# 2-3' at Cannon



## riverc0il (Apr 28, 2010)

Wow. Just wow. Wowowowow. Heavy, dense, and think. A lot of work up and a lot of work down. But DAMN -- WOOOOOOOO April 28th powder day!!!

:beer:

No snow all the way up I-93, past Lincoln, past North Lincoln, still no snow on the ground but starting to change over to flakes at the Flume Visitor Center. I was expecting 6-12" and I had faith in Cannon delivering. Sure enough, top of the notch and it is full on winter and my snow tires are OFF. :-o

More in a bit, just got home, tired and hungry. Wow.


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## snoseek (Apr 28, 2010)

Oh damn this will be good!


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## TheBEast (Apr 28, 2010)

Hot damn!  Someone got some action!


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## riverc0il (Apr 28, 2010)

Was solo and it was snowing, windy, and foggy. Difficult photo shooting conditions for sure. ~2000' vert or so was the magic cut off for snow. Once you got about that vert, it was nuts. The coverage was consistent from top to bottom with at least two feet depth the whole way up with many places easily exceeding two feet depth.

Snow was extremely dense. Snowing when I got there and no wind down low which made for nice skinning. I lost the skin track above Paulie's because it had been blown in! But I soon found the super highway. Which I unfortunately lost at Upper Cannon where I thought I found it but instead found a track from a pair of snowboarders that had to straight line Upper Cannon because it was too dense to turn. Skinning up that snowboard track suuuuucked.

Skied down Profile as it is the steepest off the summit. Wind was honking at the summit. Full on major storm with high winds, poor visibility, and lots of snow. Huge drifts up there. Goggles fogged up so I hugged the trees down Profile for visibility. Tough skiing. Best was hoping in and out of tracks already made. Can't wait to get my Watea94s mounted up with the Vertical 12s! They would have been perfect up there.

Down through Spookie and over to Extension and then Paulie's where I gave up on technique and just sat back on my edges lifting my entire ski forward of my toe binding clear out of the snow and descend entirely on my tips. Got heavy down lower where the clouds were breaking, the snow had stopped, and it was warming up. Got to my car and it was definitely above freezing at the road. Huge effort and a huge work out. Skiing was fun, definitely not epic powder, really dense, heavy, and deep. So worth it though!! WOW!


*Clicking In:*






*Skin Track Was a Trench:*





*Don't normally ski or skin with the hood, but it was honking up there:*





*Full on Winter Near the Summit:*





*View from Paulie's as the Snow Stopped -- Camera Lens Gunked Up*





*Very Satisfied!*


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## TheBEast (Apr 28, 2010)

Awesome!


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## PomfretPlunge (Apr 28, 2010)

Smokin', Riv!


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## wa-loaf (Apr 28, 2010)

Way to get it!


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## roark (Apr 28, 2010)

Fack me. Cubicle was sweet today. :x

Nice job!


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## rocojerry (Apr 29, 2010)

nice one!!!


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## maineskier69 (Apr 29, 2010)

Unreal!
Glad you got the goods.
You will never forget this one.


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## BackLoafRiver (Apr 29, 2010)

Grats on getting out there!


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## Vortex (Apr 29, 2010)

Nice job Steve.  Ya cubicle, Roark. Feel that.


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## skidmarks (Apr 29, 2010)

Well done! Great Job


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## Johnskiismore (Apr 29, 2010)

Two if my buddies went yesterday as well, and pretty much everything you said!  NICE!!


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## bvibert (Apr 29, 2010)

Fantastic!  I can't believe that much snow fell up there!


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## polski (Apr 29, 2010)

A long shot but hoping I can do dawn patrol there tomorrow. Looks like it'll freeze tonight, then be sunny and climbing into the 50s tomorrow. Could be primo corn.

Anyone know if Verizon Wireless has coverage at Cannon? I'd have a work call to tend to in the afternoon.

Thanks Steve for this report, very informative.


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## Puck it (Apr 29, 2010)

Holy Crap!!!!  I have to get those skins and Dukes for sure.


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## awf170 (Apr 29, 2010)

polski said:


> A long shot but hoping I can do dawn patrol there tomorrow. Looks like it'll freeze tonight, then be sunny and climbing into the 50s tomorrow. Could be primo corn.
> 
> Anyone know if Verizon Wireless has coverage at Cannon? I'd have a work call to tend to in the afternoon.
> 
> Thanks Steve for this report, very informative.


 
It will not be primo corn tomorrow. 2-3 feet of unconsolidated snow does not become corn over night. It will probably take at least a few freeze/thaw cycles to make that into good corn.  My guess is that everything that is covered with new snow is going to ski horribly tomorrow.


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## riverc0il (Apr 29, 2010)

awf170 said:


> It will not be primo corn tomorrow. 2-3 feet of unconsolidated snow does not become corn over night. It will probably take at least a few freeze/thaw cycles to make that into good corn.  My guess is that everything that is covered with new snow is going to ski horribly tomorrow.


Yea, even though it is dense, it is still an unconsolidated dense. When I got off track which skinning, I sunk down about a foot into the untracked snow. Perhaps today consolidated things a little bit and the base area was above freezing when I left yesterday (but only at the bottom of the mountain). Definitely not primo corn. I could see perhaps Avalanche being decent for lapping if it got warm enough last night and today before it freezes over? Tough weather pattern following the storm with 60s tomorrow and 70s expected for Saturday before it has completely consolidated. I would love to see a report from today. I'd love to get at it again this weekend but I fear mank city awaits....


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## polski (Apr 29, 2010)

awf170 said:


> It will not be primo corn tomorrow. 2-3 feet of unconsolidated snow does not become corn over night. It will probably take at least a few freeze/thaw cycles to make that into good corn.  My guess is that everything that is covered with new snow is going to ski horribly tomorrow.



Ha ha ha, nice try! So where are YOU going tomorrow, the Blog Railroad? ;-)

OK, seriously, I hear what you're saying, and you have a lot more experience with this than I do. Here's my admittedly speculative thinking: The deep snow started out very dense, i.e. (well?) on its way to becoming consolidated. At least at lower elevations it rose above freezing yesterday per Steve's report; it dropped below freezing last night; today above freezing; tonight, below. I'm betting it wouldn't ski anywhere close to 2' deep and if I'm right about that, it could be a very nice outing. I may well be wrong but I think it's a close enough call that it'd be worth betting a 2 hr drive on, if other circumstances permit.

I'm also concerned that after tonight we won't get the "freeze" part of the cycle for the foreseeable future, plus it's going to get pretty warm and there may be some rain. So even if tomorrow isn't primo, I don't see it improving thereafter. Now or never?


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## riverc0il (Apr 29, 2010)

In hind sight, I think I may have been a little excited in reporting 2-3' as the areas deeper than say two and a half feet had to have been drifts but there was definitely a minimum base of two feet and more than that in many areas.

Man, the wind is honking today. Can't wait to see what Tuckerman looks like after the avalanche cycle!!  Should fill up the East Snowfields better than before as well, they were really hurting even a month ago.


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## polski (Apr 29, 2010)

My post crossed with Steve's. I appreciate the further detail. Other thing I was going to say is I think I could be very happy lapping Avalanche/Pauly's/Zoomer if that's good and it really does suck higher up.

The Verizon Wireless question is probably the most pressing issue for me at this point. Anyone?


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## riverc0il (Apr 29, 2010)

polski said:


> At least at lower elevations it rose above freezing yesterday per Steve's report; it dropped below freezing last night; today above freezing; tonight, below. I'm betting it wouldn't ski anywhere close to 2' deep and if I'm right about that, it could be a very nice outing. I may well be wrong but I think it's a close enough call that it'd be worth betting a 2 hr drive on, if other circumstances permit.


I would say go for it just for the sake of an adventure. Heck, even yesterday was a LOT of work for very tough skiing. It was fun because it was an adventure and a crazy late season storm, not because the turns were epic, because they were not.

But I do need to clarify what I meant by "lower elevations" rising above freezing. This perhaps suggested the lower part of the mountain but I am not so sure the top of the Zoomer trails got above freezing. Perhaps they did. But I would say the above freezing feeling started on the lower half of the front face area and was only definite on the run out back to my car where snow was melting off the windshield of my car. I doubt anything above Avalanche got above freezing and I am not even sure the top of the front face trails got above freezing. Just my guesses here and I would love to hear exact readings if any one else was up there and took measurements.

Keep an eye out over on T4T and hope someone else can report back on today. I doubt there was much consolidation though it will be interesting to see what the "ground up" heating effect will be and what it will do to the snow. However, the snow pack was so deep and bottomless, that that ultimately may not matter.

Essentially, go for the adventure but I wouldn't expect primo conditions and if you get them, then I picked the wrong day for sure.


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## riverc0il (Apr 29, 2010)

polski said:


> The Verizon Wireless question is probably the most pressing issue for me at this point. Anyone?


I get one bar at the base with US Cellular and a good signal up top. I have seen lots of people using cell phones at Cannon without constantly asking for the other party to repeat themselves so there that is for what it is worth.


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## awf170 (Apr 29, 2010)

polski said:


> Ha ha ha, nice try! So where are YOU going tomorrow, the Blog Railroad? ;-)
> 
> OK, seriously, I hear what you're saying, and you have a lot more experience with this than I do. Here's my admittedly speculative thinking: The deep snow started out very dense, i.e. (well?) on its way to becoming consolidated. At least at lower elevations it rose above freezing yesterday per Steve's report; it dropped below freezing last night; today above freezing; tonight, below. I'm betting it wouldn't ski anywhere close to 2' deep and if I'm right about that, it could be a very nice outing. I may well be wrong but I think it's a close enough call that it'd be worth betting a 2 hr drive on, if other circumstances permit.
> 
> I'm also concerned that after tonight we won't get the "freeze" part of the cycle for the foreseeable future, plus it's going to get pretty warm and there may be some rain. So even if tomorrow isn't primo, I don't see it improving thereafter. Now or never?



Heck, it is just a two hour drive.  Give it a try.  My suggestion is to hope the mountain did not get above freezing today above like 3,000 feet, and head up stupidly early.  Get to the top of the mountain by like 6-7am and hope for pow.  If it isn't powder anymore head down to the zoomer area, chill for a bit, and wait for everything to corn up.  Just for a heads up it is going to be wicked windy tomorrow.  

BTW, no blog or washington tomorrow.  Too windy, like gusts over a 100mph.  Plus the avi danger was rated at 'extreme' today.  Maybe Sunday though if everything is corned up by then.  Stowe was epic enough yesterday to keep me content for a while.

http://www.famousinternetskiers.com/20-30/

Hopefully the pics of our whole journey will be up soon.


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## polski (Apr 29, 2010)

Thanks -- ah well, this was a nice mental exercise/fantasy but I'm getting slammed with work and am not going to be able to give it a go tomorrow. I did see the wind in the forecast but it's supposed to be out of the NW and I thought perhaps the front face/down low might be OK in that situation. I'll be curious to see anyone else's reports.


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## gpetrics (Apr 30, 2010)

awf170 said:


> BTW, no blog or washington tomorrow.  Too windy, like gusts over a 100mph.  Plus the avi danger was rated at 'extreme' today.  Maybe Sunday though if everything is corned up by then.  Stowe was epic enough yesterday to keep me content for a while.
> 
> http://www.famousinternetskiers.com/20-30/
> 
> Hopefully the pics of our whole journey will be up soon.



full pictoral TR is up now Austin

http://www.famousinternetskiers.com/trip-reports/09-10/stowe-april-28th-2010-20-to-30/1/

dude... what a great day man. absolutely had a blast skiing with you. glad you came up for a real treat on manny!!


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## deadheadskier (May 1, 2010)

drove by Cannon on the way back from Quebec City today.  Certainly looked like a ton of people made their way up there this weekend having fun.  I was driving up Wednesday morning when that was going on.  Actually drove over the Kanc as I was leaving from Rochester, NH and figured what the heck.  Even with snows......white knuckle


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## snowmonster (May 3, 2010)

I wish I saw this before the weekend. I'm still kicking myself for not skiing. Good job, Riv!


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