Category: Cannon Mountain

2002-2003 Season, Cannon Mountain, January, Powder Day

Cannon Mountain, NH

Taft Slalom

I am not even sure where to begin. How do I put into words the type of day I had at Cannon? Suffice to say, it was one of the top three skiing days in my life. I had what I consider to be my best and most memorable run ever. I have never smiled, laughed, whooped, yelled, giggled, and all out had such a fun six hours in my lifetime. It was pure bliss, euphoria, uncontrolled hysteria. I was a kid again, carefree and fun loving. I had a ball.

I began my day with my customary early wake up time of 5:30 A.M. for the two hour drive to Cannon. Roads were still a little slick and drivers had an attitude. Not a fun drive up. As I laid eyes on the notch, I got an awesome feeling. The whole notch was cloud free… except for Cannon. The top 750 vertical feet of Cannon were socked in. It was the proverbially cloud over the head of Angry Old Man Cannon that followed him where ever he goes. As I drove through the notch, and smiled at Cannon’s personification and stammered my favorite mountain saying “Cannon, you big grumpy old man you!”

I was the polar opposite of that grumpy old man, I was a giddy smiling little kid. The weekend storm had dumped over half a foot of fluff on the broad shoulders of Cannon Mountain, and I was about to hit the candy store.

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2002-2003 Season, Cannon Mountain, December, Powder Day

Cannon Mountain, NH

If only everyday could begin like this day. I awoke at the Hiker’s Paradise, a hostel in Gorham, NH. After a short drive down the road, I pulled over to the shoulder of Route 16 to take a picture of Mount Madison and Mount Adams, the northern most peaks of the Presidential Range. Amazing. After a brief drive around the Presidential’s and into Franconia Notch, I entered the parking lot of Cannon Mountain with a wonderful view of its trails.

In the lodge, I met fellow NELSAP’er and SnowJournal’er MadRider. We quickly set off up the Peabody Express Quad. The wind was hollowing ferociously, as one can often expect at Cannon. We tracked down Middle Cannon on pleasantly groomed snow and made our way to the Front Face. Upon seeing Zoomer filled up with 4-6 inches of powder, MadRider’s face lit up like a kid in a candy store. For myself, I was an awful powder skier at the time. I was about to tell MadRider I was going to opt for the tamer Rocket, but he was already riding down the pow. So onward to Rocket I went, not expecting to find what I did.

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2001-2002 Season, April, Cannon Mountain

Cannon Mountain, NH

Sunday Morning, I awoke just prior to my 5:30 A.M. alarm. For some reason, getting up on a Ski Day is always so much easier than getting up any other day. Only problem with getting up this morning was that I forgot to set my clock forward an hour! Yep, that damn Spring Ahead thing caught me off guard and as a result I was an hour late getting the wheels rolling. No biggie… for my last day of the 2001-2002 season, I was taking it easy and savoring every moment.

I had the wheels rolling around 7 A.M. (which would have been 6 A.M. if I had left on time!) and made the base lodge promptly at 9 A.M., half an hour after the first lift turned. Approaching the Front Face of Cannon, I was greeted by what would normally be a disturbing site… but instead made me giddy with anticipation! The Front Face was beyond thin cover. From the Franconia Notch Parkway, twenty foot long patches of dirt were visible. For some odd reason, I was really looking forward to skiing these rapidly deteriorating trails.

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2001-2002 Season, Cannon Mountain, February

Cannon Mountain, NH

Cannon once again offered up Two-Fers for the popular Super Bowl Sunday lift tickets. It was impossible for me to resist a day at Cannon for only $22. With the pre-game festivities not scheduled to begin on TV until 6 P.M., a full day of skiing was to be had; and not a second of the Super Bowl was to be missed.

The night before, I set my alarms a little earlier than usual because I needed to stop for gas and money. After getting to bed rather early (9 P.M.), I found myself tossing and turning for hours; unable to sleep a wink. Maybe it was the Pats in the Super Bowl, maybe it was anticipation of skiing Cannon, maybe I was trying to sleep after being awake less than nine hours… who knows! In any case, I abandoned sleeping around 3:30 A.M. and finished preparations.

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