I spent this weekend in New Hampshire and Susan and I went skiing at Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch. We had been there once before last winter with her uncle, who, unfortunately, is no longer able to ski (which I miss because he skied at my level). Back from the winter holidays, we decided to go skiing this weekend because the last time was pretty sucky. I chose Cannon because of its varied terrain and lack of people. Susan likes it because it offers some decent beginner trails that she likes and because of the lack of people.
Cannon is pretty old fashioned. They tend to only groom half the mountain, the bottom half and they only have 1 detachable express chair. The trails are classic New England trails and the feel is just very old school skiing. It tends to be pretty uncrowded, even on weekends, because of this (so don’t you all start going there now). The snow this weekend was perfect. Back from a cold spell and never having got the rain that plagued the southern mountains between Christmas and New Years, the conditions were great, though there was that classic Cannon ice and some wind.
Being in the notch, the mountain has its own weather pattern that is different from even the surrounding areas. There tends to be a cloud hanging over the mountain so there’s little sun. If you go, bring clear goggles as they will help.
So this weekend was great, the slopes weren’t crowded (often I was the only person I saw on the trails from the summit), the snow was good (though patchy in spots), and the weather was perfect. The views from the summit are amazing. I was able to see Mount Washington at one point during the day. I only took one picture of Mount Lafayette, but I have some others I took last year. Cannon has become one of my favorite ski areas, if not for the terrain for the lack of people that go there. I love skiing on a weekend and not having a huge crowd. Next ski trip is in 2 weeks for Martin Luther King weekend. Perhaps we’ll try Cannon again and see how crowded it is then.
On our drive back, we stopped by the Woodstock Inn and Brewery to pick up some of their Wassail Ale (hoping they would fill a growler). Unfortunately, they only fill growlers when bottling the beer and didn’t do any of the Wassail. So we stopped at a convenience store in North Woodstock and picked up a 4 pack of that and a 6 pack of Tuckerman’s Headwall Alt. I’ll do a writeup about each of them when I try it. I hope they didn’t go bad sitting in the car overnight (though they shouldn’t have as it didn’t get too cold).
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