Degrees

By:  Greg
February 21, 2012


The short story is that there were lots of degrees on the mountain this weekend.

The long story is that all of us were either blacked-out for President’s Weekend, or doing that whole “no-season-pass-thing,” and so found ourselves several degrees of latitude and longitude from home, looking for good snow. For Day One, we couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us as the wind blew from 320 degrees, and the temperature hovered around 10 degrees F. Despite the low visibility however, the snow was pretty good.
good snow to some degree

Unfortunately, with almost no visibility, there aren’t many pictures of Day One. The snow was great though, and encouraged us to continue searching on Day Two.
good snow to some degree

For Day Two, the wind continued blowing from between 320 and 360 degrees, and the temperature dropped a bit to just a few degrees above 0F (with high of around five). The visibility however dramatically improved, and permitted us to broaden the degree of our search for snow.
the snow was pretty good

We experimented making turns in different degrees of powder snow.
the snow was pretty good

Sometimes it even, like, got in our face, and stuff…
it like, even got in our face, and stuff

As you can probably tell, I was also experimenting with a new toy which supposedly has a 180 degree field of view. I think it sees more than I do. See:
180 degree field of view

The only degrees that I was thinking about though during the descent were the radians that my skis were oscillating through to trace out this simul-graph of the continuous, infinitely differentiable (in fact, analytic), and periodic functions J(x)=sin(x) and G(x)=-sin(x) that Jake and I had just constructed. (FYI: J is Jake’s track, and G is my, Greg’s, track. [PS: What other ski blog do you get to learn about analytic functions from?])
sine wave

Kristin wasn’t interested in sine-waves though, and was happy to graph out some transcendental none of us had ever heard of.
some other trancendental

Continue Reading: 1 2 Next »

Read about the author:   Greg
Enjoy this TR? Read another: TR: Le Massive “Big Flake” Run

Related Stuff:

  1. TR: Degrees
  2. 75 Degrees and Raining

13 Comments

  1. Porter Haney
    wrote on February 21st, 2012 at 6:01 pm  
    1

    Someone must have sported some Degree under arms.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Greg
      wrote on February 21st, 2012 at 6:30 pm  
      2

      I’m almost positive that’s what helped Lionel talk us out of trouble with the law on our way home…

  2. powhounddd
    wrote on February 21st, 2012 at 8:49 pm  
    3

    they arrest you for skiing closed hills???

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Micky O (ILOVE2SKI)
      wrote on February 23rd, 2012 at 4:54 pm  
      4

      That’s what I was thinking! Please tell us more!

  3. Jake
    wrote on February 21st, 2012 at 10:37 pm  
    5

    don’t forget all degrease at a certain neuf neuf. Pomegranate iced tea? Ha!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Lionel Hutz
      wrote on February 22nd, 2012 at 11:11 am  
      6

      Or the varying “degrees” to which our fine gaucho friends prepared all that tasty selection of meats.

  4. Maxpower
    wrote on February 22nd, 2012 at 1:21 pm  
    7

    Hey if you’re playing math teacher, I’m going to play English teacher.
    When you’re trying to establish a narrative theme, like “degrees”, subtlety is your friend. Using the word every sentence and italicizing it for emphasis is grating on a reader. We get it, this post is about “degrees”, just show us the ski porn please.

    But anyway, great pics, keep up the good work..

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Greg
      wrote on February 22nd, 2012 at 2:03 pm  
      8

      Sorry about that Max! I’m untrained as a writer (spent all my time in school with science and maths), but I just assume that since I aced the English portion of D’ GREs, my instincts are always correct.

      Frankly, I’m just amazed anyone reads our campy trash at all :D THANKS for reading!!

      PS “subtlety” is not in the vocabulary of the FIS ;)

    • Maxpower
      wrote on February 22nd, 2012 at 4:27 pm  
      9

      Well if it’s camp you’re going for then maybe you ARE doing it right..
      I’m definitely an avid reader of FIS so I’m glad you took that as I intended, some light-hearted constructive criticism.

      PS I’m in the market for a helmet cam, is it worth picking up the Hero 2 over the regular Hero? Those still shots do look pretty cool..

    • Greg
      wrote on February 24th, 2012 at 6:45 am  
      10

      We’re aiming for some blend of ski camp and math camp. Like a camp for athletic nerds. 1000$ per person per week including meals. wait… what??? no… nevermind.

      And YE, I DO have the GoPro 2. I bought it last week, and am really enjoying it. I kinda hate video unless it’s done REALLY well, so I didn’t like the Go Pro 1 since it takes lousy stills, but they REALLY bumped up the still quality on the GoPro 2, and I’ve been loving it. Pretty decent quality low-noise shots in bright light shot at 11 megapixels. It obviously is nothing compared to a SLR, but it’s fast and easy, which an SLR is not… I recommend it pretty highly actually having tooled around with it now for 4 or 5 days, and had decent results. The stills in bright light are really quite good. YOU HAVE TO BE CLOSE to your subject though since it’s such a wide angle lens.

      If you want to buy one and support FIS, buy it HERE.

  5. Whitewoodchuck
    wrote on February 22nd, 2012 at 3:41 pm  
    11

    g – any chance you were accosted by a giant purple PUNsicle just before you wrote this piece? As always nice pics & TR!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Greg
      wrote on February 24th, 2012 at 6:45 am  
      12

      bwahaha… um… yes? :D

  6. K_C
    wrote on February 22nd, 2012 at 4:16 pm  
    13

    We needed a photo of the unbelievable odor generated in the Bates Motel…ski boots, damp gear, 2 stinky boys, and a hint of chocolate.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
Please consider visiting our sponsors.

Leave a Reply

(no login required)

Check for email notifications of new comments (valid email required)        

Stay in touch: Click here to follow us on Twitter. Click here to subscribe for updates to be delivered via RSS. Click here to become a fan on Facebook. Click here to read and share real time weather observations. Learn more over at the account. It's awesome. We promise!