Patience in abundance was needed since my first day on skis two weeks ago. Thanksgiving, snow storm, power outage (still without it) huge work load, and severe lower back pain kept me off the slopes until Saturday at Cannon Mountain. Arriving at the mountain at 7:45am it was 8 degrees, clear blue skies and the snow guns were blasting the lower Peabody slopes and also the mid mountain. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a winter day calmer in the mountains before. The air was completely still, when there is no wind through the tree tops, nor even a gentle breeze, the snow guns were pointed high and the manmade marvel fell gently and evenly over the bottom of the mountain. The entire front five was open with 15 inches of natural snow for those with older skis as there were some bare spots and hazards that could cause damage. With my new skis, I stayed on the snow making trails, all were covered with a deep layer of snow from edge to edge. The principle route from the top of the Eagle Cliff triple was Lower Canon, on the right it was tracked up powder and a pure delight all day long. To the left a groomed track held up well all day long. Towards the bottom the snow guns left a silky layer of smooth consistent manmade powder that got better as the day progressed. Gremlin was totally covered and groomed and skied extremely well, next to it was Parkway buried in snow and ungroomed-tracked up and bumped up a little. Where the two come together towards the bottom was found perfect mid-winter snow all the way to the base. Rocket and Gary’s were both covered edge to edge, half was groomed-half was not. As usual, the edges of these two runs is where I could be found when skiing those trails.

Lift lines on Eagle Cliff and Zoomer were never very long at all. The sun was bright and the day got warmer and warmer. Everyone was happy even though Cannon failed to open the Peabody Express to mid mountain, there was enough terrain open to spread everyone out. Crowding on the slopes was a little more than usual for Cannon, but nothing too concerning.
Those that I spoke with that were skiing the natural snow trails were loving it. I kind of regretted that I didn’t bring older skis as I would have enjoyed skiing the natural snow trails but I was anxious to try my new skis for a second time. I should have brought two pairs of skis with me, an older pair to click into to ski all over the front five.

For last run I carefully made my way over to Jasper’s Hideaway. I was there all alone and had a good look around the Notch and the Mountains, it was nice to see Echo Lake almost completely frozen over.

At the Cannonball Pub I had a Moat Mountain Czech Pilsner 16 oz. draft, it was so good I had another and headed home. Last weekend my wife and I watched a new 2014 Guns N Roses concert, the last song was Patience with a fantastic 3 minute acoustic guitar intro. On the drive to the mountain at 6 am I put in their Greatest Hits CD. Patience was the song of the day as that is what it took for me to make my second ski day of the year.