Cannon Mountain- 1/22

[Nick]

Had a great day at Cannon, my first time skiing there. Left the house solo around 5:30AM and arrived at Cannon right at opening around 8:30. Drive up was great, having never been there before, I was glad to get off the highway and literally be on the mountain. Beautiful bluebird day out. Cold on the way up - at one point the car thermometer metered -8 coming up into Franconia Notch - but it settled during the day into the low 20's, which was fine.

I was surprised how dead it was, I never had to wait for a single lift anywhere. Not sure if that is status quo or if it was just because of the NFL playoffs competing for traffic that day. A lot of people on the lifts talked about ducking out early to head home for the game.

I spent all my time on Cannon Mountain. I really wanted to try out Mittersil, but it was closed off. That, plus I was solo, and wouldn't want to risk anything happening while I am skiing alone. There were several poachers during the day I saw heading out on the Mittersil Access that extends from Taft Slalom.

All in all, conditions were excellent in the morning - packed powder all around - snowmaking was active on middle cannon bypass / paulie's extension.

With the exception of Hardscrabble, which REALLY earned its name, there was mostly good coverage on all open trails. Hardscrabble was horrible, I skied it once and it was an icy, thin covered mess the entire way down. My quads were killing me at the bottom of that run just trying to keep myself up on my skis.

In the afternoon, it got a little more tricky. Definitely started getting scraped off in the afternoon. I took a 15 minute lunch and skied straight through otherwise, by 3PM I called it and headed home as my quads were killing me (ugh!) and it was getting harder to hold myself up on the icy patches. The sun really gives flat light in the afternoon too, which started making it difficult to see - past the hump on Cannonball (why is Cannonball a black diamond again??) was particularly flat. Luckily it was smooth so there were no unknown terrain features or moguls in the center to cause any issues.



Only other thing, I wish there had been more snow as I didn't get to hit any glades or woods ,or Mittersil. That said, I did get to get in some moguls, which were very nice and soft. Some great ones were out on Vista Way (labeled as Most Difficult on the trail, but listed on the trail map as an intermediate?)

Some pics:


Shot up mountain of Tramway


Mytracks for the day. I thought I had covered everything on the open mountain but looks like I missed a bit .


I *think* this is Turnpike


Snowmaking on Middle cannon bypass


Bottom of Tramway


More of Middle Cannon Bypass


Moguls on Vista Way


Like I said, Bluebird day for sure!

[o3jeff]

How was it, did you make it back?

[Nick]

Bump

[xwhaler]

Great report Nick and photos. Looks like a great day to get up to Cannon. Prob one of the most scenic areas from the top in all of New England.

[thetrailboss]

Very nice report and it is impressive how much ground you covered. Next time go a little further and try Burke. I bet the place was dead because of the game. Good day to go. And Mittersill is awesome.

[bdfreetuna]

Looks nice. I'm waiting until Mittersill is open to go there

[LiquidFeet]

Glad you liked Cannon. Let's meet up some time. I was there too. Yes, it was icy in many spots after lunch - formica!

You skied under the tram all the way down? That's natural snow on very steep rocky terrain. There wasn't much snow. It was closed. Are you sure?

[Nick]

Glad you liked Cannon. Let's meet up some time. I was there too. Yes, it was icy in many spots after lunch - formica!

You skied under the tram all the way down? That's natural snow on very steep rocky terrain. There wasn't much snow. It was closed. Are you sure?

No, I didn't ski down under the tram, that line you see on the map is my ride up in the Tram

It looked REALLY sketchy under the tram line, from the tram. A couple people had poached it though, the tracks were there.

[Nick]

Interestingly on my Mytracks line going up the tram, you can see where the position shifts as you go over the towers.

[Nick]

Here's the ride up the tram, not a great shot though