Cannon, NH: 12/18/04

[riverc0il]

driving up to the notch, i was amazed how beautiful the day was beginning. bright blue skies without a cloud to be seen on the whole drive up. the franconia ridge was as majestic as i've ever seen it with it's white capped peaks fronting a sky of bright blue. visibility from the top o' the quad was about as far and clear as i've ever seen it from cannon. everything was perfect about the weather except one thing: the wind.

cannon opened with <font color="#FF6666">mid/low cannon & ravine</font>, big/short link, and spookie on the peabody slopes and zoomer lift turning for gary's. the tube park was replaced by a handle tow beginners area (great call!), and tuckerbrook quad was spinning but i didn't get over there.

the HSQ was essentially only useful for uploading to ski down to the zoomer chair. the wind was ferocious, just about as bad as cannon can get and still have that lift turning. conditions off all trails from the quad were boiler plate. by 11ish, big/short link and ravine got roped and a sign was placed at the loading area of the quad stating experts only. to bad eaglecliff wasn't turning as lower cannon had okay snow in between the blown off sections and would have been a more enjoyable ride getting over to gary's.

so gary's was not at it's best but had it's moments. skier's right featured a few inches of man made pow that blew over from rocket where the guns were going like crazy. the AM it was kinda tough to ski, but once it got broken up it was really nice. the rest of the trail was hard pack with moth ball frozen granular.

not the best day at cannon today, but they should have some more trails opening hopefully tomorrow, definitely by next weekend. not cannon's fault the wind took all the snow off the trails and dumped it into the woods. i'm sure the groomers will fix it up for tomorrow, but it just shows how bad most ski areas are hurting for some natural snow.

 

[riverc0il]

btw, in a previous report i noted that it was rediculous that lakeview glade that parallels zoomer lift line would be marked a blue square on the trail map. the new signage on the mountain indicates that it is a black diamond, fwiw.

also of note that i forgot to include above, the exit ramps for zoomer chair and the HSQ were fantastic. especially the HSQ, a slight drop off was created to help skiers clear out of what was previously an extremely flat exit area. i really enjoyed just sliding off the HSQ without worrying if i was going fast enough to clear the chair.

 

[From_the_NEK]

I had heard that it was supposed to be windy today. That is why I opted for Burke rather than Jay. Burke had very little wind. At the base there was none and the top of the mountain had maybe a 5-8 mph breeze with gusting to 12-15 mph. By afternoon the summit winds had died as well. I do agree that we need some more natural snow. But maybe I'm just greedy.

 

[Admin]

Jay's wind was no big deal, for it was blowing out of the southwest and therefore sheltered by the mountain. I'm preparing a full report with pix now.