Category: 2009-2010 Season

2009-2010 Season, Earned Turns, January, Mount Washington

Washington Earned Turns via the Cog

With most of New England seeing above freezing temperatures yesterday into a freeze last night as we enter a long holiday weekend, I decided that earning turns would be the best option. I suspected snow at lower elevations might be manky so I ruled out explorations of local backcountry glades. I turned my attention to the west side of Mount Washington as a quick and easy option to get out and make some turns today.

I was not the only one with this type of plan as the parking lot at Marshfield Station had about twenty cars parked when I arrived. I quickly booted up and started my ascent looker’s right of the train tracks on a well established skin track.

This was only my third day earning turns this year and I felt winded and out of shape before even reaching the Waumbek  Tank. Snow depth was significant and I measured over 70cm in places using my pole. Coverage was exceptional with essentially edge to edge coverage minus elevated portions of the train tracks. Plenty of untracked snow remained. While it skied great, the consistency and depth of the snow was not good enough to merit a Powder Day designation.

After a short break at the Tank, I ventured on until reaching Jacob’s Ladder where I decided snow conditions did not merit further climbing above the tree line where weather exposure and visibility would be worse. Several other skiers were also there, some continuing on with plans for Ammo but most turned around at that point.

Skiing was not fun in the narrow pipeline right below Jacob’s Ladder but became increasingly more interesting below as things widened out. I opted to take skier’s left of the tracks which were not buried enough to allow easy crossing on skis once the decision had been made.  Untracked lines were plentiful but conditions made for interesting turns and had me wanting for fatter boards.

2009-2010 Season, January, Powder Day, Smugglers Notch

A Special Powder Day at Smuggs

“I gotta get to Smuggs”

This has been a yearly refrain of mine for some time now. The excuses are long since familiar and trite: “Jay has more powder”, “the lift lines will be really long”, “I don’t feel like the longer drive”, “not all of their trails are open”, “I have to max out my Jay pass first”, etc. Add in a few injuries these past few seasons for good measure.

But earlier this week, I started getting a feeling that it was at last the right time. Smuggs was fully open due to last week’s storm and was getting the same snow that Jay was getting. Lift lines would probably not be an issue due to this being the weekend between two holiday weekends and before the College kids came back to Burlington (and the cold weather certainly helped as well). And I do not have a season pass this year. Friday night before bed, I was giddily excited. Not because I thought today was going to be an exceptional powder day (which it turned out to be!). But rather simply because I knew I was finally going to ski Smuggs, a mountain that by all accounts is my type of mountain, and that made me very excited.

Pulling into Lot 1 at the opening bell, it did not look like more than an inch or two of fresh had fallen. I made the decision to grab my Legend 8000s but quickly changed them out after only a single run. Smuggs had conservatively reported 6-8″ but more than twice that amount could be found in the trees. I skied boot to knee deep fresh every run with plenty of untracked and the occasional thigh deep drift. Suffice to say, it was a very special first day at Smuggs.

Having gone entire seasons without skiing a new area, it is interesting that I have now skied two new areas in less than one week. Not knowing the mountain nor having a proper plan of attack was discomforting at first. But I gradually warmed to the wonderful feelings brought on by novel exploration and discovery. You only enjoy that feeling of wonder and discovery a few times at each area before it becomes just another routine. It was thrilling and tremendously enjoyable, especially considering what I found. Enough waxing poetic, let’s talk trip report already.

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2009-2010 Season, Cannon Mountain, January, Powder Day

Epic Two Foot Powder Day at Cannon

On Sunday, we rolled the dice and bet against Cannon due to the wind forecast. While the result was wonderful yielding fourteen inches and a new discovery of a lesser known area, Mount Abram on Sunday would hardly qualify as epic. Based on trip reports and our clean up work this afternoon, I suspect most skiers at Cannon yesterday will rank January 3rd as their best day of the season when all is said and done. Suffice to say that this past Sunday at Cannon surely was a special day and we missed out.

Clean up operations commenced on Monday at Cannon and I was determined to find the left overs. And find them we did venturing forth into terrain likely never having previously been skiable this early in the season. In six hours we took six runs and worked excessively hard for four of them.

Our labor was rewarded with abundant two to three feet untracked powder shots that were frequently knee to thigh deep. During one epic descent, I took my first face shot of the season and ever so briefly entered the powder room.

After coming to a stunned stop shortly thereafter, I began laughing like a manic. Vigorously shaking the snow laden spruce tree behind me, I brought down copious amounts of snow on my head while yelling “powder room, baby, yea!!!”

Immensely satisfying. You only get a few of these every year. We missed the main dish but sometimes desert can be just as sweet if not as long lasting.

2009-2010 Season, January, Mount Abram, Powder Day, Video

Mount Abram Powder Day

Hey Rocky! Watch me pull an epic two foot powder day with refills out of my hat!

Guess I gotta get a new hat…..

Mount Abram is the lesser known ski area that you see from Route 26 before proceeding to Sunday River where you will pay $79.00 to ski brutally groomed scraped down cruisers with no elbow room or character and wait twenty minutes for a lift. That little area? Only one thousand vertical feet? Only 44 trails? Only two double chair lifts and no high speed quads? Yes! This is Mount Abram.

The Rocky & Bullwinkle themed ski area has a family and local community vibe. It only runs Thursday through Sunday and holidays but does offer night skiing on select days of the season. The area features a tubing area and cross country skiing trails. The practical lodge is well staffed with friendly employees and a burger, fries, and soda will only set you back an Alexander Hamilton and some change. Tickets are only $49.00 full price ($37 on Liftopia in our case) and the mid-week value is exceptional with two-fer Thursdays and Car Load Fridays ($79.00).

With epic powder forecasted for Maine and high winds forecasted for the entire region, plans were hatched to ski a lesser known area in Maine that was guaranteed to spin their lifts. Even if Mount Abram’s summit double was taken off line, Mount Abram has a t-bar that nearly goes to the summit on back up duty. It was a brilliant plan based on the forecast.

But the forecast did not pan out. With exception of Saddleback, the Maine areas got a good snow storm over the course of three days. But Saddleback and Cannon were the only two ski areas to receive epic powder dumps. Mount Abram got about fourteen inches from Friday through Saturday. It was more than enough to open up all of their terrain. Terrain that we learned was quite exceptional. If limited in quantity of terrain, Mount Abram surely makes up the different in quality.

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2009-2010 Season, Cannon Mountain, December, Powder Day

Powder Day, Cannon Style

Monday evening I retired to the bedroom at approximately 10:00 P.M. Which is when the day dreams began. Visions of untracked powder dancing through my head for two hours during which sleep was entirely elusive. It was a secular snowy equivalent of Christmas Eve and I was an anxious child unable to sleep a wink.

It reminded me of my childhood on evenings just prior to family ski trips. Those were big occasions only under taken a few times each year. Friday nights were torture. It did not matter where we were going the next day. I could hardly sleep a wink in anticipation of the family ski trip. Not much has changed in twenty years. I am still that anxious kid that can’t hardly wait to hurry up and get to sleep so I can wake up the next morning and get to the mountain.

Cannon reported in with seven inches this morning. Much to the management’s credit, Cannon is often honest to a fault with snow total reporting and often errs on the side of caution and underestimates (especially when the snow is blowing). It may be, in fact, that Cannon did receive only seven inches of wind blown fluff. But it skied more like 8-12″. Suffice to say, it was more than enough to make skiing absolutely sensational.

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