Damn, I love this mountain. Season Pass to Jay Peak be damned; when Cannon Mountain gets hammered with snow, I am there and paying for a lift ticket. Especially when said lift ticket is only $25.00! Granted the price of admission provides access to only one chair and one route down, but it cuts back substantially on time skinning up and allows for multiple summit trips. Cannon reported in with just over a foot of fresh snow, but my adventures to the summit of the mountain brought boot to knee deep powder snow on multiple runs suggesting either the wind deposited all the snow in all the right places or Cannon under reported what accumulated at the Summit. Given my runs from the summit were down untracked trails, I suspect no one bothered to measure snow depths on the upper mountain.
Despite having a Season Pass to Jay Peak and both ski areas reporting in a similar foot of fresh snowfall, my suspicion was that Cannon was going to have better terrain accessible by skinning. Also, lift serviced on the Peabody Quad servicing Ravine sounded much more fun and relaxing than Haynes and The Jet at Jay Peak on Telefest Weekend, not to mention the two for one email campaign that Jay Peak launched for this weekend. At Cannon Mountain, I found modestly crowded slopes but not over crowded like at Jay Peak the past two weekends. Additionally, snow quality was substantially better and never deteriorated and the Peabody Quad was ski on almost the entire day. If I choose Cannon over Jay Peak just to enjoy a single groomed run, I would have made a sound decision. But there would be much more skiing to be had at Cannon besides the Ravines.
The route open to the public was Big/Easy Link to Middle/Lower Ravine. Snow Conditions on all trails with exception of the lift line section of Lower Ravine were easily some of the best I have seen on these trails, most notably Big Link which maintained great conditions all day with soft packed powder and occasional pushed snow. Middle Ravine sported soft packed powder that was sensational for ripping high speed arcs with pushed around snow on the sides. Lower Ravine had a narrow line of irregular bumps on skier's left and sweet carvable snow everywhere else. Considering the slow start to the season and moderate traffic, conditions were marvelous and held up well to the traffic. The packing down of the recent natural snow really helped keep conditions stellar throughout the day.
But skiing groomers was not why I went to Cannon. After four runs off the Peabody Quad, I went back to my car to grab my pack and headed back up the quad. I skinned up and began my ascent via Tramway. Immediately after passing the groomed terrain, my skis sank down deep into the snow and I realized it was going to be a long slog to the summit. The snow was generally boot deep with deeper drifts up to knee deep and occasional drift piles up to my thigh. Sinking balls deep into the snow is fun on the descent, but a major hassle when skinning up! I attempted with varying degrees of success to identify and utilize lines that were relatively picked snow free by the wind. I made quick time up Tramway despite having to break trail and decided to have a quick lunch at the Summit Tower despite the fifty foot visibility not allowing for views.
Turns down Tramway were interesting due to the fact that Tramway did not have adequate pitch to allow for good turns on the deep powder. The snow consistency was already somewhat consolidated despite the surface snow being quite powdery. With warmer temperatures on the way, the snow would continue to consolidate and loose its powdery qualities.
I skinned back up to the Cannonball Quad and looked towards Taft Slalom for my next run down untracked boot deep powder. Avoiding the normal thin and rocky spots, I enjoyed boot to occasional knee deep powder on Taft without much worry for my bases. While attempting to plow through a drift, I came to a sudden stop balls deep in a consolidated drift, sick!
With a longing glance towards the Taft Race Trail and Mount Jackson access point, I banged a right onto Upper Hard where I finally saw a track other than my own. The skin track allowed for good speed generation during the low pitch start of Upper Hard. I rounded the corner on the Upper to Middle Hard transition and banged out some excellent boot deep powder turns and hugged the trees skiers left dropping into Middle Hard before cutting across the trail to skier's right to avoid the usual nastiness on the other side. Dropping into Middle Hard, I went from essentially untracked powder to a tangle of powder tracks due to skiers hiking over from the quads. There was still plenty of untracked to be had, so I got to work on skier's right of Middle Hard earning some awesome turns around the inside curve and staying skier's right throughout the run. Even the final pitch that had me slightly concerned was sweet powder bliss with minimal bottom out.
After a short lunch break in the lodge, I bumped into a fellow Cannon Die Hard from the Time For Tuckerman Forum. We skied a pair of runs together and discussed Cannon topography before I decided my legs had one more summit run in them before calling it a day. I grabbed my pack in the lodge and ascended Tramway for the third and final time. I was amazed that not a single other skier had ascended or descended Tramway all afternoon. Not true for Taft, as when I arrived at the Cannonball Quad I noted that a team of snow boarders had tracked down the Taft. I opted for something different and dropped into Skylight.
Skylight was simply sensational with more boot to knee deep untracked powder. I stayed skiers right and hit a few more random thigh deep drifts. The snow was continuing to consolidate due to warming temperatures but powder turns were still to be had. Dumping out onto Upper Ravine, I pulled a sharp left and traversed over to Middle Hard for one final lap. I hugged skiers right again and trashed some epic powder with amazing and delightfully nimble turns, especially around the S curve. I got greedy on the final pitch and skied the untracked over the rocky center of the trail but managed to carve out some mighty big arcs without scraping much. My big base damage digger of the afternoon was provided care of a a pair of rocks hidden by the powder as I approached the Red Ball cut off. Go figure I ski thin cover powder with no base all day and take my deepest base shot on a run out following an established track.
Epic powder day, Cannon style. There is something special about this mountain when it gets hammered with snow. If Cannon received the same snow fall and was blessed with the same open tree lines as the Northern Greens, Cannon would be ranked amongst the best mountains in the East by every skilled skier that enjoys tough lines and solid terrain. While my powder adventures this afternoon were had by established trails within the boundaries, it is only the tip of the ice berg.
