Weekend at Cannon

I spent this past weekend at Cannon Mountain in stunning Franconia Notch in New Hampshire. Pretty much all of the New England mountains had been getting dumped on and I wasn’t going to miss some fresh powder. Unfortunately, however, Cannon was somehow missed by the massive storm that hit New York, Vermont, eastern NH, and Maine.

We stayed at the very lovely Gale River Motel in the adorable town of Franconia, just north of the notch. I really hate to give a tip of such a small place, but this motel was perfect in almost every way. It sits on an open field looking out towards the mountains of the notch with gorgeous views of Cannon and Mount Lafayette. The owner runs the place like a small inn or bed and breakfast, but without the breakfast. It has a small indoor hot tub that ends up being semi-private – the people with the key to the room get to use it. The spa room is all wood and smells like a sauna. The owner has homemade cookies, tea, and hot cocoa available in the office, free-of-charge. He provides menus for a few restaurants in Littleton, a couple exits north on I-93. If he has a menu for the place, he also has a 10% discount coupon you can use. What their website does not advertise is the discount ski passes. He had vouchers for Cannon, Loon, and Bretton Woods. While I don’t know what the discount was for Loon or Bretton Woods, Cannon was only $55 each, a savings of $11 per ticket. The motel is also a very environmentally friendly place. He does the towel program like most hotels tend to do now, only washing what is left on the floor. The domestic hot water is heated using solar power. He’s also looking into a photo-voltaic system for electricity. Each room has a small refrigerator with cans of soda sold on the honor system for 50 cents each. There’s a small basket of everyday items that you can take if you want. The beds were relatively new pillow-top. The room was immaculate. The best part was that it only cost $75 per night. Also, if you mention my name, you’ll probably get $5 off the price of the room.

We skied at Cannon both Saturday and Sunday of our trip. While Cannon didn’t get the snow from the big storm, it did snow Friday night and all day on Saturday. Conditions on Saturday started out like standard Cannon conditions. It was hard pack with ruts and some loose granular. As the day went on and the snow started to come down more heavily, the conditions began to improve. The snow coming down at the summit was powdery and it turned into a small powder day. The new snow filled in the ruts and made for an awesome day of skiing. The warm temperatures kept it a bit slower. My favorite trail that day was Taft Slalom with Upper Cannon coming in a close second. I spent most of the afternoon up at the summit skiing the trails up there.

The temps stayed low overnight and on Sunday, a bunch of our friends from Providence met us at the mountain and we skied with them all day. Usually, I ski alone. Susan isn’t as strong a skier and tends to stick to just a handful of easier trails, while I like to explore. My issue, though, is that I don’t explore too much on my own and tend not to take too many risks in case something happens. Having people to ski with on Sunday was nice. It allowed me to try some new trails, including some of the black diamonds on the mountain. The snow was faster, but soft and forgiving. There were few ruts and no lumps of heavy powder to catch your skis. While I did ski Middle Cannon Bypass on Saturday, which is a short black diamond, I added a couple on Sunday. After lunch, I decided to try Profile (now known as Cannonball), which is a straight wide steep down the upper mountain lift line. It’s usually icy and beat up or blown off, but on Sunday it was pretty well covered, though bumpy in spots. I made it down with ease, but I did begin to feel it in my knees and quads. The other trail I tried that I really enjoyed was Vista Way. It’s normally a blue trail, but all season has been left ungroomed and only covered with natural snow. They had it marked at the top as a black trail because of this. The trail was all bumped out and had some exposed rocks in one spot. It was a ton of fun and really got me working my turns and pole plants. Because the trail is normally not that steep, it was easy to get down and around the bumps. Also, because it’s not a standard mogul field, the bumps were smaller and not overly icy. It was obvious that very few people skied the trail, as many others on the mountain were giving warnings about it not being a fun run. It turned out to be my favorite run of the day. The best part about that trail is the views. The name holds true as the views of the notch from that trail are absolutely breathtaking. I also went down Short Fuse to Lower Hardscrabble, which is normally a bump run. It wasn’t too bad. Short Fuse is a very steep black trail, but, as the name implies, it’s short. We took those to Blue Ball, which was also bumped out and icy in the flat section heading towards the base. Overall, it was a great day on the mountain. Having people to ski with made it the best ski day I’ve had all season.