Cannon’s Taft Slalom Trail, originally cut in 1933 … before there were any lifts.
CANNON MOUNTAIN
RECOMMENDED BY Rich Smith
When asked what’s special about Cannon Mountain, Rich Smith was succinct: “It’s all about the skiing and boarding. There are no condos, the base lodge is old. There aren’t many amenities. But it’s such a strong, challenging mountain. Cannon is an out-west-style hill, with gnarlier conditions. There are days when we’re skiing on solid ice—but that’s okay, as people who ski here are skilled and come to be challenged. But it’s not icy all the time. We also have days when there’s thigh-deep powder.
“There’s an intangible quality about Cannon that gives regulars a strong bond. I was out on the mountain last fall doing some dry-land work. One member of the work party was a new coach at Franconia Ski Club, who’d come from a different mountain. As we were working, he said, ‘I don’t know what it is about Cannon, but I wanted to come back here so my kid could have this experience.’ Many of the guys who skied here when they were young want to come back and coach and be part of the community.”
Cannon Mountain is 190 miles north of Boston in the town of Franconia, at the northwestern edge of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Anyone who has driven through the Granite State has seen Cannon, though they may not realize it. A rock formation that once adorned part of Cannon—the Old Man of the Mountain—graces road signs, license plates, and New Hampshire’s statehood quarter. (The formation collapsed in 2003, though the road signs live on.) Cannon’s existence as a ski area owes much to the construction of North America’s first passenger tramway. The tramway was the brainchild of Alexander Bright, a member of the U.S. Olympic Team who’d witnessed such trams in Europe in 1933. Bright helped garner legislative support over the next few years, and Franconia and Cannon Mountain was eventually selected as the site. Though a few trails already existed on the mountain by the time the tramway was completed in 1938—including the Richard Taft Race Course—the tram showed the viability of skiing as a tourist attraction. Cannon also benefited from the establishment of the Franconia Ski Club in 1933, and the 1939 arrival of Baron Hubert von Pantz from Kitzbühel, Austria, who developed the Mittersill ski area on adjoining Mount Jackson.
“The tone for Cannon is set by the vista you get looking across from the lift,” Rich continued. “You look out at Mount Lafayette, which is over five thousand feet tall. Some people look at the Franconia Ski Club website and ask, ‘Why do you have a western mountain on your home page?’ It’s not, it’s Lafayette. For challenging on-piste terrain, many look to the trails that we call the Cannon Front Five: Avalanche, Paulie’s Folly, Zoomer, Rocket, and Gary’s. Of these, Avalanche is the longest, and has the most pitch—forty-eight or fifty degrees. Avalanche, incidentally, was the site of the first World Cup event in America, in 1967. The rest of the mountain has twisting, old-school New England–style trails. It’s fun terrain to ski. And Cannon produces a lot of great skiers, including Caitlin Ciccone and Julia Ford.”
For northeastern skiers of a certain generation, the Mittersill holds a forbidden-fruit fascination. Once a companion area to Cannon, Mittersill fell on hard times in the early 1980s and by 1984, was “officially” closed … though members of the Cannon community surreptitiously cleared lines and poached the area, despite state and federal restrictions. For some, Mittersill is the New England equivalent of the beyond-the-gates terrain at resorts out west like Jackson Hole—an un-groomed, un-policed adventure area of double fall lines and birch glades, with the ghostly presence of old lift towers poking above the undergrowth. And like Jackson Hole, the 1,850 vertical feet at Mittersill are again open to the public, and even serviced by a lift. “Cannon is working to keep Mittersill as natural as possible, leaving the glades intact,” Rich said. “It’s all natural snow. You can make it over to the top of Mittersill from Cannon on the Taft Race Trail. It’s like going to a fantasy land—no ropes, no anything, just skiing great terrain.”
Alpinists outside of New England may not know much about Cannon, but they’ve probably heard something about its most renowned local son, one Samuel Bode Miller. “Bode grew up nearby, and would free-ski on Cannon all the time,” Rich recalled. “He would rip the hill. I think the challenges of skiing here helped make him such an incredible skier. I remember when he first started using the K2 4’s up at Carrabassett Valley—and winning events by huge margins. In 1996, he made the U.S. Team, and won three Junior Olympic titles. I was up at one of the events in Maine, as I was then coaching the ski team at the Holderness School. A storm blew in as we were driving home. It took forever to get back. I finally reached my house, and the phone rang. It was a friend. ‘You’ve gotta ski tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It snowed two feet, and it’s the last day of the season.’ I told him that I was whooped, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The next morning, I pulled into the parking lot, and who pulls in next to me but Bode. He’d just finished up six days of aggressive, competitive skiing, but there he was. There were about fourteen of us there that day, and we skied as a group, right until closing. I think that says a lot about Bode’s love for skiing, and a lot about the devotion people have to Cannon.
“Many people may not remember it, but in 1967, Jean-Claude Killy won a World Cup event at Cannon, sweeping the downhill, the giant slalom, and the slalom, all in one weekend. The next skier to sweep all three events in one weekend was Bode Miller. One won at Cannon. One grew up at Cannon.”
Coincidence? Perhaps not.
RICH SMITH grew up skiing in Massachusetts, and farther north through the Old Colony Ski Club. He spent a few years at Waterville Valley and Breckenridge, before starting to coach ski racers at Holderness School in New Hampshire in 1986. After a dozen years at Holderness, he coached at Cannon Mountain through Franconia Ski Club. He left Franconia for several years to work at the United States Ski Association, and returned to take on his current role as program director at Franconia Ski Club.
If You Go
Getting There: Franconia is roughly a hundred miles from Burlington, Vermont, and 190 miles from Boston. Both are served by a number of carriers.
Season: Cannon is typically open from late November through early to mid-April.
Lift Tickets: A day pass at Cannon runs $70.
Level of Difficulty: Cannon’s seventy-three trails and glades are classified as 21 percent beginner; 47 percent intermediate; 32 percent expert.
Accommodations: Cannon Mountain (603-823-8800; www.cannonmt.com) lists a number of lodging partners and stay and ski packages.
