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April Banter 2025


George BM
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5 hours ago, mappy said:

Beautiful photos @Scarlet Pimpernel :wub:

Im heading to a garden with tulips on the 18th, very excited! 

Thank you!  A lot of people in my neighborhood have them in their yards, and there are a lot of those planters along several roads that have them as well each year.  Very stunning flowers for sure!  My favorite perhaps are the ones that have the reddish and yellow color streaks on them.  Hope you're able to see lots of nice ones at that garden when you go in a couple of weeks!  Seems like they're a little earlier than usual (?) perhaps, even around here in metro DC.  I saw them just starting to come up the other week, and they're now really out and going.

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I have been going thru my scienceweather archives back in 2009.

I found it!

The Ski VT email detailing the ridiculous powder day when snorkels were mandatory!

I LOVE SNOW LIKE THIS!

https://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0201D&L=skivt-l&P=R11466

 

 

 

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Subject:
From:
Jay Silveira <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Vermont Skiing Discussion and Snow Reports <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 25 Jan 2002 03:54:00 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (145 lines)
Sunday

     As advertised, the big storm came in from the Pacific and Lost Trail
reported another 12 inches of new snow on top of the foot they had already
received in the past couple of days.  The powder was getting serious.  E and
I joined some friends from the lab and got right to work on Thunder, a steep
trail under lift 2.  The latest round of snow had fallen really light,
around 5% H2O, and it hardly slowed you down at all.  We enjoyed a few runs
down Thunder until it got pretty tracked up, then we headed into the trees.
With the help of friends, we were also introduced to a secret meadow that
lies between two trails and offers up some steep powder shots.  We’ve been
slowly learning the local tree stashes, and today found a few new ones that
delivered some great deep powder.    In the afternoon, when the others had
left, E and I found an exceptionally tasty one to the right of Thunder and
had it to ourselves for the rest of the day.


Monday, MLK Day

     Hmmm, this snow is too deep to ski through, I’ll just use this track
left by someone else and hustle my way over to the edge of Thunder.  Ahh,
now we’re moving, this should be fun, can’t wait to see what this powder is
like… oh, hey that shot hit me in the face, gasp, gotta get that out of my
mouth, cough, ack another, oh god, oh god, this snow is amazing, gasp, but I
can’t breathe, this is too good to stop, choke, but I think I’m going to
die, oh man do I need air this isn’t funny, this isn’t funny at all, I
REALLY need to stop…

     Derek and I had just scared ourselves half to death.  We’d dropped into
Thunder and nearly suffocated on snow.  After 10 turns, I stopped, gasping
for breath, and looked to my left to see that Derek had done exactly the
same thing.  We were both scared as hell.  “Oh my God I couldn’t breathe, I
didn’t know what to do, I had to stop!”  Derek looked over at me and
acknowledged that he was in exactly the same state of affairs.  Once the
adrenaline surge began to fade, we came to our senses and began to realize
what was going on.  This was not simply another average powder day.  This
was a, “Dammit, I know people are always joking about snorkels but I wish I
had one right now just so I could breathe” day.  As if the two feet we
already had weren’t enough, another 18-20 inches had come down overnight and
the maelstrom dragged on at an inch and hour right before our eyes.
     We gathered our thoughts and decided to time our breathing as we skied.
  It didn’t work.  Even on the upstroke of a turn, the snow lingered in the
air and left us gagging and coughing, the snow building up in our mouths
until we just had to stop and breathe.  I never thought I’d see the day when
too much snow made the skiing LESS fun.  I’d had big powder days back home
in Vermont, days when face shots were everywhere, days when I’d get a few
mouthfuls of snow and have to spit it out to get breathing again at the next
sign of light.  But never had I had difficulty like this.  I remember the
day that Dave called me from Bolton and said that they had been nailed with
over 2 feet of champagne powder overnight, he explained how all the
instructors were going nuts and you had to time your breathing.  I couldn’t
go up though because I was in the middle of an experiment at work, but I
thought I had imagined correctly what he was going through.  I hadn’t.  It
didn’t matter how we turned or how we tried to time our breathing, it was an
all-out choke fest.  We worked our way down the rest of the run trying to
enjoy the amazing conditions the best we could, but hampered by the snow all
the same.
     In the end, we found a simple solution.  Since we didn’t have neck
gaiters, we used the lower front portions of our hoods to cover up our
mouths while we skied.  This worked like a charm, and from then on all we
had to do was focus on powder bliss.

That morning, we spent a lot of time in the white room.

     After a couple of runs down Thunder, it started to get a bit tracked
up, so we headed over to Moose Creek, a region just at the edge of the ski
area which is not patrolled, but highly used.  Derek knew a nice entrance
through some trees that would maximize our vertical and steepness in Moose
Creek, just what we needed with this snow.  Through a combination of
untracked snow from the previous couple of feet that fell, and protection
from the wind, we found ourselves atop the 35 degree pitch into Moose Creek
standing in thigh to waist deep snow.  This was going to be absolutely
absurd.  Covering our gaping mouths with our hoods, we prepared ourselves
for the experience.  I pushed off slowly, the flat slope gradually gaining
pitch, and I, gradually gaining speed.  Within 2-3 turns I was in the thick
of it and snow was everywhere.  There are a few lone trees scattered about
this area, and thankfully they were the only things we needed to worry
about.  Each turn was a blinding explosion of white which flew up to our
chests, up to our mouths, into our eyes, over our heads.  With the breathing
problem solved, now the issue was vision.  I can recall one run where I
plotted my course from the top, just to the left of one of the lone trees,
pushed off, and held on tight.  The ride consisted of 90% white punctuated
by short episodes of “There’s that tree… there it is again… now it’s close…
there it goes… oh my god!  Although Moose Creek only offers up a few hundred
vertical feet before it ends in a cat track which brings you back to the
lift, it was far too good, dare I say “Epic” to ignore.  I will use Epic
since this was undoubtedly one of my top 10 days, and my best day ever in
the Western U.S.  I’ve skied deeper snow, and steeper snow, and lighter
snow, and longer runs, but as the ski industry would say, this was the
longest-deepest-steepest-lightest snow I’d ever skied, or something to that
effect.  And this was unquestionably the “face-shotinnest day” I’d ever
seen.  We cycled Moose Creek a half dozen times, eventually meeting up with
my supervisor Byron, and his supervisor Bruce.  Technically, we were
celebrating Martin Luther King Day (and boy were we celebrating) but I think
the lab would have been devoid of skiers whatever day it had been.  Everyone
in town knew this was not a day to be missed.
     So, now it comes down to this.  After 4 feet of snow in just the past
week, we are left with the following forecast from the National Weather
Service.

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MISSOULA MT
940 PM MST (840 PM PST) THU JAN 24 2002

NORTHERN CLEARWATER MOUNTAINS-SOUTHERN CLEARWATER
MOUNTAINS-BITTERROOT/SAPPHIRE MOUNTAINS-BLACKFOOT
REGION-INCLUDING...DRUMMOND...SEELEY LAKE...ELK
RIVER...PIERCE...POWELL...ELK CITY...DIXIE...SULA

...A HEAVY SNOW WARNING CONTINUES FOR THE MOUNTAINS OF WEST CENTRAL MONTANA
AND NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO ABOVE 4000 FEET TONIGHT AND FRIDAY...SNOW
ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 12 INCHES ARE EXPECTED OVER THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTH
CENTRAL IDAHO AND WEST CENTRAL MONTANA TONIGHT. TOTAL STORM ACCUMULATIONS OF
2 TO 3 FEET WILL OCCUR THROUGH FRIDAY. HEAVIEST SNOWS WILL FALL OVER THE
CLEARWATER...BITTERROOT AND MISSION MOUNTAINS.


     We’ve set ourselves at a 12-inch powder rule tomorrow which will
determine whether we ski in the morning or not, but either way we’ll be out
there on Saturday.  If it comes anywhere close to MLK day it’ll be awesome.
E (that lucky stiff) is out of school tomorrow with her 5th grade class for
their first ski trip of the year up at Lost Trail.  This day was planned
months in advance, but boy can they pick ‘em.  I haven’t heard any 1st hand
reports, but everyone is thinking that the avalanche danger in the
backcountry is pretty horrendous with all this new snow.  Our friend James
is due to arrive in Missoula by plane on Saturday evening.  For his sake, I
hope his flight can make it in.

     Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures from Monday (MLK) but I did
get a few from Sunday.  They can be found at the following address:

http://www.uvm.edu/~jsilveir/20JAN02.html

J.Spin



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