thesnowway.com

Understanding a mountain’s subtitles pays immense dividends. Last January, I missed out on Cannon’s biggest dump of the year and learned the hard way about Cannon’s weather patterns. The same pattern has repeated itself multiple times this December, yielding significantly more snow than average for December at Cannon. After many quality smaller powder days, Cannon got a jackpot of epic proportions.

The snow report this morning modestly understated eighteen inches overnight. By the end of the day, Cannon corrected that understated report to more properly reflect reality: 28-31″ in the past 24 hours. I can vouch for the accuracy of this measurement and by the time this storm is done tonight, the grand total will likely be at least three feet.

After catching the first tram, I quickly determined that “steep and deep” was the best option. The only other choices involved straight lining blue squares if a track was available or suffering from the misery of poling and stepping your skis straight down the marginal fall line.

I quickly found my way to the party on the Front Five. Tearing down Paulie’s Folly yielded a face shot on every turn (no exaggeration). A snorkel would have been helpful. Everytime I opened my mouth to hoot, holler, or huzzah, a glob of powder snow was lodged into my orifice. This was knee deep explosive powder at its finest. Drifts and troughs were waist deep.

The runs off the Zoomer Triple came fast and furious. Paulie’s, Zoomer, Paulie’s, Echo, Echo, Banshee. All runs excepting Banshee tossed snow into my face on every turn. Taking trips into the Powder Room on Paulie’s was divine. Its much more adventurous and concerning when the Powder Room opens its doors in Echo Glade.

After less fruitful labors, I would later return to Zoomer where I found deep untracked under the snow guns on Avalanche. At first I was incredulous that Cannon would be blowing snow on a massive powder day. My incredulous feelings became those of gratitude as snow gun spray created a powder hound deterrence and a massive powder stash. Late in the day, I was still able to find in bounds knee deep untracked powder. Avalanche, Avalanche, Avalanche, Avalanche, Banshee.

Other options were explored thoroughly once I believed enough tracks had been laid down on more moderate pitched slopes. First tracks were deadly on anything less than steep. I choose my favorite line in New England for my last run where I claimed second tracks; which were likely even better than the first.

Today was not the best ski day of my life, but it does rank quite high. I had more face shots in one run today than all other runs in my life combined. And that face shot filled run kept repeating itself. The powder snow was amazingly explosive and stunningly deep. I lacked only for want of some of Cannon’s most choice lines which were still not in play due to lack of base.

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.