thesnowway.com

On the eve of Sunday December 26th a long awaited double storm barreled into New England. The temperature was cold and the moisture was immense and a light fluffy snow began falling heavily. The snow parking ban for Salem went up with Police driving the roads warning residents to move their cars or be towed away. After digging out and removing my girl friend’s car to Gallows Hill Park down the street, I realized this was the perfect storm for any powder lover with one important exception: the storm would fall only in south eastern New England and the jackpot was reserved for areas furthest removed from the mountains: the coastal areas.

“When live gives you lemons…” as the saying goes, so that is just what I did. When my morning alarm clock began buzzing, a quick peek outside revealed what I suspected the night before: that work would soon be called off due to treacherous driving conditions leaving the afternoon open for skiing. The only problem was that none of my favorite ski areas up north received much for snow fall. I grabbed my gear and drove around the corner to access Salem’s biggest and steepest vertical drop figuring I might as well take advantage of some of the deepest powder in New England even if it is in my own backyard.

Gallows Hill in Salem, MA is so called since it was the location of the Witch Hangings that resulted from the Salem Witch Trials (which actually took place in nearby Peabody, MA). A small park now rests upon the hill’s flat summit area with another park and parking area below the hill’s southern slopes. It was from this parking lot that I began my ascent of Gallows Hill.
Looking Back Towards my Car

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Crotched Mountain re-opened for the 2003-2004 ski season after laying dormant for more than 10 years. The ski area originally opened as Onset Mountain in the late 1960s and was renamed Bobcat Ski Area for a brief time before being incorporated into Crotched Mountain; a completely different ski area further east along the same ridge. After being interconnected with its sister mountain and renamed Crotched Mountain West, things took a turn for the worse and the combined ski area closed.

Enter Peak Resorts; a Ski Resort Company with a Model of Success that is most unlike the other major Ski Resort Companies in the industry. Instead of building a roster of mountains with impressive vertical drop statistics and lots of slope side and base area development options, Peak Resorts has opted to acquire and develop Family and Never-Ever friendly lower elevation ski areas close to major population centers. Peak Resorts re-opened the western portion of Crotched Mountain investing a sizable initial investment into new equipment, facilities, and one of New England’s most intense snow making systems.

Crotched Mountain is Peak Resort’s first foray into New England skiing; however, their criterion for success remains unchanged. An uncompromising dedication to providing the best snow conditions for a massive amount of skiers is quickly evident when viewing Crotched Mountain’s impressive facilities and statistics. With over 100 brand new tower snow making guns capable of creating massive amounts of snow in a short period of time, Crotched has laid claim to having the highest production per acre snow making capacity in New England. After having skied Crotched Mountain with 90% of its terrain open during a December characterized by its warmth and non-crystalline precipitation, I can subjectively vouch for the accuracy of that claim.

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Driving up to the notch, I was amazed how beautiful the day was beginning. Bright blue skies without a cloud to be seen on the whole drive up Interstate 93. The Franconia Ridge was as majestic as I have ever seen it with its white capped peaks fronting a sky of bright blue. Visibility from the top of the quad was about as far and clear as I’ve ever seen it from cannon. everything was perfect about the weather except one thing: the wind.

Cannon opened with Middle and Lower Cannon and Ravine, Big and Short link, and Spookie on the Peabody Slopes with Zoomer Triple Chair turning for Gary’s on the Front Face. The Tube Park was replaced by a handle tow beginners area (great call!) and the Tuckerbrook Quad was spinning, but I did not get over there.

The HSQ was essentially only useful for uploading to ski down to the Zoomer chair. The wind was ferocious, just about as bad as cannon can get and still have that lift turning. The brutal wind made the ride on the Peabody Quad extremely uncomfortable and it was avoided by everyone as much as possible. Conditions off all trails from the quad were boiler plate. By 11ish, Big/Short link and Ravine got roped and a sign was placed at the loading area of the quad stating the lift serviced terrain for experts only. To bad the Eaglecliff Triple wasn’t turning as Lower Cannon had okay snow in between the blown off sections and would have been a more enjoyable ride getting over to Gary’s.

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Having one more free pass to blow by December 20th, I hit up the formerly “Mighty-K” for my third time this season. I normally crap on Killington rather viciously. I still feel that Killington deserves such rants but after three tries at Killington during an awful early season, I have a little more respect for the mountain. Having as much terrain open considering the conditions is very impressive. I was expecting much less open terrain than they managed to open. Also impressive were the snow guns covering Lower Superstar and the Canyons area. I would guess Superstar through Ramshead may likely be fully open by next weekend except for the trees.

Wet spring like conditions were reported on Saturday which could not have been more different from today. I arrived at the Killington Access Road with tires spinning over a blanket of white. The fresh snow fall got me excited.

I began the morning on Snowdon and I ended the day on Snowdon. Sheets of scraped snow were everywhere by the end of the day. The North Ridge Triple offered natural snow on Ridge Run which sucked but it was completely natural snow so I could not complain! I was amazed that Killington had natural terrain open. They also had Upper Chute and Great Bear open with natural snow conditions but they looked too nasty and thin for even my tastes (which is saying something!).

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Demo day at Cannon today which allowed me to sample all the skis you want for only $20.00. It was an incredible deal that I could not pass up. The big winner of the day was the Dynastar Legend 8000 178cm which I later purchased.

The original plan was to ski Cannon on Friday and then stay overnight at the ‘Dice in Gorham from where I would decide where to attack Saturday. I just was not believing the hype regarding potential snow fall overnight when I was leaving Cannon so I decided to head home and research the skis online after wrapping the day up at Cannon.

Middle/Lower Ravine with Big up top provided the only way down with the side option of Short Link just like the previous weekend. Snow conditions were much better overall this weekend with the same general situation of decent pushed around loose powder on skier’s left on Big Link, skierls right on Short Link, skierls right on Middle Ravine, and skierls left on Lower Ravine. Essentially you could link turns on non-groomed feeling snow 75% of the route on mini-bumps and loose snow. I established a “route” down the trails to keep my testing conditions essentially the same for every ski. While the conditions were boring they allowed for excellent ski comparison for the demos.

Regarding other non-opened trails, the groomers and ski patrol were busy on Middle/Lower Cannon today and that is a lot to open for this coming weekend. All other trails had less snow and coverage than last week, especially the Front Five which would need a solid one foot dump to open without snow making at this point, and that is not happening any time soon.

The weather was fair with patchy fog and cloudiness. I wish I had gotten some pictures of the fog in the valleys making an under cast near the lower surrounding hills, but I was too busy pushing the skis to pull out my camera. The mountain saw a small amount of sleet or freezing rain around noon time and just a touch of light snow when I left at three. hardly a prelude to a dumping. By the time I got to Plymouth, the sky opened up and started raining. Cannon will definitely benefit from the system moving in this weekend but don’t expect any additional terrain to open other than Middle/Lower Cannon.

Opening day at Cannon Mountain in the Franconia Notch of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Regardless of trail count or conditions, there is no place I would have rather been on Saturday the fourth of December in Snow Year 2004 A.D. While making my way to Cannon, I noticed a familiar event occurring along the highway: the further north I drove, the more snow I saw. Coming around a corner on Interstate 93 just past the Lakes Region, I spied the four major peaks of the Franconia Ridge caked in a snowy white, sparkling in a near cloudless blue sky. A rare perfect weather day bestowed upon Cannon’s first day of the season along with a snow storm the night before and a near blue bird day to follow.

After breaking the pre-season legs in at Killington twice during November, I thought I might be in for a disappointment at Cannon. Boy was I ever wrong in regards to that prediction! Despite only operating one lift with one way down, Cannon was not to disappoint due to mother nature’s untracked bounty and a whole lot of thigh burn. The trail report saw Big Link, Middle Ravine, and Lower Ravine all open, serviced by the Peabody Express Quad. I eagerly bought my $25 reduced price lift ticket and ascended Cannon’s Peabody slopes.

Guns were blazing everywhere with special attention being paid to opening a small stretch of Lower Ravine that was closed and Upper Cannon. Guns would be turned off on Lower Ravine and the top part of Upper Cannon later in the day as snow making moved down Upper Cannon towards Middle Cannon. With a decent base already provided by mother nature, it obviously is not going to take much snow making to get more slopes online.

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Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend in New England, a time of blackout dates on Special Offers and crowded slopes at the larger ski resorts. With a marginal early season snow wise in which many ski areas were pushing opening days back and Non-Crystalline Precipitation had fallen fallen twice, not many solid options were available. I decided to do the previously unthinkable and make the trek up to Killington Vermont which was the only New England ski area that could offer up decent pitched trails and bumps. While the parking lot was quickly filling up, I paid the man a ridiculous $49 for a little over 20 trails and boarded the K1 Gondola.

From the Summit of Killington, I quickly tracked down Great Northern which is one of Killington’s many throw away connector trails. Today, Great Northern was more than just a connecting trail, it was a novice skiers’ only option from the summit which made it a trail to be avoided at all costs throughout the day. Bailing to the right onto an already scraped down Lower Reason was probably not the best option. I took the Northern Ridge Triple back up and tried Upper Rime where snow blowers were going top to bottom, a definite turn off. I quickly abandoned all the upper mountain trails on Killington Peak and held on for dear life skiing the middle portion of Great Northern where I managed to find some rocks which I threw back into the woods going down skiers left.

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Killington was the first ski area to open for the 2004-2005 skiing season on Tuesday November 9, 2004. I claimed my first tracks of the season two days later on a Veterans Day Holiday. Being freed of work obligations for the day had me setting my alarm one hour early and having the wheels spinning by 5:30AM. Along the way, I discovered that New Order is great pre-skiing music and that Vermont schools do not have Veterans Day off which was an early sign that crowds would not be as bad as I had anticipated.Arriving at KBL (now renamed K1BL for what it’s worth) at exactly 8:15AM, I hit the lodge and picked up a free ticket courtesy of Killington for attending the latest Warren Miller film in Boston called Impact. After some minor confusion about which window to obtain my free lift ticket from, I booted and suited up and ascended via the K1 Gondi with my P40 Platinums. Unfortunately, my preferred and 10cm shorter P50 Motions were still in the shop. I made due with my longer backup boards which had my quads burning early!

The best thing about the first run is that for the rest of the season, your skiing can never get any worse. It sets the standard for the absolutely worst you could possibly ski which is a comforting thought given my rather forced and unnatural turns. I am trying not to blame it on the skis, but after a year of skiing on 183cm skis it was really tough going back and adjusting to something that is 193cm long. I pretty much had the longest skis on the mountain that I noticed.

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