Cannon, NH - 1/11/04

[anon]

The temperatures finally warmed up into the positive digits by mid-day, so in spite of a 30MPH wind, I donned the full face mask-goggles-helmet and ventured out to ski a few runs. The mountain was in a cloud, with light snow falling (falling is too kind a word, it was <I>blowing</I>). <BR> <BR>The trails which have had snowmaking on them have improved noticably since last weekend. The base is still rock hard, so if you fall, it's like hitting concrete. There are still patches of ice everywhere on the mountain, but the snowmakers have been patching up the iciest trails, and working on opening new terrain. <BR> <BR>The Tram is open again as of Saturday! The only official way back to the Tram was to take Rocket to the Cutback (good time to practice your skating technique!). <BR> <BR>Of the summit trails, Tramway, Upper Cannon, Upper Ravine, and Profile were open. Vista Way, Skylight, and Taft were closed. Tramway had some nice new snow blown in on the skiers left edge on my last run down. Didn't ski Upper Cannon. Didn't ski Profile, but checked it out from the chair. The wind was coming down it (in your face on the chair), and was blowing off most of the cover (as usual). Extremely thin on the chair side, but it looked like they had patched up and made more snow on skiers left. Taft was very thin, but skiable; met a guy skinning up it on AT gear, who said the lower half of Mittersill was pretty thin, but the upper half (Taft Race Course?) was OK. The bottom half of Upper Ravine was good, from the end of Taft Slalom down. Vistaway had a narrow line drifted in on skiers left. Same on Skylight. <BR> <BR>The middle mountain is still limited to two routes down: Middle Cannon, and the Links to Middle Ravine. Middle Cannon was the best bet today, had decent cover, decent grooming, and some of that new snow was blowing in on the edgers. Bypass & Extension, Lower & Middle Hardscrabble were closed. Top half of Lower had some nice thin cover, but I hiked back out at the lower entrance, rather than run the minefield on the bottom half. I heard Middle was very thin, but skiable, except for the flats at the bottom, where it washed out a couple weeks ago. <BR> <BR>On the Front Five, only Garys and Rocket were officially open (and an FSC race was in progress on Garys); Zoomer, Paulies, and Avalanche were closed. The official report that Avalanche might open late was just a tease. Snowmaking was in progress on Avalanche, and it had substantial cover, so it will open very soon. Banshee was nice, but thin. Paulies looked great, and the top part above the Zoomer-Avalanche cutback <I>was</I> nice, but from there down it was 3"-6" of new powder on top of dirt-grass-rocks; not something I'd do again soon (should have followed my own advice of January 1). <BR> <BR>On the Peabody slopes, Lower Cannon and Gremlin were in decent shape, Lower Ravine looked OK (though I didn't ski it), and CanCat has been working on the Toss Up terrain park (which I also bypassed). I think TimeZone was closed; Parkway, Turnpike, and RedBall were still closed. <BR> <BR>Advised my sister to postpone bringing up my nieces for the MLK weekend; going to wait for milder temps, and more snow to make the landings softer. Learning to ski should be fun. Even a die-hard like me has trouble enjoying sub-zero weather and bare trails (although watching the nearly-full moon rise over Mt Jefferson while night skiing at Bretton Woods made the twenty-below temps bearable for two runs Friday night!).