Solstice Came in with a Bang

The weekend of the winter solstice brought in two pretty gnarly storms and lots of good skiing was had by all. Friday night into Saturday brought about 8 inches and then Sunday afternoon into Monday we got another 12-14. Unfortunately PSU only delayed opening Monday until 10am so I wasn't able to get to Cannon and take advantage of the latest dump. Bill is there now and I am very jealous.

I think Saturday morning were the best conditions overall but really all weekend was pretty good for this early in the season. Looks like it might be another great year. Saturday morning myself, Bill, Dustin, Amanda and Jomo ducked a rope to head over to Ravine to see how things were shaping up on that side of the mountain. Snow was awesome but it wasn't quite deep enough yet. We got great turns in but each one of us did some pretty significant damage to our bases. But each of us also thought it was worth it.

Bill and I returning from Ravine

Sunday was very windy so we hung out on the front five for much of the morning to avoid it. We were able to find some great spots and Jomo took some sequence shots. It started snowing hard in the afternoon and after a short break to get some calories in we went back and took some laps off the Peabody and the snow was already starting to fill in nicely. The conditions today must be ridiculous, really bummed I am missing out. But at least Cannon is getting a great base to work with and we will be shredding the good stuff in no time.

Please notice the flipped up brim and the bent pole. This will be 'new school' by the end of the season I guarantee.

Shaun and I discussing the finer points of shredding.

Whiskey Beer Bread

Using my beer to make bread? Why didn't I think of this before?! Dustin found a handy little mix for making beer bread this past weekend. Recipe calls for Lager beer but I said screw that and went with an Ale with whiskey in it...to each his own.

Process is very simple, put the dry mix in a bowl, add 12 ounces of beer mix it together for 20-30 secs. Put it in the oven at 375 for 50 mins and BOOM! Beer Bread.

I wasn't sure how this was going to come out because of how blatantly I ignored the recommended beer but I tried it yesterday and it is delicious. I will probably have to repeat this process for many of my batches, its just too easy not to.

This is all you need

No, one of the cats did not pee on it...thats melted butter.

DONE!

Cannon Day 1

Yeah Winter! I said I was gonna try and start bringing a camera to the mountain and start documenting some of my time spent on snow when I'm not on a bike, so here we go. I'm probably not going to post up for every single day on snow, especially early season cause its not overly exciting. And this day was no exception. Brutally cold, but the snow was nice and fast and just grippy enough to be workable. We got as much vert as we could handle at that temperature and called it a day.

I already bent one of my new poles a bit, Dustin's feet almost fell off and Joe probably needs to see his chiropractor some more so all in all a very typical day in Franconia Notch State Park.

Dustin's other ski fell off. Not really, but I wish that was true.

Don't let that sun fool you, it wasn't doing its job.

That is the real shape of Dustin's head