The entropy of snow

Tanners Gulch. Aka, really bad skiing

"A horrible day skiing(or insert your favorite activity) is still better than a good day at work".

Whoever believes this hasn't skied Tanners Gulch in the conditions we did this morning.

Like everything in this world, snow follows the 3rd law of thermodynamics, namely, the entropy or disorder of a system will always increase over time. If you leave your 3 kids under 7 home alone, there is no chance your home will look cleaner later than before you left. Snow always is best when it falls from the sky, then gradually gets worse over time. I learned how disordered snow can get this morning.

 I was quite stoked to tick another big line off my ski hit list this morning, but the day did not start off right as my car battery was dead at 6:45 am. The rest of the day didn't improve much. I ended up feeling like a girlfriend had just dumped me. (its just an expression. I never actually got dumped by a girlfriend. I never had one to dump me) The conditions let me down.

 I realize that there are far more optimistic people out there than me when it comes to skiing . The hardcores out there are happy to just to be out turning down a mountain regardless of snow conditions. I however, am rather picky and easily irritable when it comes to my ski turns. I want them to be soft, easy, wide, on a manageable angle, some hoppers thrown in, and void of core shotting rocks. I don't want to have to crawl over a football sized avalanche debris pile of bowling ball ice clots. I don't want to have to side-slip the heck out of the mountain. If I want to ski ice, I'll go ski the GWI. I don't want to slip out skinning up a steep ice rink, slide 100 feet back down in utter panic towards a waterfall, have my backpack open on me and spill its contents across all 7 continents, and barrel headfirst into said avalanche debris mentioned earlier. I just don't.

When you see more rocks than snow, this should inform you to turn around.

When you see a massive avalanche debris pile, think, "how am i going to ski that?". this should inform you to turn around. 

When you are struggling to identify if the snow is indeed softer than cement, this should inform you to turn around. 

When the snow looks like giant ice gargoyles in a steep chute, this should inform you to turn around

When these two goons lie to you at the top and say "its looking softer" this should inform you its too late to turn around

No pictures of actual skiing were taken due to the lack of fun being had.

Ok. Call me a sissy. I am one. But from my standpoint, this was the worst day of skiing I've had. Type 7 fun.

 Mexican Crack looked nice and sunny on the way out LCC. Rock never breaks your heart like snow does.

On a different note, both of Steve's videos from our Zion adventures last weekend have been added to that post at the bottom.