After only skiing twice in over a month, I was a little antsy to make some turns. I knew the snow would be terrible. I knew it was groomer skiing following a rain/thaw/freeze event. I knew to expect a miserable skiing experience. And at noontime on the first day of this new year, I decided a miserable ski experience was better than vegging out at home.
Boy, was I wrong.
Today should have been a banner day. Somewhere between two to three feet of super dense snow opened up almost all of Jay including a lot of off map trees. The extremely dense snow skied better after it was tracked up and packed down rather than untracked.
While skiing my four runs today, I frequently thought to myself that the snow and skiing today at Jay was better than the “Powder Day” a few days earlier at Killington. I thought to myself how much I utterly despised the fact that I couldn’t enjoy it.
Today was not meant to be despite my deep desire to enjoy the storm’s bounty before the inevitable rain/thaw/freeze event began. Work had ran me ragged. I was exhausted, stressed out, and deeply fatigued. I managed to get up early and make it to the mountain for first chair, but I would have been better off staying in bed.
This is perhaps my most delinquent trip report ever. But here it is for the sake of posterity and record keeping. The use of the “Powder Day” tag for this report is stretching the definition of that tag to the breaking point.
Killington got rocked as the epicenter of the immediate storm. The new snow was enough to make everything skiable at Killington, including trees. However, I didn’t venture into the trees because untracked snow was extremely challenging. Not to mention packed down snow was skiing better than untracked.
Many skiers often refer to “dense snow” as “cement” just as many skiers often refer to “scraped hard pack” as “ice”. Supportive dense snow is very fun to ski when you learn to adjust your balance and turning technique. But Killington’s bounty truly fell into the cement category, as deep and dense as I have ever skied. Tracked up snow skied better than untracked. I quickly lost the powder hound mentality and just sought out quality snow on quality trails.
The lifts opened in a cascading fashion starting with Snowdon Quad, then Northridge Triple, then Canyon Quad, and finally Superstar. The gondola never opened but they kept the line running in an effort to reducing icing and open it the next day. I didn’t quite make it to the Superstar opening before my legs gave out shortly after noontime.
The Canyon Quad stalled out for a little over ten minutes while I was on the lift and near the unload station. The wind was honking but it was not entirely uncomfortable since the temperature was hovering around the freezing mark, as evidenced by the sleet that was falling from the sky. Killington offered everyone on the lift a voucher for $10 off their next ticket for the minor inconvenience. The weather and the wait were mildly uncomfortable but hardly noteworthy in hind sight except for Killington’s gracious offer. Kudos for Killington for stepping out when they really didn’t have to.
Ropes were dropped everywhere and I skied most trails in the Canyon basin and ended the day on Ovation. While dropping over the rocks on Ovation’s steepest section, I managed to score my biggest core shot to date proving that the deep and dense snow was not bottomless and fell over no base.
It was a fun and tiring day but less epic than the snow totals might have suggested.
Saturday was an amazing day in the Notch. The place gives you back what you put into it. I dug deep and put in more than I had originally intended, and I was rewarded for my efforts. These past three days included some of the best Thanksgiving skiing I’ve ever enjoyed. And I enjoyed all three of those days at Cannon.
After earning pre-Thanksgiving Dinner turns on Thursday, I returned on Friday for Cannon’s first day of lift service. I enjoyed fantastic skiing on the same trails that I had earned turns on the day prior. But despite three straight hours of mostly untracked powder skiing, I couldn’t help but think that something was missing.
The thrills came fast and furious. Run after run of untracked powder. My heart was pounding and my breath was short as I skied fast and hard, tracking up as much virgin snow as possible. There was no frenzy, there were no crowds. But it was still a rush. The lifts do that to you… they are like life: they instill a certain eager and unsatisfied mentality. As if just one more run of untracked will somehow refute our vapid existence.
This trip report includes no pictures. Long time readers of TSW will realize what that means…
I assumed Cannon wouldn’t have the gumption to open the Front Five trails. There was no base under the foot of snow that fell on top of grass. With terrain undulations and water bars abound, the natural snow skiing at Cannon would be adventurous and not completely safe despite the element of self selection. But Cannon proved me wrong.