David Metsky
Well-known member
I'd been reading descriptions and seeing photos/videos of people skiing in the early Oct snowstorm in New England all week. It was driving me a bit nuts at work so I was determined to get out on Saturday for a day on snow. Cannon was the closest place and the trip reports sounded pretty good, so I arranged to meet Adam at the Park & Ride at 5:30 and off we went.
There is no snow until right before you arrive at Cannon, about a mile or so before the exit. It's a little worrying, but eventually there is all is. We parked and a few other folks we'd talked to on email arrived at the parking lot. We seemed to be the only ones there at 7:45, so we put on our skis and off we went.
There is a cat track going up to the top of the lower chair making for a fairly easy skin, if it wasn't for my out-of-shape thighs and lungs. The others were going to take a run down from there, Adam and I elected to continue higher, possibly to the top. At the top of the detachable quad things looked good so on up we went.
We stopped on the deck of the tram station which was out of the pretty steady wind. After removing skins and bundling up, we started down our first run of the 2005-6 season.
The skiing was OK, not fantastic like it must have been right after the snow fell. There were rocks and some bare/icy patches. Frankly, the main problem was that my legs turned into al dente pasta and my skiing was underwhelming. Ah, to be old and out-of-shape. We met a party of 5 that was skiing their 5th day of the year, they were probably responsible for the majority of the tracks that were up there.
Eventually we got down to where we'd left the others and found them skinning back up Zoomer which they reported was fantastic. I was spent and needed food, so we paused and ate and rehydrated. That made a huge difference, I felt must better after that. Since the snow sounded good we went down Zoomer. It was quite good snow, the best we'd found on the mountain. We skinned back up and came down Rocket next, finding even more untracked patches and more consistantly deep snow.
We hiked back out the to cars around 1:30, not wanting to over do it on the first day. What an October, a fine way to start the season.
I have some video as well, but I need to clean it up and put it in a format that makes sense. All the pictures are here.
-dave-
There is no snow until right before you arrive at Cannon, about a mile or so before the exit. It's a little worrying, but eventually there is all is. We parked and a few other folks we'd talked to on email arrived at the parking lot. We seemed to be the only ones there at 7:45, so we put on our skis and off we went.
There is a cat track going up to the top of the lower chair making for a fairly easy skin, if it wasn't for my out-of-shape thighs and lungs. The others were going to take a run down from there, Adam and I elected to continue higher, possibly to the top. At the top of the detachable quad things looked good so on up we went.
We stopped on the deck of the tram station which was out of the pretty steady wind. After removing skins and bundling up, we started down our first run of the 2005-6 season.
The skiing was OK, not fantastic like it must have been right after the snow fell. There were rocks and some bare/icy patches. Frankly, the main problem was that my legs turned into al dente pasta and my skiing was underwhelming. Ah, to be old and out-of-shape. We met a party of 5 that was skiing their 5th day of the year, they were probably responsible for the majority of the tracks that were up there.
Eventually we got down to where we'd left the others and found them skinning back up Zoomer which they reported was fantastic. I was spent and needed food, so we paused and ate and rehydrated. That made a huge difference, I felt must better after that. Since the snow sounded good we went down Zoomer. It was quite good snow, the best we'd found on the mountain. We skinned back up and came down Rocket next, finding even more untracked patches and more consistantly deep snow.
We hiked back out the to cars around 1:30, not wanting to over do it on the first day. What an October, a fine way to start the season.
I have some video as well, but I need to clean it up and put it in a format that makes sense. All the pictures are here.
-dave-
