely missed out on the foot and a half Cannon received over the weekend due to notch effect snow. The company more than made up for lack of challenging terrain as we ripped up the expert level groomers on Loon’s North Peak.
We started the morning by ascending the Seven Brothers Triple Chairlift and skiing down to the North Peak Express Quad where we would spend most of the morning skiing the groomed expert terrain the lift services. Skiing the trails Right to Left, we started by making a quick cruising run down Walking Boss before proceeding to ski under the liftline on Flume. Finally, we took Sunset to Angel Street and decided that Angel Street definitely was the most fun and had the best snow. We would return often to Angel Street throughout the morning.
We continued alternating between these trails and shot down to the Gondi to ski Angel Street from the top twice. A lot of great video footage was taken from which a fine video was produced. The conditions were machine groomed with lots of loose granular spread around. Not much scraping due to lower crowd volume, but the centers of the trails did receive enough scraping to become mildly annoying without being dangerous. Loose Granular on Skier’s Left of the Angel Street headwall and Skier’s Right below the Cant Dog entrance were butter. Milked every short and nimble turn for all it was worth.
My elbow was still not one hundred percent, but I felt really confident skiing the steeper diamonds. Only while opening things up and skiing fast GS turns did I feel uncomfortable. Pole plants still are not entirely comfortable on right side and poling on flat ground is still out of the question. Though my confidence has been substantially reinforced since my first outing since the accident at Cannon two days prior.
Bumps on Flume were rock hard and excessively scraped. We both popped into the line for a few turns each but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. The bumps could really use a few warm days with lots of sunshine followed by some new soft snow. Despite the 2005-2006 season being sparse of natural snow, Loon has done a fantastic job manufacturing man made and maintaining their excellent coverage. Loon’s best trails and glades remained roped and for good reason. Far from a typical March, Loon desperately needs a ton of natural snow to open up its better runs.
Blue squares off the Gondi were rather scraped down due to the Gondi traffic. We tried Fox’s Folly once before deciding that the East Basin and North Peak trails were where it was at. By quarter past noon, we had tallied quite a few runs due to hardly any lift lines. A rare novelty at Loon during weekends but a regular occurrence during the week. Views were outstanding with mostly sunny blue skies and only the Presidentials and a few sections of the Pemi in the clouds. The bright sun shine kept things warm throughout the day but did not soften up the surfaces.
Once again, Loon delivered a high fun factor due to avoiding the crowds. Not a mountain I prefer to visit often, when you can hit Loon on uncrowded days, the mountain has a decent amount of terrain to offer all skiers. Loon certainly lacks the challenge of New England’s more legendary Skier’s Mountains, but delivers a pleasing product for most skiers and is a great alternative when mother nature refuses to cooperate with natural snow. Great turns, great company, and great weather.. who could ask for anything more?
