A History of Cannon Mountain: Trails, Tales and Skiing Legends (The History Press, 2011) is the first comprehensive history written about Cannon Mountain, one of the oldest ski areas in the United States.
Cannon boasts the region’s first down-mountain ski trail, the first passenger aerial tramway in North America, the first professional ski patrol in the United States, and the first World Cup ski races held on this continent. Two of the oldest ski clubs in America – the Ski Club Hochgebirge and the Franconia Ski Club – call Cannon Mountain home. More than a dozen Cannon Mountain skiers have been inducted into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame, their contributions to the sport ranging from historic racing feats and the creation of ski technique to promoting the sport into the realm of the American mainstream and designing most of the ski areas in the country.
I’ve skied Cannon since I was a very small child, and researching and writing this book has been a wonderful adventure, like rediscovering an old friend. Over the past several years I have interviewed many of the legendary characters at Cannon and uncovered many remarkable – and always entertaining – stories about this mountain so many people proudly call their home hill. In this book, I’ve endeavored to tell many of those stories. I hope you’ll give it a read.