After nearly a three month recovery time from a broken elbow, I made my triumphant return to skiing this Sunday at Cannon Mountain. My recovery time eerily coincided with the snow fall of the season. October through mid-December were sensation early season months with copious amounts of natural snow fall with the biggest dump falling before the lifts even opened. After December 10th, fresh powder was slim pickings through the end of December, January, and February.
Enter the first week of March and a foot and a half of snow in Franconia Notch. Most of the snow fell Friday night and Saturday before my arrival unfortunately, so freshies were hard to find. But certainly not impossible for those who know where to look and are willing to sacrifice their bases for some of the best turns to be had. For a moment, I had doubted the accuracy of Cannon Mountain’s claim of a foot and a half of snow until I was knee deep in it, with an occasional unexpected balls deep shots where the snow drifted.
Originally, the plans was to take it easy on my first day back. Slowly work my way up from beginner and intermediate groomers and generally stay away from natural snow trails. I figured I would take my chances. Armed with an elbow pad and mischievous grin, I attached the mountain from my first run. Taking Middle Cannon to Extension, I sampled some wonderful freshly groomed snow followed by choice dust on crust natural snow fall. Uh oh. A foot and a half is sensational normally, but the scraped crust underneath was not as fun to contend with. Much of the natural snow trails featured either dust on crust, dust on dirt, or the rather unpopular dust on rock. Worth the base damage for every turn!
I worked the Front Face trails off the Zoomer Triple from skiers left to right starting with Rocket, which was nothing special. Zoomer had delightful powder and powder bumps on skier’s right. However, the cover in the troughs and non-untracked was thin (read: exposed ground), so turning on top of the powder bumps was generally the rule for checking speed. Paulie’s was excellent but rather thin and Avalanche skier’s right was again powder and powdery bumps with lots of thin spots. If these trails had any sense of a base before the dump, they would have been worth the price of admission alone.
But that was not the case and I quickly grew restless in my desire to ski some great powder. A trip to the summit saw turns down Vista Way which was sketchy and scratchy until the final pitch which had excellent powdery bumps. A trip down Taft Slalom found a very scraped up trail with exposed rock. Some powdery bumps were found skier’s right for those who had the skills to make it through the rock garden. I was not finding what I was looking for, it was time to look else where.
And else where was indeed where the precious powder was, though there was almost nothing underneath it. Which means little to this skier. Wandering off the map, I was glad to see a few folks had preceded me and a few others followed. The Race Course was in excellent condition sporting great coverage with fantastic packed powder bumps. I picked my poison and followed the same epic route I descended before Cannon was even open in November. That trip featured much less powder, but all of it was untracked and over a decent base. I quickly discovered the coverage on the Race Course was not continuous throughout the rest of the playground. But the coverage was good enough for boot deep untracked with minor base damage. Certainly worth it for some fresh untracked powder which has been a rarity during 2006. Due to the demands the adventure put on my elbow, I would not return for seconds but instead re-focus on Cannon proper for the afternoon.
After lunch, I sampled very fine groomed conditions on Middle Ravine. Whereas most of the groomed runs at Cannon were getting extremely scraped down, Middle Ravine was where it was at! Parkway was okay, but left me wishing I had finished the run out on Lower Ravine. En route to the Zoomer Lift, I discovered much of the mountain’s groomers had been decimated by traffic sporting huge scraped spots. It is going to take MUCH more than a foot and a half of light powder to restore Cannon’s groomers to a good condition. Unfortunately, the light fluffy powder did little to help the base despite a pass or two by the grooming machines that were working right up until the lifts started turning in the morning.
Down on Gary’s was where I unexpectedly found the best snow on Cannon Proper. Skier’s right sported fantastic packed powder, powder bumps, and natural bumps with minimal thin cover (compared to the rest of the front face trails!). I lapped the Zoomer triple four times before I realized I was spent for the day after only five hours! On that last lift ride up the Zoomer Triple, I realized the reason for the fatigue. I essentially just finished a second off season! My 2005 season ended on July 2nd whereas my 2006 Season began on October 23rd, a three and a half month off season. Which is very similar to my nearly three month recovery time since I broke my elbow. The legs were fatigued and I was sucking wind. Due to my elbow still being on the mend, I was also favoring my left hand turns and skiing more cautious than usual which also took its toll.
Finishing the day without major issue or injury to my right elbow, I was extremely satisfied with the morning and afternoon’s runs. More than I possibly could have hoped for after watching nearly every patch of natural snow melt over the course of the last two and a half months. Winter is back with a vengeance, and so am I.
