2-3' at Cannon

[riverc0il]

Wow. Just wow. Wowowowow. Heavy, dense, and think. A lot of work up and a lot of work down. But DAMN -- WOOOOOOOO April 28th powder day!!!

:beer:

No snow all the way up I-93, past Lincoln, past North Lincoln, still no snow on the ground but starting to change over to flakes at the Flume Visitor Center. I was expecting 6-12" and I had faith in Cannon delivering. Sure enough, top of the notch and it is full on winter and my snow tires are OFF. :-o

More in a bit, just got home, tired and hungry. Wow.

 

[snoseek]

Oh damn this will be good!

 

[TheBEast]

Hot damn! Someone got some action!

 

[riverc0il]

Was solo and it was snowing, windy, and foggy. Difficult photo shooting conditions for sure. ~2000' vert or so was the magic cut off for snow. Once you got about that vert, it was nuts. The coverage was consistent from top to bottom with at least two feet depth the whole way up with many places easily exceeding two feet depth.

Snow was extremely dense. Snowing when I got there and no wind down low which made for nice skinning. I lost the skin track above Paulie's because it had been blown in! But I soon found the super highway. Which I unfortunately lost at Upper Cannon where I thought I found it but instead found a track from a pair of snowboarders that had to straight line Upper Cannon because it was too dense to turn. Skinning up that snowboard track suuuuucked.

Skied down Profile as it is the steepest off the summit. Wind was honking at the summit. Full on major storm with high winds, poor visibility, and lots of snow. Huge drifts up there. Goggles fogged up so I hugged the trees down Profile for visibility. Tough skiing. Best was hoping in and out of tracks already made. Can't wait to get my Watea94s mounted up with the Vertical 12s! They would have been perfect up there.

Down through Spookie and over to Extension and then Paulie's where I gave up on technique and just sat back on my edges lifting my entire ski forward of my toe binding clear out of the snow and descend entirely on my tips. Got heavy down lower where the clouds were breaking, the snow had stopped, and it was warming up. Got to my car and it was definitely above freezing at the road. Huge effort and a huge work out. Skiing was fun, definitely not epic powder, really dense, heavy, and deep. So worth it though!! WOW!


Clicking In:

Skin Track Was a Trench:

Don't normally ski or skin with the hood, but it was honking up there:

Full on Winter Near the Summit:

View from Paulie's as the Snow Stopped -- Camera Lens Gunked Up

Very Satisfied!

 

[TheBEast]

Awesome!

 

[PomfretPlunge]

Smokin', Riv!

 

[wa-loaf]

Way to get it!

 

[roark]

Fack me. Cubicle was sweet today. :x

Nice job!

 

[rocojerry]

nice one!!!

 

[maineskier69]

Unreal!
Glad you got the goods.
You will never forget this one.

 

[BackLoafRiver]

Grats on getting out there!

 

[Vortex]

Nice job Steve. Ya cubicle, Roark. Feel that.

 

[skidmarks]

Well done! Great Job

 

[Johnskiismore]

Two if my buddies went yesterday as well, and pretty much everything you said! NICE!!

 

[bvibert]

Fantastic! I can't believe that much snow fell up there!

 

[polski]

A long shot but hoping I can do dawn patrol there tomorrow. Looks like it'll freeze tonight, then be sunny and climbing into the 50s tomorrow. Could be primo corn.

Anyone know if Verizon Wireless has coverage at Cannon? I'd have a work call to tend to in the afternoon.

Thanks Steve for this report, very informative.

 

[Puck it]

Holy Crap!!!! I have to get those skins and Dukes for sure.

 

[awf170]

A long shot but hoping I can do dawn patrol there tomorrow. Looks like it'll freeze tonight, then be sunny and climbing into the 50s tomorrow. Could be primo corn.

Anyone know if Verizon Wireless has coverage at Cannon? I'd have a work call to tend to in the afternoon.

Thanks Steve for this report, very informative.

It will not be primo corn tomorrow. 2-3 feet of unconsolidated snow does not become corn over night. It will probably take at least a few freeze/thaw cycles to make that into good corn. My guess is that everything that is covered with new snow is going to ski horribly tomorrow.

 

[riverc0il]

It will not be primo corn tomorrow. 2-3 feet of unconsolidated snow does not become corn over night. It will probably take at least a few freeze/thaw cycles to make that into good corn. My guess is that everything that is covered with new snow is going to ski horribly tomorrow.

Yea, even though it is dense, it is still an unconsolidated dense. When I got off track which skinning, I sunk down about a foot into the untracked snow. Perhaps today consolidated things a little bit and the base area was above freezing when I left yesterday (but only at the bottom of the mountain). Definitely not primo corn. I could see perhaps Avalanche being decent for lapping if it got warm enough last night and today before it freezes over? Tough weather pattern following the storm with 60s tomorrow and 70s expected for Saturday before it has completely consolidated. I would love to see a report from today. I'd love to get at it again this weekend but I fear mank city awaits....

 

[polski]

It will not be primo corn tomorrow. 2-3 feet of unconsolidated snow does not become corn over night. It will probably take at least a few freeze/thaw cycles to make that into good corn. My guess is that everything that is covered with new snow is going to ski horribly tomorrow.

Ha ha ha, nice try! So where are YOU going tomorrow, the Blog Railroad? ;-)

OK, seriously, I hear what you're saying, and you have a lot more experience with this than I do. Here's my admittedly speculative thinking: The deep snow started out very dense, i.e. (well?) on its way to becoming consolidated. At least at lower elevations it rose above freezing yesterday per Steve's report; it dropped below freezing last night; today above freezing; tonight, below. I'm betting it wouldn't ski anywhere close to 2' deep and if I'm right about that, it could be a very nice outing. I may well be wrong but I think it's a close enough call that it'd be worth betting a 2 hr drive on, if other circumstances permit.

I'm also concerned that after tonight we won't get the "freeze" part of the cycle for the foreseeable future, plus it's going to get pretty warm and there may be some rain. So even if tomorrow isn't primo, I don't see it improving thereafter. Now or never?