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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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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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Lots of visitors and skiing continues!

I need to get better about regularly posting!

Since my last post in January, we’ve had tons of visitors to the lodge almost every weekend.  We sure are enjoying this place!  Unfortunately the skiing hasn’t been too good in Jan+Feb, little snow and lots of warm temps have left the mountains unable to make snow and lots of icey conditions.

Fortunately the past couple weeks have been spectacular!  The mountains have received 2 feet of snow in the past week and are expecting another 1-2 feet this week!  The end of the ski season is looking great and we may potentially be able to keep going until April if the temps stay low!

Here are a list of visitors we’ve had to the lodge the past couple months:

  • Jan 27 – Noone, I forget where we skiied
  • Feb 3 – Coughlins (Jim, Kate, Eric, and Trixie) visited the lodge and we skiied Cannon
  • Feb 10 – We took a week off from the Lodge and skiied Sugarloaf w/ the Coughlins
  • Feb 17 – ClearMotion ski weekend, had a bunch of former coworkers up at the lodge and we skiied Cannon
  • Feb 24 – Noone, I forget where we skiied.  This was the end of school vacation week.  Michele stayed up at the lodge all week with the boys.  Some warm temps kept them from skiing some days, but overall they had a blast.
  • Mar 3 – Ingalls ski weekend.  Lots of family from CA, FL, CT, and MA!  We skiied Bretton Woods both days
  • Mar 10 – Were planning on the Imbeault’s but the boys all got sick.

 

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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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Aaron hikes Cannon

We took a week off from the Lodge to do some stuff around the house, go to some kid bday parties, etc.

This weekend we headed up on Friday night, as usual.

Saturday AM, Michele and Aaron headed out to climb Cannon together.  This was Aaron’s biggest hike yet.  The Hi-Cannon trail is about 5 miles round trip with over 2500 feet of elevation gain.

While they were out hiking, I took the other boys out for the morning.  I had the great idea of hanging out at Loon to check out the gondola and the various other summer activities.  Well, it turned out that was a mistake, because it was the Highland Games at Loon this weekend.  This is a huge Scottish festival and the place was mobbed.

After waiting in line for over a half hour, we decided to turn around.  We had lunch at Enzo’s, ran some errands, checked out Boise rock and then headed back for nap time.

During nap I started chopping some wood, and built a wood holder.

Michele and Aaron got back to the Lodge just in time to head over to our neighbors house.  We got to meet a couple neighbors, which was great!

On Sunday we went to the Woodstock Cascades, which is an awesome watering hole.  We swam there and had lunch.  Then we headed back home and enjoyed the rest of the weekend back home!

Here’s some pics from the weekend!