And you know what a title like that means!

The original plan called for skiing Mad River Glen on its opening day. But due to a skiing partner phoning in a trip report from Cannon on Thursday evening, an audible was called. Cannon had received twice as much snow as Mad River this past week without suffering from excessive tracking from turn earners.

Days after the snow had fallen, I was still able to claim first tracks on a variety of shots during every run. Even on the more popular slopes that were well tracked and packed, the snow was high quality dense loose powder with occasional pockets of untracked.

The dense snow was not bottomless due to a very minimal base layer. Ski base damage was a given on the more well traveled slopes. Untracked yielded the best results but an occasional rock could still be found more than a foot below the surface.

The soft woods were caked with snow. Lack of color in the trees combined with the mountain being in the clouds all day created challenging photography conditions; everything was various shades of white or grey. Whatever color was lacking from the landscape was more than made up for in copious amounts of boot deep untracked powder and excellent line choices. The pictures do not do the day justice.

Cannon is off to an above average start to the season. One more foot of dense snow on top of the current base will open up select tree skiing options and two more feet should put all options on the table.