Demo day at cannon was on Friday December 10th allowing skiers to try all the skis you want for only $20. It was an incredible deal that I could not pass up. Details on my thoughts regarding the various skis I demoed are located here. Suffice to say the big winner of the day was the Dynastar Legend 8000 at 178cm which I have since bought.
Original plan was to head up 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 wasn't 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/Short Link up top provided the one way down with the side option just like last week. Snow conditions were MUCH better overall with the same general situation of decent pushed around loose powder on skier's left on Big Link, skiers right on Short Link, skiers right on Middle Ravine, and skiers left of Lower Ravine. Essentially you could link turns on non-groomed feeling snow 75% of the route with mini-bumps and loose snow. I established a "route" down the trails to keep my testing conditions essentially the same for every ski, so 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's a lot to open this weekend. All other trails had less snow and coverage than last week, especially the Front Five which would need a solid 1 foot dump to open without snow making at this point, and that isn't 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 3pm... hardly a prelude to a dumping. By the time I got to Plymouth, the sky opened up with rain. 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.