The night before, I set my alarms a little earlier than usual because I needed to stop for gas and money.  After getting to bed VERY early (9AM), I found myself tossing and turning for hours; unable to sleep a wink.  Maybe it was the Pats in the Super Bowl, maybe it was anticipation of skiing Cannon, maybe I was trying to sleep after being awake less than 9 hours...  who knows!  In any case, I abandoned sleeping around 3:30 AM and finished preparations.

Wheels were rolling by 5AM.  After a quick stop for gas and money, I hit the highway for the 2 hour drive to The Notch.  Skies were clear with the stars and the moon shining, although I knew the forecast called for worse that afternoon.  The drive was a pleasant one, and as I passed north of Plymouth, NH, the skies opened up in a fiery red sunrise.  I snapped a few pictures out of the passenger window of my car, but they hardly do justice to the splendor of the sun rising above the peaks in the east  (See three pictures of the sunrise that I took from my car here) .

 
Mt. Flume and Liberty on the East Side of the Franconia Notch from my car

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The Front Five at Cannon from my Car on the Parkway (Left to Right)
Avalanche, Paulie's Folly, Zoomer, Rocket, and Gary's

Upon reaching Cannon, one of the employees commented on how amazing the sunrise was over Mount Lafayette.  He said the whole sky was red.  Damn, I missed the real show by only 20 minutes!  I was only the second car to park in the main lot behind the Lodge.  As I unloaded my equipment, a van pulled up behind me with some sketchy dudes inside.  They rolled down there window and ask me if I'm a single.  They were a group of three and needed an extra person for the Two-Fer deal.  Whew!  Got that problem solved quickly!

Lots of reasons for getting to the mountain early.  First, I love the empty lodge in the morning.  Only die hard skiers, patrollers, and employees are there.  I get to spread out, relax, and look out the window in anticipation.  Second, of course is gaining as much ski time as possible and often times the best snow.  Thirdly, I had to find a Two-Fer partner; which thankfully was easier than I had hoped.  And finally, my skis needed a tune up bad, and Cannon is great at doing fast and thorough Sharpen&Wax jobs.

After pre-ski preparations were set in order, I snapped into my bindings and hit the High Speed Quad for my first runs of the afternoon.  Skis were still clear, and turning around on the lift gained wonderful views of Mount Lafayette and the Franconia Ridge, and also Mount Washington and the Presidentials in the distance.  Very impressive views.

Considering all of New England was hit by a rain/sleet/ice storm the Friday before (that had closed Cannon Friday and Cannon's Upper Mountain Saturday), snow conditions were not that bad.  Groomed trails only were open for skiing, as the frozen crust from the storm was completely unskiable.  The groomers did a fantastic job, and had more than 3/4 of the mountain open.  The groomed snow was very fast and well packed.

 
Clear conditions in the first hour of skiing allowed for fine views. Mount Washington and the Presidentials can be made out in this shot.

 
For some strange reason, this particular tree caught my eye...
...so I took it's picture.

I quickly made my way down to the Front Facing trails (Avalanche, Paulie's Folly, Zoomer, Rocket, Gary's - see first picture on this page), and tried each trail once before heading towards the tram.  No bumps on any trails due to the need for a complete groom.  Avalanche was sketchy, but skiable.  Paulie's had the best and most snow on the mountain!  Soft and plentiful, this trail would later bump up pretty good.  But for the morning runs, it was my Run of the Day.  Zoomer had little extra snow, but better coverage than avalanche.  Rocket and Gary's featured race training on half the trail, the other half open.  Decent snow to be found there.

For the tram, they were really packing them in there!!!  I don't think they wanted to leave any one behind.  I think they forgot to tell the operators at the tram that the Two-Fer was for pricing only, it didn't apply to the tram!  It sure felt like they were putting two for every one, as I looked up at their 70 + 1 occupancy sign and almost laughed, hehe.

I tracked down Tram Way to the cut off, and stopped to pull out my camera to snap a Picture of Mount LaFayette.  A perfect picture opportunity, I reached down into my jacket, pulled out my camera, and then looked up to find that in literally 10 seconds, Mount LaFayette was completely socked in by cloud cover (Pictured Below).  It would remain that way for the rest of the day.  The snow then started to fall ever so briefly.

The upper mountain was generally sketchy and very windy.  I was going to make it a Tram day, but didn't want to be packed in so tight so often.  After a ride up the Cannonball Quad and tracking down Taft Slalom to Upper Hard, I decided that the Upper Mountain wasn't up to par after only one night of grooming.  I remained on the Lower Mountain for the remainder.  The High Speed Quad also proved to become a wind tunnel.  High traffic and winds made Middle Cannon scraped to the bone and unfun, Middle Ravine had similar conditions.  With Middle and Upper mountain not fairing well with Lifts, Winds, or Trail Conditions...  I spent most of my time on the Zoomer Lift tackling the deteriorating Front Facing trails.

After a while, they began roping off trails.  First it was Avalanche, then Paulie's Cut Off, then Zoomer.  Patrol said they didn't want people getting hurt.  I can see their point.  For the first time ever on Cannon, I saw a football jacket and jeans clad teeny-booper snowplowing down Paulie's Folly.  *shakes head*.  

With a very different crowd at Cannon for the Two-Fer, I thought this a wise move, although those trails were no worse off than a month ago.  Actually, they were in better condition in most spots than when I skied extra thin cover a month ago.

With Paulie's starting to bump up good, I spent probably 60% of all my runs for the day on that trail working my mogul technique.  I'm still pretty bad at the bumps, but I'm getting there.  Bumps were soft, however, they were highly irregular...  being created from people skid stopping and sliding the snow.  This created very spaced out bumps with scraped conditions between the bumps.  It was still fun, considering the recent conditions.

I called it a day at 3:30, not quite making it to close due to tiring legs and my technique getting sloppy.  A solid day of skiing and a Pats Super Bowl!  What could be better.  Cannon now has a VERY solid base, they just need a few big storms to dump fresh snow on them.