Cannon
Meh.
Category: New Hampshire
Give It All You Got: Cannon
Today may be the best “two days after the powder day” powder day that I’ve ever had. Yesterday, I desperately wanted to ski Cannon. I knew it was going to be bananas despite being a day after the storm. But I was extremely fatigued from skiing Magic on Friday, I simply didn’t have the legs.
I responded to my alarm with ambivalent lethargy. I assumed today would fail to inspire yet still merited the effort. I wanted to ski natural snow again before the impending rain. In six hours, I made seven runs. By my standards, that is a statistic suggestive of an incredible day at Cannon.
Vista Bound: Cannon
Has it really been more than two weeks since I last skied? Bad weather and a horrible week long cold combined to remove two weeks from my season. Both the trails and I recovered earlier this week and this coming weekend looks very nice. I eased back into things at Cannon where expectations started low, got raised way too high, and ultimately the skiing was very satisfactory.
Cannon: Getting it Done
The below average temperatures of November benefited Cannon tremendously. Terrain is opening at a significantly faster rate than last year. Today’s offerings included two fully unique routes from the Peabody Quad along with Gary’s and Rocket from the Zoomer Chair.
That doesn’t sound like much but some of these routes and trails are seriously wide (especially Gary’s and Rocket) and take a substantial amount of fire power to get them open. There is even a decent sized terrain park near the lodge. Last year, the Zoomer chair had not even opened yet whereas this year it is on its second week.
Snow making is in place on Middle Cannon, Middle/Lower Ravine, the Links, the Huckerbrook area, and the Zoomer base area (presumably in preparation for blowing Zoomer and Avalanche). I don’t recall ever seeing as many guns blowing at the same time at Cannon.
Despite arriving well after first chair, surfaces were edgeable hard pack and generally fun to ski. This excepts a few constricted high traffic areas that sported excessively scrapped down snow. Loose snow was plentiful along the edges of Gary’s and Rocket. Packed powder it was not. But it wasn’t bad skiing either.
Tuckerman Ravine: Because I Love It
I’ve skied Tuckerman Ravine in June and July many times. Sometimes because it was there. And other times because it was still there. But this year, I didn’t do it just because it was there. I did it because I Love It.
For three out of four runs, I was the only person in Tuckerman Ravine. I had one of New England’s finest natural areas all to myself. I was the only person in the eastern United States that was skiing. The only one. My own paradise for my own turns, experiencing something that no other person was experiencing at that moment.