I love this mountain. Cannon rarely fails to deliver. And when it over performs, it is damn good and like no where else. Even when I was a pass holder at Jay, I still considered Cannon my home mountain. When it is good at Cannon, it ain’t worth driving any where else in the east.

Laziness has crept into my skiing routine lately due to excessive fatigue and not enough sleep. I took Thursday and Friday off from skiing. With non-crystalline precipitation en route for Sunday, I managed to drag my sorry lazy ass out of bed and drive north to Cannon for what I expected to be lack luster skiing at best.

What I found was an extremely pleasant surprise. I found my way to the Zoomer Chair in the morning per my usual pattern when there is no fresh snow. I found Avalanche whaled on skier’s left and awkwardly bumped on skier’s right. Not bad but not what I was looking for. So next run, I took Zoomer Lift Line which was sublime! Blow in from Zoomer snow guns along with some natural combined for very soft natural-ish snow with occasional bumps and slightly thin cover without fear of base damage. Turns were silky smooth. I lapped Zoomer Lift a while before heading for the summit for further exploration.

The summit trails were  recently blown out and groomed making for fast hard pack. Not my cup of tea. So after a cycle on the Cannonball Quad, I decided to sample Taft and take a hike. Taft was delightful with powdery sides and better coverage than Zoomer Lift. Needless expansion of the Saddle was evident. Taft had been widened but was not as bad as I had suspected it might be. Seems like the trail cutting grew barely scratched the surface (thankfully) and mostly stuck to widening Taft and some traverse and connector trails.

Barron’s was powdery over no base so guaranteed base damage was a given. Not too shabby. Taft was skiing better than any where else on the mountain, so I returned for two more. Lower trails ranged from unacceptably thin to more than half a foot of powder. Score. Stump. Score. Stump. I took first tracks down two of my favorite shots, both worth the effort for first tracks only. The base will be phenomenal once it is frozen and has another foot of fresh on top (which looks to happen next week).

I concluded my afternoon in the new Cannonball Pub (something I rarely do, especially when skiing solo). The pub is sensational and will surely boost revenues for the ski area. It is a master stroke of design and I can’t imagine anything better for Cannon. Food was outstanding for pub fare and priced about the same as you would expect from the cafeteria. Beer was a little high at $6 for a pint for a total of $7 with a tip. Ouch. Total price for a pint, burger, and fries came to just over $20 including the tip. A little steep so I will not be making that a habit. Still fun to sit down and grab some grub and a brew at the mountain after a really fun day of skiing.