Cannon Ski Resort's Conundrum
Add to Del.icio.usIn the midst of resort expansion and increasing popularity, can New Hampshire's backcountry hotspot keep it pure?
by Ben HewittThe steep, scrappy rise of soil and stone known as Cannon Mountain lies in what would most accurately be described as north-central western New Hampshire. It’s a heavy-footed two hours north of Boston on Interstate 93, but despite its proximity to a major metropolis, Cannon remains, largely, a local’s hill.
It really does snow in the East!
A number of factors contribute to this unwritten label, but perhaps most significantly is the Front Five—a quintet of short, wide cuts boasting pitches as steep as 59-degrees. Depending on your perspective, it’s either a terrible shame or a tremendous stroke of luck that these intimidating runs—none of which are particularly difficult to ski—have come to define the mountain to the general public. These motoring masses peer through their windshields at the bodies hurtling down the slopes and flee, taking their wallets with them.
On a sunny Monday morning in late March, the ski patroller, the bartender, the photographer, the patroller’s boyfriend, and I gather at the base of Cannon’s tram. A recent late-winter storm cycle has peppered the region with snow. Conditions are not epic, but they’re not exactly bad, and as I’m about to learn, with the right attitude, “not exactly bad” can be pretty damn good.
The Cannon Mountain tram.
Prior to my arrival this morning, the boyfriend, a tele skier with a shaggy mass of unkempt hair and a quick, chattering laugh like a wind up toy, scoped out a weirdly twisting little stash known as Mardi Gras, and found it untracked. “Looks pretty sweet,” he says, and grins, and the ski patroller just shakes her head.
Mardi Gras, it turns out, isn’t exactly bad, though it starts out that way. The first 200 or so vertical feet tumble down a steep slab of granite. At 8:30 a.m., the thin coat of snow that’s managed to survive both the pitch and the exposure is already sun-manked. Under the scrim of snow is, well, rock. Or ice. Or both. The boyfriend drops in first, and scrapes clean a ski-length swath of snow, baring naked stone. As a matter of fact, it is the only swath of snow between the rest of us and where the trail widens. Or was. Now, it’s pushed into a pile beneath his skis. He grins up at us, as if to say “Why are you standing up there? The snow’s down here.”
It is time to speak of Mittersill, for one cannot speak of Cannon without mentioning the 3400-foot peak connected to the main mountain via a short saddle hike. Mittersill once operated as a stand-alone ski resort. Since its closure in the 80’s, the locals have taken to Mittersill with clippers and scythes and saws, fighting back the encroaching forest, and cutting new lines from its spiny peak. It’s telling that some of Cannon’s better known runs, like Tucker Brook, Pony Slope Direct, and Saddle Sore, aren’t on Cannon at all, and aren’t served by a chairlift.
Tucker Brook
There’s little doubt that a new lift will be installed on Mittersill. The question is, When will it come? And, perhaps more importantly, How high will it go? On Mountain Manager, Billy Roy’s map, the lift is a thick, red line that runs directly to the peak. Roy’s not impressed. “You know what’s gonna happen if we put a lift to the top of Mittersill?” he asks, leaning forward in his chair, and spreading his monstrous fingers across his desk. “That’s gonna drop every goober at the top of that mountain. That’s gonna ruin the backcountry experience. I say ‘if people want to ski that stuff, make ‘em walk to it.’ That’ll keep the crowds away.”
Still, Roy’s well aware that attracting crowds is essential to the fiscal reality of maintaining a ski resort. He’d like to see the Mittersill lift stop half or two-thirds up the mountain, where the slope is fairly low-angle, and where they can learn the sport of skiing without the constant, zooming threat of the run-bombing locals.
A ski area can change in many, many ways. It can expand, reorganize, or simply mature. It could be said, and rightfully so, that Cannon is doing all three. But until the skiers change—until die-hards shed Carharts for Gore Tex, until a telemark skier named Brian Moody stops believing in six inches on granite, until Billy Roy stops using terms like goober—Cannon is safe.
Just outside Roy’s office hangs a framed, full-page Cannon ad. There’s no date, but the styling and equipment suggest early-80’s. The ad has two slogans. Across the top, a question: Are You Cannon Fodder? And across the bottom, a statement: The Favorite of Skiers Who Care and Dare. As Roy sees me out of his office, he points to the ad. “I don’t care what they do; they’re not gonna change that. All the money they’ve spent, and they can’t change that.” He shakes his head and chuckles, as if to say, The Idiots. As if to say, Thank God.
