Loon Mountain, NH, 12/14-12/17 and Cannon Mountain, 12/16

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 12/18/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Had 4 days to ski before a two week lay-off. didn't think it was worth road trippin anywhere so ended up hanging around loon and cannon for all four. dropped the ball apparently and should have hit sugarbush on wed or thurs. anyway: <BR>tuesday at loon: <BR>they called it 10 but again it was only 2 ways down from the gondy and 1 route from the double... still no snow on the lower half of the mountain, cept the one trail leading to the gondy, temps were bout 35 and it was all groomed out. basically a frozen gran mixed in w/ some fake... fast GS type day.... spent the day alternating between angel st off the double and trying to ski on one leg ( great balance excercise )on the 2 blues that... pretty boring but it does wonders for teaching the concept of staying centered!!! <BR>wed, loon: <BR>they got some natural which made it nice... a solid three inches... enough to really lay into it... same trail count just nicer conditions...high humidity and bout 38... not good for snowmaking i guess cause not a gun was on all day... got busted by a snow maker poaching a line on a closed run... he was mad at first but a little politicing and a few questions about his craft smoothed him over... got crowded bout 1 w/ the usual posse of kid racers invading... i'm all for the kids letting it rip, don;t get me wrong, but when you only have one legit steep open and the whole left side of it is staked w/ gates and gs'ers it's kind of a pain...not a bad day at all though... no snowmaking though <BR>thurs, cannon <BR>like matt duffy at smuggs, 100 plus times down a trail in two weeks starts to get to you. jumped to cannon for variety... got it all right... in a bad way... two ways down off the new quad, or at least i think it was two,,,, could not see for more than 20 feet in an outrageous fog...thats cannon though... when it's good there is nothing like it but when it's bad... well it's pretty bad..it was raining and mixing at 8 in the am...all groomed corn/gran from the warm up... it looked like the notch just got socked in by the fog... made 4 runs and bailed 9 got a voucher for another day from a very friendly sales lady!!!!, and headed back to llon which looked like it had some clearing going on... <BR>Loon, same day: <BR>was very disappointed in that they shut off the double... ranted and raved to anyone who would listen... finally got some employee to admit that they probably figured no one was coming so they saved payroll and must have sent home the kids to run the lift... they claimed it was for lack of coverage but that was malarchy... could clearly see that the route was skiable from the view off the gondy.... think it was a pure business decision to save the snow and money, just an opiniion though... overcast all day and corn was once again king on the two ways down... no one leg practice today though not good enough to make it through the piles of mashed!!!!!... still preety good fun hangin on the trail edges though... just gets boring w/ no steeps. no snowmaking ongoing all day thurs <BR>Friday,loon: <BR>double reopened, got cold overnight.... very hard frozen gran... groomed everywhere and very fast...they started to blow fast and furious about 10am... looks like they are gonna get the north peak open ( probably off the back side and down to crossover to lower walking boss would be my guess ) bout 2 inches of fake on the spots that they blew overnight...tested a pair of dynastars the speed sx... don't know if it was the tune or the ski of both ( probably the tune ) but tremendous hold on the hardpack. still same two routs down and one off the double but like i said it should be upping in the next few... sounds cold through tues... heard something big may be going on for tuesday... this place really needs it bad...think they are in the deep doo-doo for christmas, unfortunately!!!