Trip Reports

Cannon Mountain, NH

March 12, 2005

Driving north on I-93, it looked bleak. Raining until Concord, then only light snow fell occassionally from there. The roads were clear all the way to Cannon when I was expecting a long snowy drive. At Cannon, during the morning I was skiing tramline and noticed the sun was poking through the clouds! What happened? Where is this huge storm? The sky clouded over and started dumping by early PM and all was good.

I warmed up on Vista Way to Bypass to Zoomer carving some mighty fine arcs that felt good. It seemed like Vista Way had been groomed recently and Bypass was still a freaking disaster. Like bypass, Profile was also opened but still looked nasty with powdery bumps building up in between groomer tracks etched into the ice.

Lakeview Glade was had twice with nice untracked powder near the trees on skier's right where it was really nice. Still some thin spots to watch out for though. Echo Woods was crap, still really thin with tons of rock under the snow. Paulie's Folly skiers right was sick! And so was Avalanche! Powdery/crudy bumps that you could just plow through, I was loving it! Gimme more! It was the first time I ever skied avalanche bumps skier's right top to bottom without having to stop and catch my breath or reassess lines... I simply could not stop it was soo good.

Tramline is quite a bit thinner than it was on thursday but the mandatory air section seems to have filled in to the point it's only a drop. A lot more rocks and stumps were showing through, but it was still a ripping good time. Untracked boot deep was had in the shoot nearby! Right where the glade dumps into tramline, I thought I saw powder and went for it. I went deep into that powder as I dropped into a hole between a boulder and a tree where the snow had not packed down. It took me a while to extract myself from that usual situation!

Taft was brutally groomed but soft bumps built up later in the afternoon. The rock cliff section looked worse after the groomer hit it, in all honesty. I followed the conga line up (30 people at one point!) and it was spectacular. Finally gave BD a shot, wow! I simply can not ski stuff like that without joining the ranks of birdwatchers over the summer, it just wouldn't be right. So much untracked in places considering the traffic.

Incredible day following up Thursday, easily a top three day of the season (broken ski aside).

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