New Year, New Season (finally)

The ski season is finally really up and running with what appears like a base that will stick. As long as it doesn't all of a sudden shoot back up to 60 and rain for a full day. To kick off the new year New England was treated to a weird slow moving 'storm' that putzed around for a few days dropping random amounts of snow starting with a few inches Thurs and seemingly finishing off with a dump in most places of a foot or more Sat night.

Shaun, Adam, Ben and myself were able to get up to Cannon Saturday. They had gotten maybe 4-6 inches the night before on top of what they got Thurs so things were pretty sweet. They still needed one more big dump to really be squared away though (which they got Saturday night, 16-18in) I'd call conditions variable but mostly awesome as long as you knew where to look/turn.

We got several good runs in the morning on Paulie's as well as Vista and Lost Boys. We finally met up with Bill and crew midday and planned on an excursion over to Mittersill to see what we were working with. First trip over we just stuck to Baron's. Coverage was iffy, I forced the issue a bit and took some ill advised lines because I don't care about my bases on my current skis anymore. Hit some trail garbage under the surface and lost my uphill ski and took a pretty sweet digger at high speed. Clean fall though and no issues. I think just about all of us had some sort of sweet explosion due to hitting stumps/branches etc.

Since officially opening up the area Cannon has widened the tube out that runs down to the top of Mittersill, not by much though. Part of me kinda thinks it sucks, but I think it almost rides a bit nicer now because there isnt as many huge swells. At the very least it will be much less of a workout and be a bit easier to get more laps in over there. Unfortunately this is also true for all the yahoo's. There is also now a huge sign at the entrance of Tuckerbrook saying the terrain is not patrolled etc. There is already a sweet addition to the sign with a piece of tape that makes it read: "This area is not patrolled (by men)".

Second run over we decided to see what things looked like out at Troll. This was a great call and it was probably the best run of the day. Decent base and even a few decent stashes of powder left to be had. Unfortunately (or maybe not unfortunate due to the hilarism) we missed the high traverse and ended up riding down a frozen stream bed that was fairly intense. All in all an excellent excursion and really got me pumped for the rest of the season.

Ben got some footage with some of his new toys from the holiday season which I will post once he gets things all edited and good to go.

and here is said footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQkIb8t3Hxk

It's all first person from Ben's perspective but I make my main appearance at about 7:13 until about 7:20