Cannon Mountain, NH
March 18th, 2004
Weather forecasts were predicting a decent size storm dropping lots of snow on New England Tuesday and Wednesday. With this in mind, I asked the boss for Thursday off hoping for a powder day. Cannon delivered with 7-11″ of light powder and an epic day of adventure. Quite possibly my best day on skis ever to date.
While driving up I-93, I was dismayed by the apparent lack of snow. The further north I drove, the less snow appeared on the road side. By the time I arrived in the White Mountains, no more than a few inches covered the ground. Amazingly, all that changed once I drove into the Franconia Notch. Arriving at Cannon, I noticed fresh snow covered everything and knew this was going to be an epic day. I giddily gathered up my gear and practically ran towards the Peabody Base Lodge.
Suffice to say, the Cannon Trail Report had not exaggerated even slightly reporting 7-11″ of new snow. It came in the form of light powder and continued to snow all day long. This is the stuff most skiers spend their entire lives dreaming about but rarely skiing. I would search Cannon and Mittersill all day for fresh untracked powdah, and found myself more often than not making tracks where there were none before me. Boot to knee deep in freshies all day.
While the natural snow on the black diamond terrain was exceptionally fun, it was the lesser known Out of Bounds lines that occupied my mind. I found myself tracking fresh lines at Mittersill five times, a single day record for myself. On three of those five runs, I skied fresh untracked trails from the top of the Chairlift to the traverse back to Cannon. Incredible. There is no feeling like being all alone with no tracks but your own behind you, standing boot to knee deep in fresh powder. I may ski my entire life and never relive that feeling again.
The snow was incredible, but far from perfect. The knee deep powdah was so light, that I was bottoming out occasionally onto a frozen grass base with occasional trees and rocks. My bases took substantial damage. But it was so worth every scrape and dig put into my boards. Money can not buy skis that will give you the feeling that I had. I screamed and yelled and whooped and laughed my way through untracked fresh all day. I have never smiled so much nor exclaimed as much verbal praise while skiing as I did then. My early morning giddiness was replaced by a surreal zen like calm later in the day. The serene nature of the natural conditions and trails made me realize how completely unworthy I was of the gift bestowed upon me. But I just happened to be the right guy in the right time and the right place to enjoy a dance through the snow with perfect untracked powder. It was a feeling I will never forget.
