Wincing in pain, I awoke without an alarm this morning after yesterday’s strenuous powder day at Burke. Everything hurt from my lower back to just behind my knee. Plans were already hatched to combine lift serviced and earned turns at Cannon to maximize powder potential almost a full week after the last storm hit New England. Original plans included the possibility of a full skin of Tuckerbrook but due to my tense and sore muscles I dialed plans back a bit.
Arriving at the Peabody Lodge, Cannon’s excellent staff were working the parking lots to alert potential customers that power was currently out but may be back online later. “No worries” I told a lot attendant. Pointing to my bindings I mentioned that “I have my own power.” Lifts were still running on backup power to get the remaining customers off the chairs before the bull wheels stopped turning. Since the power just went down, I decided to not wait for what could be a few minutes or a few hours.
Not long after I began skinning, I heard the tell tale hum of power being delivered to the lifts. No worries as I was off the grid regardless and heading for whiter pastures. I was baffled by the amount of traffic inflicted upon the mountain in the past few days and felt like a royal Johnny Come Lately as I picked up a well packed down skin track. There was plenty of fresh powder to still be found but I would not enjoy the pleasure of laying down first tracks today.
Half way up the skin track, I knew today was not going to be my day. My body was aching. Eleven days into the season and I was sucking wind after less than four hundred vertical feet. I berated myself for not doing my hiking and conditioning during the off season.
Soon I found myself at the opening of a personal favorite line. Traffic had been light to moderate and coming out of the chute, I found plenty of untracked lines and a delightful foot of powder on a sketchy base. Coverage was thin but not poor due to a very minimal crunchy base under the foot of fresh. Twigs and flora grabbed at my boards but I powdered through some powder turns and cut up some delightful untracked. Deciding that one run would probably be more than enough, I by passed the cut back and gave preference to the powdery run out with untracked lines. Today I paid the price for not being properly conditioned. Only getting one run when there is a foot of fresh on the ground is too high a price to pay. Never one to walk away from powder before lunch time, I licked my wounds and hung my head en route back to my car.