A day of season firsts

As predicted most of yesterday's storm's accumulation occurred later in the day and Cannon had some goods on offer this morning. First 'powder day' of the year!  Unfortunately its the Friday of holiday week so there was also TONS of people competing for said goods.

Shaun and I missed first chair by just a bit but were headed up mountain by 9.  We got some fun early turns on Taft and Upper Hard (which was riding much better than I expected).  We paused and thought about ducking into Middle Hard but I had visions of that nasty third pitch that is just steep enough to not really hold snow early season and is basically a boulder field. Save that one for later.

We then b-lined it to Zoomer to try and lap that a bit before things got played out over there.  They had dropped the rope on Rocket with all natural snow.  It looked like shit from the top but rode awesome.  The nice thing about the Front 5 is that they are almost entirely grass underneath so you can rip on very little without worrying too much.  We did three laps there before heading back to Peabody to try and find Bill and Irwin.

We caught them just as they were sitting down for coffee and we pretty quickly made plans for an exploratory jaunt to Mittersill.  We figured the tube had to be good and after that we would play it (slowly) by ear.

It was a good call, first Mittersill runs of the season!  The tube was indeed great, even that late in the day.  Based on the overheard conversations at the top (does anyone know the terrain over here? which way are we supposed to go? GOOGLE IT.) and the tracks leaving from the top of the chair, everyone was hitting Baron's.  We were very worried about that first section being wind scoured and rocky on almost every other option so we decided to stick conservative and go with the more packed down route on Baron's where the dangers would be more uncovered and easier to avoid.

We then skied 5ft down mountain and completely changed our plan and went way skiers left.

Sometimes you gotta take some risks, plus Bill was on old skis so we sent him down first.  The coverage was actually quite good and hardly anyone had ventured out this way.  We made a few turns here and there searching for the best options and we were able to find some untouched staches that were great.  We decided to pass on what looked to be a decent option to do some recon on a wooded line.  It was just about ready but looked really scary in a reach up and grab you kind of way.  One or two might have been able to get through it successfully but there wasn't enough snow for 4.  We passed on it and ended up getting untouched boot deep on that last little snow field heading over to the Tuckerbrook area.

Then we found out the Peabody had broke again so Shaun and I took Eagle Cliff to head over to the Tram to get at the summit again.  Everyone else had the same idea and the line was across the bridge...eventually though we got our first Tram ride of the season!  Got too more mediocre runs off the top before calling it a day.

Bring on the shred!