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Top 10 Ski Day in Snowvember!

We were all very excited to ski this weekend, after watching Cannon get over 20″ of snow this week.  

Saturday was definitely a ‘top 10’ day.  We got to experience a total cloud inversion, where the upper mountain was above all of the clouds.  It was so unreal, like looking out at the ocean.  

Tommy was in ski lessons all day, so the 4 of us got to ski together, which is very rare these days.  We all did Lost Boys glade for the first time, which Eli was very excited about.  Michele wasn’t a fan, and did a full somersault down one section.  After a full day, we headed back to the lodge, enjoyed the hot tub, and a movie night. 

Sunday was a totally different experience.  There were extremely high winds (50+ MPH gusts??) along with freezing rain.  They shut down the main lift around lunch time, at which point we decided we were done.  

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First Tracks 2018-2019

This weekend we got our first tracks on Cannon for the ski season.  The boys had Monday before Thanksgiving off, so Michele took them to Bretton Woods for the day.  After Thanksgiving, we all headed up Saturday morning.  Dave took Eli and Aaron for a few quick runs on Cannon, and dropped off some gear to get tuned up.  

We had the Holman’s up on Saturday evening.  The kids all had a blast in the new hot tub, which has been getting a good amount of use so far.  On Sunday it was raining, but we decided to ski regardless.  There were about 30 trails open, and some awesome snow conditions.  The only issue was the rain and getting completely trenched.  

The boys had a blast skiing the front 5.  Avalanche and Zoomer were open but pretty bare.  Rocket and Gary’s were in better shape.  We made it to about mid afternoon and then headed back to the lodge to do some picking up, dinner at Enzo’s in Lincoln, and then back home.  

It’s looking like a minimum of another foot of snow is going to drop this week, making for some good conditions next weekend!

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More Winter Pics

I finally imported all our pics from the winter.  I tried to go back and upload pics to the relevant posts, but it was clear that I didn’t post enough this winter!  Here are some more highlights from the season:

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Tuckerman’s Ravine 2018

This weekend Eli and I hiked and skied tuckerman’s ravine!

On Sunday, we got up at 4:45am.  We ate breakfast, packed our bags, and got out of the house around 5:45am.  We arrived at Pinkham Notch around 7am.

Eli was so excited to do Tuckerman’s!

As we started to make our ascent we quickly shed off our outer layers.  The temps must have been in the 50’s at the base.  About a mile in Eli put on his Yaktrax and I put on my crampons.

At about 11am, we reached the Hermit Lake Shelters.  This is about 2.5 miles from Pinkham Notch.  From here we could finally see Tuckerman’s!  The view below is of some of the trails to the left of Tuckerman’s.

From the shelter, it was about 0.7 miles to the base of the ravine.  We started to get a glimpse of the Left Gully on the hike up.

Almost there.  We heard to avoid the lunch rocks this time of year, where there are giant ice falls the size of cars.

We made it to the base of the ravine!  Eli had a huge burst of energy and at this point and could tackle anything.

This is the famous Tuckerman’s photo.  If you look closely on the left you will see a person climbing up.

We agreed to go half way up Left Gulley to the ice fall and ski down from there.  We quickly changed out of our hiking gear and into our ski gear.  I’m not sure I’ve seen him this excited before.

We started our ascent of Left Gully.  Eli did a great job of digging into the snow and making sure he had good footing.  If you make one mistake here you are falling all the way to the bottom.

As we were ascending one of the people above triggered an avalanche that was headed right towards us!  We quickly moved to the side (not trivial since we were on a steep incline).  After most of the avalanche came through I snapped a pic and video.

Now we had no pre-made footholds and Eli had to dig in with each step since he was leading the way.  He was really reaching the end of his energy at this point.

So, we found a decent place to strap in.  I got Eli all geared up and then he waited for me.  Some of the dots at the bottom are people.

Eli and I both made it down to the bottom in a minute or two.  I found it a lot more challenging on the snowboard with the heavy pack.  There really wasn’t a ‘dryrun’ to see what it was like with all the weight.

At the bottom we had some snacks.  You can see some people hiking up in the left side of the pic.  The right side was filled with waterfalls and crevasses.

We skiied the line on the left starting at the waterfall.

We took a quick break, put our hiking stuff back on, and headed back to the shelter.

At the shelter we transferred back to our skiies and got to ski down the Sherburne Trail for about a mile. At that point we had to transfer back our hiking gear again and walk down to the bottom.

At the bottom we saw an awesome waterfall.             

Once we got the bottom we had an amazing dinner at Moat Mountain Brewery, ice cream at Friendly’s, then drove home.

Overall I was so proud of Eli today.  He didn’t complain the entire trip, and was so determined to make it to the top.  I’m sure we will both remember this trip forever.

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End of the ski season – Cannon Splash Pond and Wildcat 100% Open

This weekend we ended the Ski season.  Since all other mountains are closed, we headed to Wildcat.  They had just received a ton of fresh snow and were 100% open.  Tuckermans got 1.5 feet.  The skiing was great, with temps in the mid 40’s.  After skiing all day we went to Moat Mountain Brewery for dinner.

The previous weekend we went to Cannon both days for their last weekend.  On Saturday we watched the splash pond, which the kids got a big kick out of.  On Sunday the conditions were horrible after an ice event, so we skied to lunch and then went back to the lodge.

 

Overall the boys skied 47 days this year, must be a new record!   We are looking forward to bringing out the hiking boots and playing in the mountains this spring!

 

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2 more great weekends and Eli does DJ’s Tramline!

The past 2 weekends have been awesome thanks to the 3 feet of snow at cannon and 4 feet of snow at bretton woods so far in March!

Last weekend was the big powder weekend after all the big snowstorms hit during the week.  DJ’s Tramline (one of the toughest trails in the east) was open for only the second time of the year.  Eli had been begging us to do it but neither Michele or I wanted to.  Eli and I took the tram up and inspected the trail.  We decided to do it.

Overall DJ’s was tough but I was able to survive it.  I had to do one section on my butt and a bunch of other sections weren’t great form (not to mention a few falls), but the look on Eli’s face when we made it to the bottom was worth it.

This weekend included a bunch of firsts for us:

Cannon:

  • Echo Woods Glade
  • Lake View Glade
  • Idiot’s Delight

Bretton Woods (Sunday):

  • Among the Clouds
  • Dark Star
  • Lazy Man
  • Over the Fall’s
  • Snowmaker’s Gully
  • Cliff’s Cliff

The next weekend we continued the same pattern w/ Cannon Saturday and Bretton woods on Sunday.

At Cannon, we tackled “Go Green Glade”, “Golden Birches Glade”, and “Cannonball”.  At Bretton Woods, we did “Mr. Moose”.

 

 

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More visitors, and warm temps

This weekend we had a bunch of people (12!) from Michele’s work over for a ski weekend.

On Saturday we split up, a bunch of us went to Cannon, and the rest went cross country skiing at Ski Hearth Farm in Franconia.  We really need to check that place out sometime!  Temps were in the lower 30’s.  Most of the conditions were man made, we are definitely due for a good dumping of the white stuff!

Dave, Eli, and Aaron both did the hike up the mittersill hill, which was a lot of fun.  It wasn’t as hard as we thought it was going to be!  In the afternoon conditions got very icey, so we headed home around 2:30pm.

For dinner we had chili, and just hung out, played various games, etc.

On Sunday everyone headed home and we went back to Cannon.  The kids had a blast on the terrain park and skiing the big ‘whales’ from the man made snow.  Temps were even warmer, in the middle to upper 30’s.

Overall another great weekend at the Lodge!

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Ski fun continues

So far January has been an interesting month, filled with multiple feet of snow, a quick couple days of torrential downpours and thawing, then more snow.  I think it can only be described as wild weather!

The first weekend treated us with -20 degree temps, without the windchill.  On Saturday, the weather was so cold we decided to skip skiing.  We spent the day playing games, sledding, shoveling the deck, etc.  On Sunday we went to waterville and had a great time!

The next weekend we had some friends over, the Smith’s and Reimers.  It was our first time hosting 8 people.  The drive up on Friday was pretty rough.  The weather was in the 50’s and the roads were complete mud pits.  They were barely passable.  On Saturday we skiied Bretton Woods.  Due to the ice, the main lift (Bethlehem) was shut down the whole day.  This made the crowds pretty overwhelming at the base.  Overall the snow conditions were pretty good considering it had just rained for 2 days.  Tommy was in a lesson all day.  On Sunday we did Bretton Woods again and it was pretty busy, but at least all lifts were functional.  On Monday we did Bretton Woods yet again, this time it was pretty dead.  The T-Bar was open, though only to a single glade.

Dave had to head back for a work trip on Tuesday, but Michele and the boys stayed behind and did Cannon on Tuesday.  Apparently that was very successful and everyone had fun in the terrain park.  Even Tommy was getting some air.

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A cold, cold Christmas vacation

We spent the week between Christmas and New Years up at the Lodge, and boy was it a cold one!  Temperatures ranged from -25 at night, to a high of -5 during the day.  Without wind chills.  And it was windy.

Christmas was on a Monday this year.  We spent the morning after cleaning up the house and packing for the week.  The big presents this year were, for Eli:  a sewing machine, xbox one, legos; for Aaron:  electric guitar, books, pokemon;  Tommy:  legos.

On Wednesday we headed to Cannon.  It was so cold we headed home after lunch.  Dave and Eli explored Mittersill for the first time, and they will be sure to head back.  In the afternoon Dave took Aaron and Eli to the skating rink in downtown Franconia.  Eli is having  a blast learning to play hockey.  Aaron is still learning to skate and is getting pretty frustrated by it.

On Thursday we just stayed home, played outside and did some sledding.  In the afternoon Dave and Eli went back to the rink.  This time we discovered it has a little shed that you can get changed and warm up in.  Also, the rink has lights so you can play anytime at night.  I love this rink, we’re so glad we found it.

On Friday, just Dave and Eli went to Cannon, and the rest of the fam stayed back at the Lodge.  We did a few runs and headed back around lunch time.  At night we went into Littleton for dinner and a Chutters candy run.

On the Saturday the whole fam went to Cannon and we made it a good way through the day.  The Tossup terrain park is open and in full effect.  This park is nuts with some epic jumps.  The kids love it.

On Sunday we headed to Bretton Woods.  I’m pretty sure it was even colder there then at Cannon, with some strong winds that didn’t help things.   We ran into our neighbors and had fun skiing a couple runs with them.

On Monday we skipped skiing, again.  We spent most of the morning cleaning and packing up.  Dave and Aaron went on a hike in the woods, and discovered a sugar shack nearby.

Overall we had a real fun week, even though we skipped a bunch of great snow days at the mountain, we made the best of it.  We had hot cocoa, went sledding, went for hikes in the woods, decorated the lodge, played board games, had movie nights, and relaxed.

 

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First Ski Weekend!

This weekend we had the Holman’s up.  We rented a house with them all last season and really had a great time.  This year they are renting a place up at Stowe so, unfortunately, we aren’t going to be seeing them as much.

Luckily, Bretton Wood’s opened up the season early, so we were able to go skiing this weekend!  Only 3 trails were open, the bunny slope, Ben, and Range View.  The place was pretty empty, no lift lines.  Also, the average experience level was very high for this mountain.  Most of the people were on ski teams, getting some early season practice in.

At first Tommy (now 4) forgot how to ski, but quickly picked it up about half way through his first run.  Hard to believe this kid was doing black diamonds at Cannon at 3 years old!  The other 2 boys were kicking butt.  They’ve really turned into amazing skiers.  They can fly down any trail at Bretton Woods with ease and good form.

On Sunday the weather took a turn for the worse and was pouring rain.  The older kids went to do some indoor rock climbing.

I get to spend the rest of Sunday and most of Monday at the lodge by myself.  It was great to accomplish some home improvement projects.  I did some painting, organizing/storing the summer gear, and put up the Christmas Tree.