A Day at Cannon Mountain

A few days ago, my friend Emily and I had the awesome opportunity to go to Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch State Park. Cannon is a 4100 foot mountain that has 56 open trails this winter. Craving snow? Cannon’s got it- almost 7 feet this winter! Going up there reminded me that it is, indeed, February, and I do actually live in New England.


I went skiing for the first time last year, and really enjoyed it… however, I spent most of that excursion face planting. This time around, I was lucky enough to have a professional lesson, courtesy of Will, a Cannon ski instructor. Here’s a montage of the lesson, taken on a GoPro camera. My favorite part is at 0:23, when I nearly take out 5 innocent children.

After my lesson, I felt roughly 300% better at skiing. I felt so confident that I decided to move to the next step up from a bunny hill: a green circle! All of that newfound confidence slipped away as I looked down into a vertical abyss from the top of the trail (possible exaggeration). I ended up sliding down on my bottom the whole way, constantly being passed by kids. Oh well, maybe next time!

A great event going on the day I visited was Pirates of the High Skis, a fundraiser for an adaptive sports organization. Adaptive Sports Partners of the North County is an organization that provides sport and recreational opportunities for people with physical or mental disabilities. The Pirates of the High Skis event had hundreds of pirates running around Cannon, following treasure maps and looking for “booty”.

The event was really fun to watch, and was a huge success! Our next stop was the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway.

As we got higher and higher, it felt like we were in a different world. There was almost a complete whiteout on the summit; I could barely see 5 feet in front of me.




All the snow that has been missing from southern New England seems to be hanging out on top of Cannon Mountain.

There was also a warm lounge at the top of the lift to hang out and get a hot drink. Have you ever skied at Cannon?

Thank you so much to Greg K. for setting me up, Will for being an awesome teacher, Greg W. for letting me borrow his camera, and Emily for being my “camera-head”! Big thanks to Grant and Michele as well.

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About Theresa Conn, New Hampshire State Parks Winter Intern