Published November 30, 2000 06:50PM
TUCK THE SADDLE
From Cannon’s summit (4,186 feet), head down Taft Slalom and continue straight ahead, past where Upper Hardscrabble splits to the right. Carry speed up Richard Taft Trail. If you’ve hit your wax, it’s only a five-minute boot-pack to Mittersill’s summit (3,810 feet).
BE ADVISED
On your way up Richard Taft Trail, you’ll enter a 190-acre plot of Forest Service land surrounding Mittersill’s summit. A land-swap with the state is pending, but for now these sweet steeps are officially off-limits.
TIGHT SQUEEZE
Veteran Mittersill boot-packers credit the two-skier-wide and bumpy Coppermine Trail along Mittersill’s north ridge as the trickiest section of the tour-you simply must ski the zipper line.
ALPINE RUINS
A weathered wooden lift house and ramp at the end of a rusted-out lift line marks the upper boundary of the Mittersill ski area, closed to all but the self-propelled since 1980.
THE OLD INN
All trails except Baron’s Run and Tuckerbrook lead to the still-open, Tyrolean-styled Mittersill Alpine Resort, founded by Baron Hubert von Pantz in 1945. From the parking lot, it’s a 10-minute walk back to Cannon’s base.
COUNT ‘EM
The Tuckerbrook Trail’s 13 bends reward those lucky enough to spy the trailhead (a narrow opening on your left, roughly 400 yards from the summit). This protected shot tends to hold soft snow.
Word to the unwise: It’s bad juju to ski Tuckerbrook before one o’clock. Ski Cannon, then Mittersill, and then Tuckerbrook.
PLAN AHEAD
Skiing Tuckerbrook? Leave a car at the Tuckerbrook/Wells Road intersection two miles ahead.
GETTIN’ DOWN
A. If you’re headed back to Cannon, keep to skier’s right and take Baron’s Run, a heavily-trafficked unmarked traverse, to its connection with Cannon’s Peabody Chair.
B. Continue straight down the well-traveled Chair Lift Trail, or explore one of three wider runs that branch off about 100 yards below the lift house.
C. To skier’s right, Taft Trail is the curvy continuation of Cannon’s Richard Taft Trail, the historic racecourse cut in 1933, five years before the opening of the aerial tramway.
D. To the immediate left, Taft Slope retains the steep pitch and continuous fall line that made it the marquee run of Mittersill ski area in the late ’70s.
E. On the far skier’s left, Sky Line Trail is a long, gently sloping run that skirts Mittersill’s north ridge.