Super Bowl Sunday Two-Fer at Cannon Mountain. Whereas last year’s Super Bowl crowd was minimal this year people packed the parking lots. Two major differences exist between the two seasons. Last year was a horrible snow year and the New England Patriots were featured in the Super Bowl whereas this year has been a great snow year so far and the teams involved in the Super Bowl are of little interest to New Englanders. Despite the crowds, wait times for chair lifts never exceeded two to three minutes and the Tram was generally only a one or two Tram wait. Cannon’s staff did an excellent job filling every chair and directing traffic in the lift corals.
Conditions started off as a groomers paradise. Almost the entire mountain had been groomed and the morning snow was hard, fast, edgable, and mostly enjoyable. By 11 A.M., good quality snow required some searching. I found it on skiers’ right of Rocket in the form of soft and loose snow with occasional bumps.
Bumps were limited to only four trails. Skiers’ right of Zoomer had decent snow on the edges of the bumps (Zoomer had bumps on the right side half way down). Avalanche also had nice soft snow on the edges of the bumps which had been left skiers’ right below the Banshee Cut Thru. Paulie’s Folly has monster hard pack bumps and was no fun at all. Middle Dard was just evil featuring scraped and icy conditions with lots of rocks.
I took one run down Mittersill on Baron’s. This was excellent three weeks ago but suspect today. Taft’s bumps have gotten a lot bigger and firmer with occasional scratch. Baron’s has occasional decent bumps but is very skied off since my epic glory run down it three weeks ago.
Things went from bad to worse quickly on many trails. Heavy traffic and lack of recent snow fall combined with people skiing over their heads and side slipping made for scraped conditions everywhere. Particularly suspect were Skylight, Taft Slalom, Upper Hard, By Pass, Banshee Lift Line (which I straight lineddue to such poor turning conditions), Zoomer Lift Line, and Paulie’s Extension.
Profile held up particularly well throughout the day. Rocket down skiers’ right was incredible. Red Ball had natural snow and earned my one and only verbal exclamation for the day. Skiers’ left on Lower Hard had some fun natural for which I wish I had found sooner. Gary’s was nice too. Avalanche on the edges was nice except near the top which featured rocks and legitimate ice.
Given the Super Bowl Sunday Two-Fer and no major snow in about three weeks, I got about what I had been expecting. Cannon has everything but Tramline open with an excellent base depth but still needs a dump bad. Although I have been spoiled this year so far today left something to be desired in terms of conditions.