The whole day job thing is really starting to wear on me, especially with this unusually warm winter wonkifying the snow shortly after each storm.  I bitch so much about chemtrails because I love skiing perfect powder, and cirrus clouds screw up the snow.

Today I bailed on work after lunch and skied Ferry Peak under atrociously chemtrailed skies.  The snow was quite good in spots and truly awful in others.  Hopefully I’ll score good pow up high tomorrow and creamy corn down low, despite the aerial spray.

This morning my assignment was to cut 200 9″ segments of 5/8″ all-thread and clean up the ends enough so nuts would twist on and off with ease.  At least I was alone outside with my thoughts when the chop saw wasn’t screaming and spitting sparks at me.  The warm sun felt amazing on a cold morning.  All in all I’ve got it really good.

Then the spray planes came overhead with a serious vengence, and I started feeling guilty for failing to do everything I can to expose the covert gangrape of our climate.  There I was helping build a mansion in exchange for paper money while the world burns.  I can do better.

Lunch finally came so I took advantage of the opportunity to make an awesome movie documenting the obvious:

After lunch I had run out of all-thread to work with and my boss was gone, so I bid the crew adieu and left too.  I almost went off the road in the canyon because the attention-grabbing skyscape was so astonishingly atrocious.  I posted my video and bolted for Banana’s.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you’re parking at Banana’s to ski the West side of Ferry Peak please park in front of the closed Fireworks store.  The long parking lot along the road provides a crucial service for truckers looking to check their loads before the inspection point a mile into Wyoming.  Banana’s benefits from their business.  BTW, Banana’s is an awesome store.  If you need guns, ammo, fireworks, camping equipment, knives, or gas station snacks (minus the gas!) Banana’s is the spot, conveniently located at the Ferry Peak West Winter Trailhead (which is actually just a private parking lot: respect it!)  Thanks Banana’s! 🙂

I ascended Roman Nose, surprised to find no sign of other skiers since the latest storm.  Down low the snow was firm raincrust in the shade and creamy supporting in the sun.  At mid elevations the ridgeline snow was shallow enough to disconcertingly compress slabs atop slush on the sunny and windward SW side.  On the NW side it was sticky kinda fresh.  At upper elevations the snowpack became deep enough to stop slab sinkage in the sun except near steep rocks or the bases of big trees where less snowpack made for slabs on slush.

I definitely wasn’t too safety-minded today, because I was feeling a little loose.  I still am.  Caveat lector.

As I noted earlier, the skies were atrocious.  Those cirrus clouds trap infrared heat and fuck up the snowpack royally.  Ask NASA, kook.

I’d never dropped into South Gully of Ferry before and I wasn’t sure if it went without cliffs, but the creamy pow on the NW shoulder of Roman Nose was so tempting that I dropped that way anyway.  It was worth it.

The fact that I had little clue what the snow would do — thanks work! — heightened the thrill of skiing steep trees into an unknown terrain trap.   But hey, that’s why we backcountry ski, isn’t it: exploration, exercise, and low-cost death-defying thrills in what can be a reasonably safe environment.

What should be a reasonably safe environment.  It would be more predictable if I was skiing more.  It would be more predictable with natural weather.  It’s mid-February: why has it been hitting 50*F consistently for the last two weeks?  I think my theory makes more sense than blaming CO2 as the sole culprit amidst more powerful greenhouse gasses like the easily-manipulated H2theizzO.

With nobody to blame but myself and loving every second of it I cruised into the most curious couloir I’ve ever skied: each right turn was fun mid-winter sugar, each left turn was equally fun creamy spring schmush.  Take a good look at this photo to see what I mean.

As I descended the terrain trap I came across quite a bit of slide debris from recent warm days.  I wasn’t too worried about avalanches because I wasn’t worried about anything, but I probably should have been.  How’s that expression go?  Ohh yeah: fuck it.

I came across the pile from a big recent slide after the convergence of the N and S Gullies.  This pile was at least 20′ deep so I snapped a few pics.

Happy to be on top, I continued my descent.

Skiing the 1000 meter long debris field from last year’s mega-slide was a humbling and fun experience.  The snow was poppy and consistent there.  Down low everything had refrozen crust and the  maze of refrozen joyriding snowmobiler tracks was sketchy.

While we’re on the topic of mega-things like mega-slides and mega-mazes of refrozen fossil-driven kneesnappers, let’s talk about the mega-bullshit coming from the JH Daily: be very afraid of the “megadroughts” forecast for the year 2050 and beyond!

Today is another heavy spray day, but not just in the skies overhead. Once again the JH Daily is spraying bullshit about the distant future.

It’s amazing how far scientific and journalistic standards have fallen when obvious real world evidence is ignored while speculation about the distant future makes headlines.  One guy made a statement about one paper based on CO2-centric climate models, and it’s news?  Give me a fucking break.  This shit is laughable.

This is one of those trip reports where I end up pondering why I even write these like this: blatantly and bluntly calling out my own kookiness while blatantly and bluntly calling out the fundamental flaws in our current civilizational system.  Is it self-depreciation mixed with suicidal tendencies?  Is it total honesty?  Is it an attempt to raise awareness?  Apparently it’s all of the above.  It’s whatever you interpret it as, I guess.

Tomorrow I’ll ski again before tending bar downtown JXN at 4pm.  It’s supposed to get cold overnight, so maybe the S side of Brad Peak is worth a look.  I don’t know, and I’m open to suggestions.

Working days is a real eye-opener to the fact that in order to truly know the snow one must interact with it all day every day.   Maybe it’s time to quit working so damn much and start skiing more.  Ironically, that would probably be safer than my current modus operandi.  Whatever.  I’ve got the next 20 hours off from work and I’m going skiing somewhere.  Take care.  One Love.  Peace.