Cannon was uncharacteristically <I>not</I> windy, icy, <I>or</I> cold today, February first, but it was overcast, so we all felt at home anyway. Consequently, the light sucked for photography, so forgive me for posting them if you can't see a damn thing due to poor lighting & reduced rez. <BR> <BR>The Tramline trail officially opened for the first time Thursday. Skied it twice today, and found there was some really good skiing in between the really-really bad parts. <BR> <BR>The entrance off bottom of Vistaway is signed extensively: "Most Difficult", "thin cover", "advanced skiers only", "unmarked hazards exist", and "major rocks & cliffs!". <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/1891.jpg" ALT="Tramline entrance"> <BR> <BR>It starts off with a short, tight, very nice glade. Probably the <I>best</I> turns on the whole run! If you have trouble in here, then you better turn back before you get further over your head. <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/1892.jpg" ALT="Tramline entrance glade"> <BR> <BR>From the glade, you come out under the Tram just below the second tower. Immediately, you are presented with the initial maze of rocks & ledges to negotiate. The photo looking down from this vantage doesn't really show the rocks in the foreground well. <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/1893.jpg" ALT="Tramline looking down at Tower 1"> <BR> <BR>Further down, looking back up at Tower 2, you can make out some of the rocks & ledges. <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/1894.jpg" ALT="Tramline looking back up at Tower 2"> <BR> <BR>There are some nice turns just above Tower 1, especially lower on skier's right. <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/1895.jpg" ALT="Tower 1"> <BR> <BR>Then you have to get around the tower and through a series of boulders that no amount of snow will ever cover. <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/1896.jpg" ALT="Boulders below Tower 1"> <BR> <BR>Once you're through those obstacles, the rest of the run is a straight shot down to the Tram. <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/1897.jpg" ALT="Tramline to the valley station"> <BR> <BR>As for the rest of the mountain conditions, they've groomed the entire hill, except for Tramline, Middle Hardscrabble, Redball, and the official glades. I guess Nat didn't get the message straight from JoeGM about leaving some moguls, except he heard the part about bumps were too big on Paulies, so they flattened that out as well. Lower half, skier's right of Avalanche was the only place left on the hill with more than a dozen bumps. <BR> <BR>The grooming spree included Barons Run on Mittersil, all the way up the Taft Race Course to the top of Mt. Jackson, and over the saddle to the bottom of Taft Slalom. Barons Run groomed is just another ski trail; they should rename it "Billy Roy's Run", in honor of the mountain manager who tamed it. The groomer did knock down & chew up some of the brush, which I won't complain about, though that could have been accomplished last summer with a bush hog. At least you can tuck Taft Slalom to get a running start up the saddle to Mittersil without worrying about hitting any washboard. Top half of Bunny was OK. <BR> <BR>Think snow tonight!
Cannon Mt. 2/01/03
- Thread starter Lftgly
- Start date
frontrange
New member
Great pictures- from somewhere most of us will never see. Thanks
riverc0il
New member
DAMN! nice report, pics, and run Lftgly! well on the bright side... you know they'll never be able to groom tramline... <BR> <BR>on grooming... perhaps it's because of the lack of natural snow recently? i mean, if you don't occasionally groom bumps over (especially with no major snow recently), they get very very nasty (see paulie's bumps last week). last weekend i skied mittersill's old taft trail and barron's and to be frank, they sucked pretty bad. it'll just take a single dump now to bring them back to good standing. i'm pretty bummed the brush was groomed down... i think the brush and growth is one of the coolest parts of mittersill and i rue the day they weed wack those trails. <BR> <BR>hopefully once the snow starts dumping again, the grooming trend will stop. i honestly believe the grooming is happening because the lack of natural snow. i only hope i'm correct or i'll start taking my biz elsewhere.
joegm
New member
first off, lftgly, that's about the best report i've seen all year.. keep it up, <BR>second, river, u and i r usually on the same page but i think u are falling into the resort excuse trap... let me state i absolutely 100% agree that grooming is pretty much a necessity in the east... factor #1 as i see it is that it can/does extend the season by packing down the snow and building a base, and from someone who skis till they they turn out the lights at big k at the end of may, i would be an idiot if i complained about that... factor #2 is that the fact is weather in the east pretty much requires the brutal groom ...it is no fun skiing death cookies or freshly frozen snow after rain, which, is a fact of life in the east...again you would have to be a fool not to conceed that....but the outrage comes from the simple fact tha very few resorts have the foresight to REBUILD, AFTER THE GROOM... why this is i just cannot get an answer from anyone... THEY BUILD MOGULS IN THE WEST....the ability is there.. it is not hard... IT JUST TAKES SOME EFFORT and an order from a boss to a groomer ... these resorts have no problem rebuilding a beat up pipe or booter... no problem fixing a nastar course... but apparently when a decision is made ( rightly so ) that paulies folly is a little out of control, the solution is to flatten it and then let build back to bumps naturally... that's reeeeeeal smart, cannon and the rest of ya .... the natural formation of the bumps would form just fine if only true experts were gonna ski the run...problem is, not everyone is a true expert who can turn on a dime every time .... and that is certainly no crime.. some people just want to have fun and turn when they want to...only problem with that is that the resulting bumps on a pitch like paulies are gonna be too eratic for all but the most expert bumper... for a place like cannon to smash paulies and not rebuild the moguls show just how low on the food chain cannon feels about moguls and mogul skiers.... what would happen if the pipe got too icy or whatever and cannon management said, " well we r gonna have to knock that down and wait for a couple more feet of snow for it to build up again.. or if the beginner slopes got too icy and cannon said, well, we will have to close all the beginner runs unitl we get 2 feet of snow to refresh the surface so it is enjoyable again....it's an unbelievable issue of utter lack of respect for moguls and mogul skiers... it's the height of hypocracy and it really sucks....and 95% of em are guilty of it... and none of em have an answer for it when asked .. believe me i know .. all they do is pass the buck and say, " will consult with the groomers about that "... but on the other hand , if enough people aren't complaining, maybe they have a right to take the view that there is no problem.. i don't know... but that's just the way i see it....loon has built a strip of bumps under their gondy ( in addition to letting the line under the quad bump, which they claim they r gonna maintain, we will have to see ) on pretty flat area. they are only about 50 yards long... a grommer there told me it took 2 hours and one machine to do.. they will probably be good for ( considering loons clientel ) 3 weeks...if it took em 2 hours to build that strip, i would think a whole trail could be rebuilt in 1 full shift ) is this really too much to ask resorts to do? with all the hours and hours and money and advertising and all that crap put into every other type of skiing ( racing, park, pipe, groomers, apparently, 1 black and 1 blue bump run cannot be maintained ( smashed and rebuilt ) once a month by resorts like cannon... unbelievable.. that's where you and i differ on that, river
On Grooming, <BR>Yes to all the various theories you state for grooming expert, bump and unfortunately, baron's. As a cat driver at Cannon, I am privy to the grooming requests each night, and I cry every time I see those runs listed that you all are discussing. Grooming does help coverage and such, but most of the groomers that I have met are not avid skiers if at all. They tend not to understand the dissapointment of those of us who seek out the "natural" terrain. They assume that everyone likes a groomed trail to ski. The other part of this comes from the administration of course, trying to appeal to the largest numbers. There are solutions to this that create a balance between the two as joegm suggests. The problem is that these solutions involve time and labor intensive procedures. Paulies for instance. Yes it needed to be tamed a bit, not flattened. What needed to happen is for a cat to just top off the bumps, distribute the largest whales a little bit. But this requires an understanding of bump skiing and time. Niether of which did the person doing the job have. This would also work well in the Hardscrabbles and zoomer liftline. Another possibility is to flatten a trail to distribute snowmaking for coverage and then keep the guns on while experts ski it creating a wonderfully durrable bump field that doesn't develop the "sheets" between bumps that a groomed run does with natural snow. Also a labor intensive process as snowmakers have to continuously move guns so as not to build whales, amd also very expensive. <BR> <BR>As for Halfpipes, <BR> <BR>"what would happen if the pipe got too icy or whatever and cannon management said, " well we r gonna have to knock that down and wait for a couple more feet of snow for it to build up again" <BR> <BR>I build and maintain the new park at Cannon this year and I am having similar trouble educating them on what kind of maintenance is needed there. It amounts to the need to educate the mangement of the mountain to what the public desires. If enough people say that the halfpipe needs to be cut more often or they will go elsewere, it will happen. similarly, if enough people say don't groom "xxx" trail, or take better care when grooming a "bump" trail to maintain the bumps not destroy them, or use snowmaking better to create bumps, or we will go somplace else, then they will have to listen. <BR> <BR>So the answer really is to bi*ch up a storm if there is something you want or don't like. PLEASE I hate grooming upper hardscrabble and zoomer liftline! And I love to ski bumps! As for Baron's the cat driver who does it gets yelled at every time he does it because he has to go across Federal land (top of mt jackson) with the cat which is trespassing. The whole point to the mittersill adventure IMHO is that it is HARD because it isn't groomed or mowed and there is brush and dirt to make it interresting. <BR>So again - BI*CH <BR> <BR>Bump skiing cat driver
marc fleisher
New member
Nice article. The pictures really work to show the terrain. I haven't skied Cannon in years...Always wanted to ski the tram line but didn't have the guts just to go and do it. Now that it's open I guess I'll have to make the pilgrimage. It seems like there could be more trails cut down the tram side from the top. Any chance of that ever happening?
OK, I wasn't going to bump this back to the top again, but since it's there already, Cancat, thanks for posting. It's good to know there's a few higher life forms operating those snow cats. I'll be careful in the future to not paint all groomer operators with the same brush. <BR> <BR>As to the glade along Kinsman Ridge Trail, it's not cleared close to the ground (yet?). It requires a good snow year (like 2 years ago) to cover the 3'-4' high stumps, rocks, and blowdowns. Entrance is just a few feet from the Tramline Trail entrance. It's not on the "official" map, and I doubt ski patrol will "officially" open it unless we get some epic storms in next two months. <BR> <BR>"Skied" it a month ago, and it's got to be getting better with the deeper snow pack. The best and only dozen linked turns were at the top connection from Vistaway to the Kinsman Ridge hiking trail, until reaching Cascade Brook. It was skiable most of the way, but required lots of traversing across the fall line parallel to the hiking trail, cautiously navigating over rocks, etc. Several narrow sections require skiing the hiking trail itself, until there is enough snow to open up a few lines either side of it. I removed my skis and hiked down a hundred yards on one such section after hitting a major rock for third time. Where the "glade" leaves the hiking trail and drops down to Cascade Brook is an awesome line, but it was a mess of 3'+ stumps and rocks mentioned above. Didn't actually get any more linked turns until I hit the Brook. It would have been easier & quicker to hike UP Kinsman Ridge Trail and cut through the woods from second switchback to get to Cascade Brook. <BR> <BR>Cascade Brook is definitely worth getting to, one way or the other, if you're one of the first dozen after fresh snown <BR> <BR>Another option allows you to stay skiers right of the Brook in gladed woods down to base of old ski jumps, but why would you skip the cheese at the end of the maze? Because you wouldn't want to ski it after a washout/thaw/freeze cycle, when it can turn into an ice climber's route (hence, the option to bail through glades to ski jumps).
hit cannon on sat. had to ski the tramline after looking at this report. i think it falls under the rite of passage category in the east. wiht the likes of paradise, the face at jay, goat, chin at stowe, to name a few. its about time a ski area in new hampshire got some balls and cut a gnarly trail.