Maggie's Farm

Mittersill is a SUPER interesting place...your link says it was founded by skiers fleeing the Nazis, more accurately it was European Royalty. Baron Hubert von Pantz founded it and named it after Mittersill in Kitzbuhel, Austria. (the town of Franconia was itself named after Franconia in Europe, which later became Bavaria, it so reminded early settlers of that area)

For a time Mittersill was a VERY popular destination for European Royalty and East Coast Money, one of the original guest books has the signature of Princess Elizabeth (prior to her ascending the Throne) and Royalty, Society and Hollywood notables gathered there during it's heyday.

The area is where skiing began in America. While you may know the names of Paul and Paula Valar, Founders of the first Ski School in America (on a slope above a farm in Franconia on the way up to Sugar Hill) But this is also the home area of folks like Sel Hannah, Founder of Sno-Engineering and the modern Ski Area/Business as well as snow making. Sonny MacCauley still lives below Cannon Mt, his living room window overlooking the trails he blazed and cut there many years ago.

As a younger man, it was a rite of passage to hike over the saddle from Cannon to Mittersill and lay tracks in the virgin snow on the trails there. If caught, Cannon would shred your ticket or, even worse, revoke your pass. If the owners of the timeshares at Mittersill saw you coming down the trails they would often call the Franconia police and attempt to press trespass charges ( out of pure spite I always thought). A bit of luck and a getaway driver in the Mittersill lot was needed, but the bragging rights were worth it.

Cannon faces North, so it's cold to begin with. Add to that ice that is commonly referred to as "boilerplate" and you have a real challenge. With all due respect to Tralfaz, I have skied out West and NOTHING there comes close to negotiating Upper Hardscrabble on a tough day. (once, on a dare, I brought my Ruger P-85 and put a round of 9mm FMJ into some "boilerplate" from 15 ft away...the hole was barely big enough to stick your thumb in and only about 3/4 inch deep, truly "bulletproof") If you're going to ski Cannon, sharpen your edges and eat your Wheaties.

In fact it's always easy to spot the folks visiting from out West, they are the ones saying things like "...is it always this cold?" or "...how the hell can anyone be expected to ski THIS?" Ask the greatest American skier of all time(look it up) Bode Miller who grew up skiing this mountain and he'll tell you....if you can ski Cannon...you can ski ANYWHERE!

Here's a link to a more in depth history
http://www.cannonmt.com/mittersill.html

ps I'm the pudgy old guy on the 30 year old Dynastars with the Marker Roto-Mats and the Dolomite knee-highs....hideously old-skool I know, but I'll bet you lunch on who makes it to Peabody Base Lodge first