Jackson (and Utah) mid-trip report

VtSkier wrote:
yunlong wrote:
VtSkier wrote:
yunlong wrote:
VtSkier wrote:
yunlong wrote:
Bob Lee wrote:
yunlong wrote:
Bob Lee wrote:
yunlong wrote:
Bob Lee wrote:
yunlong wrote:

.....

JHC Yunlong,
Haven't you learned a ___ thing?

No, I don't normally stuff myself with useless/impractical
information.

Hmm, I got a similar answer from one Horvath,
aka Harry Weiner. This answer can be paraphrased
as, "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with facts."

Yup, those are your "useless/impractical information."


Making up stuff here just doesn't cut it, and ragging on
someone because of your inability to make him understand
because of your use of words doesn't cut it either.

What you don't know does not invalidate what you don't know.

In a great and lengthy thread, I finally figured out what
you were trying to say with what you were calling a
particular type of "turn". I conceded that what you
were describing was a good and valuable addition to
a skier's "quiver" of turns available, and in fact that
it was a move I use fairly frequently myself, even though
I do it slightly differently from the way you described it.

Nonetheless, my description of it was accurate, and it is
functional as described?

No, your description, meaning the words you used was
NOT accurate and it was NOT clear, that' why it took
so long to arrive at what you were trying to say.

If it is not "accurate" (as I didn't describe to the final
end) how doyou know that you have "finally figured out
what you were trying to say"? (what did I say?)

All right, let me rephrase this: Your initial writing was
neither accurate nor clear. I took reams of space and
discussion and time to figure out what you were trying
to say. After great lengths of questioning and discussion
what you were trying to communicate became clear.

Ok, let's hear it how you describe it, and make it CLEAR. Mind you, I
haven't changed my story.


"Oxymoronic?"

I talking about what you call a slip or slipped turn in
which you are increasing the radius of a turn by allowing
the tips of the skis to slip away from the direction of
the turn.

So my words take you long time to reflect, nevertheless,
you rag on me "inability to make [you] understand"?

Much discussion is required before I can figure our what
you are saying,

Yes, that's because you read with your narrow-minded bias.

reflection has nothing to do with it.

Reflection gives you the "depth" of words, in our
discussion, the meaning of my words are all terminated at
the physical level; i.e. they are reflectable through your
body sensation and its surroundings.

Yes, your words are certainly terminated at the physical
level by me. Skiing, on one level is certainly like that.
First you need the mechanics and then you can empty your
mind so that the reflection can take place and you can
"go with the flow", which allows you to "get" the mechanics
more completely, which....

The zen archer who practices his skill with no thought of
hitting the target, but only improving his skill and
becoming a part of the bow, will most certainly hit his target.

Yup, that is to say while the zen archer reaches to perfection without
a word spoken, and you try to show-off your skiing knowledge by
wrangling words.


I'm asking you to explain yourself in words that I understand.

Get rid of that pompous self-righteous mentality may help
you that, probably.

You get rid of your pompous self-righteous attitude that
assumes that the world revolves around you and that you
can use any words that you want in any way that you want
and expect the listener to understand without further
explanation.

That is a good example of your pompous self-righteous attitude;
when/where do you read I said that "the world revolves around [me] and
that [i] can use any words that [i] want in any way that [i] want and
expect the listener to understand without further explanation"? Or you
cannot tell what is my saying and what is your own thinking?

The world simply does not work that way.

Unfortunately, pompous self-righteous people are all over in this
world.


And, Yes, I'm still ragging on you for not using words in
the way they are understood by English speakers.

That only reflects a little knowledge mentality.

See above.

See above.


It is English, after all, that we are conversing in.

It is world wide usenet, an international setting, and
let's notforget, the subject is SKIING.

Hmmm, so now "world wide usenet" is a language.

No, "world wide usenet" is a stage. Cannot tell the different function
between a "language" and a "stage"?

The subject
certainly is skiing, but the words used to describe the
subject of skiing are in ENGLISH.

English may be a tool, but it is not the subject of interest in this
newsgroup. Not that your English is any better, but your attempt to
spam a SKIING newsgroup with your half-baked English to show-off that
you are knowledgeable in something, to redirect a skiing subject that
you cannot handle, is truly pathetic.


Now here you've gone and written something in such a way
that people may not understand because it's not common
usage and then tried to back it up with the fiction that
it IS common usage at Kirkwood.

I got my impression from a guy with a Kirkwood season pass,
where do you get your "common usage" of the term at Kirkwood?


If I heard from someone what you heard, my irony meter
would peg hard on the right side of the dial and I'd
laugh like hell at this guy talking about "slush powder".
I certainly wouldn't take him seriously and I would
doubt very much if he was altogether serious.

That only reflects a little knowledge mentality.

No that reflects my knowledge that most of the skiers
that I know have a sense of humor.

In "a little knowledge mentality."


On top of that, you have ragged on Bob for failing to
see your meaning when it's your use of words that is
keeping him from seeing your meaning.

Maybe you guys should learn how to read words
metaphorically, to broaden you guys perception?

I understand metaphor in the context they are given.

But lock of perception.

Hmm, is a lock of perception like a lock of hair
or it like a lock on a door? Spell checkers only
go so far. You still have to read what you wrote.

Nevertheless, meaningwise, it is closed enough, a closed-mind locks
proper perception out, so it is lacked of perception.


Perception is gained through context. There are
words in English which sound and are spelled the
same but have different meanings. They are called
homographs. The only way to discern the meaning of
the work is through context.

For instance if I wrote, "I can't bear to see you
suffer like this." or maybe, "There is a bear
attacking my garbage cans." The word "bear" is used
in both sentences and the meaning is very clear.
The word is the same in both but have very different
meanings. The context is what reveals the meaning.

Yup, we can see how you are language-bounded. Don't you know, you can
really ski without all those nonsenses you tried to make a sense out
of?


It's simple really, you have invented an oxymoron by
virtue of the fact that most English speaker's sense of
powder is "fluffy" and slush is about as far from
fluffy as it's possible to get.

So you English speakers never use the term "'wet' powder"?

No.

Meaning? Complete sentence please.

First of all, we weren't talking about the expression "wet
powder" we were talking about the expression "slush powder",
but...

No, we English speakers never use the term "'wet' powder"
when referring to anything. For instance flour is definitely
a powder, don't you agree? If I add water to it, it's
no longer called flour or powder. It's call "dough" or maybe
"batter" if it's wet enough to be stirred. It's not called
"wet flour".

I see, partitioned English and its mentality, you got me on that one.


I skied with LAL back at the end of February. On Monday
we had a foot of fresh snow.

Lucky you, it wasn't supposed to be there (by the earlier
weather reports).

We called it powder and
LAL later confirmed that the water content was about
8% which is within Bob's definition of "powder" being
between 2% and 10% water.

So what do you call those snows with water content of 12%?

Actually it was 12%, my mistake which LAL corrected me
on, and I would still call it powder.

So, "Bob's definition" is incorrect?

Yes, no, maybe, he was shooting from the hip too.

Or the whole bashing of "slush powder" just you guys egoistic nonsense?


It was fluffy, at
least for the first time through it.

So the second time is no longer fluffy, what do you call that?

Crud, or maybe "cut up crud". When that high water
content fresh snow or "Sierra Powder" which is still
fluffy until skiers selectively compress it in lines
zig-zagging down and across the hill. This partially
compressed snow will deflect skis rather effectively
and selectively. That to me, and many others, is the
definition of crud.

Ok, one powder run, and the rest of it is to ski on the "crud"? not
sure other many others would agree with you.


Now crud also changes. The compressed chunks might
become refrozen at night leaving rock hard "chicken
heads" or as we tend to call them in the east "death
cookies". This can also happen to slush, but slush
more often refreezes consistently creating a highly
bulletproof ice until the sun breaks it back down
into slush, or maybe corn.

Shrewd, what else NOT changes?


On the previous Saturday, LAL took me over onto the
sunny "backside" of the area. We found fairly new loose
snow, somewhat cut up, but not bad. With the sun hitting
it I would have guessed a water content of around 25%.
It was very hard for me to turn in because it was sticky.

Yup, that's maybe what the most sierra snow is right now;
you need to know how to flatten the boards--yes,
flatboarding--to ski it.

Hmm. Watching LAL ski it, I'd say that a good
carving technique would be the way to make turns.

I doubt that,

Set the skis up on edge and let them arc around.

carving is a good way to dig into cruds.

You are not going to do much in the way of skidded
turns in that stuff.

That's what I figured, you haven't got a clue on what flatboarding is.


Truly wet snow, or slush which is really mostly water
(I'd say upwards of 75%) is actually easier for me to
ski on than that sticky stuff. I actually like skiing
what we here in the east call "slush bumps".

But you think "slush bumps" is ok, but "slush powder" is oxymoron?

Slush powder is clearly oxymoronic or maybe just plain
moronic for the reasons I gave.

Or just your reasoning oxymoronic? "slush"-snow wet,
"powder"-snow dry,and "slush powder"-snow is somewhere in
between, what so oxymoronic about?

I think we have discussed what is between.

But you didn't get what "slush powder" was?


It's an oxymoron in the
same way that "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence"
are oxymorons.

Huh?!

That towel was wet dry.

The "wet dry" part of that statement are polar
opposites. This part of the statement, then, is
an oxymoron. Slush and powder are polar opposites.
Putting them together is an oxymoron.

As for the American idiom expressions:
"Jumbo" means large. "Shrimp" while, in this case,
means an aquatic crustacean, it can also mean
something or something which is small. There is
a double entendre here and is kind of a joke.
"jumbo shrimp" then would be "big small" which
are polar opposites and therefore an oxymoron.

The other example refers to the general impression
of the populace that nothing which is "military"
can be "intelligent". Another joke.

With all these "useless/impractical information" floating around in
your mind while you're discussing SKIING? no wonder you are so slow to
react, you never did arrive to the subject.


The describe something with expressions
which are polar opposites. However, a bump can be made
with powder, ice or slush. Easily. It can even be ice
in the troughs and powder on the tops. That's the way
they were at Killington today. When the sun hits them
the can be made of wetter snow or soft sticky snow. When
the sun hits them for several days, it's 45 degrees and
they get rained on, the bumps are most certainly made of
slush.

Powder cannot be made of slush. That's what you are asking
me to accept.

Maybe we ask too much of you.

I believe you are.

You haven't tried to refute my notion and statement
that slush is probably upwards of 75% water.

So, you don't differentiate the difference between "slush" and "slush
powder"?

Now I ask you, how can you, with a straight face (which is
where this all started) tell me that a slurry of
75% water can be powder?

But you do differentiate the difference between "slush powder" and
"powder"?

When you don't need to distinguish the terms, you do, and when you do
need to distinguish the terms, you don't; yup, I see why you are
confused.


IS


Moronic!

It is.


IS

Oxymoronic?


IS

VtSkier

Armin wrote:
MattB wrote:

Armin wrote:
snip

I'd call it a travesty! A crime against god and nature!

Matt


Bless you Brother, Bless you.

A.


Hey, thanks!
But... Wasn't I disagreeing with you?

I say keep a free heel free!

Matt

PS - I've finally started having trouble with my 10-year-old Dynafit
liners in my TNTs and have retired my Alpine gear for comfy tele gear -
for now anyway. It's been fun!

yunlong wrote:
(mercy snip)


Not sure you even know what "coherent" is, given that you can whip up
38+ terms to describe the snow condition but cannot comprehend a
descriptive term "slush powder."

Oh, give it up. You'll never get this one by us.
Sorry.

Armin wrote:
snip


Well, there's your problem... you've got antique gear. Try a pair of
Garmont G-Rides ( http://tinyurl.com/43fne ). Warm, light weight and as
comfortable as any tele boot while still letting you ski without
getting down on your knees and begging for your skis to turn.

There is still time to come back from the DarkSide and see the light.
Come home to us... we'll forgive your past transgressions, brother.

A.


Well yeah. I'll, uh, keep it in mind.

I've actually almost always used tele gear in the backcountry and don't
plan on changing that. It works very well for me.

Now I may update my Alpine gear when I have the cash for in-area skiing
because it's good fun. I doubt it will be with AT boots if/when it
happens. This season I've had such a good time being a pin head (cable
head really) that I'm not really missing the Alpine gear.
I thought I would miss the hucking and sticking those zipper lines but I
don't. I would miss them if I had to give them up as I would have as a
beginner pinner, but the gap between my skill sets is getting narrower
and narrower and now I'm skiing all the same stuff and having fun.

It is about having fun, isn't it?

http://tinyurl.com/542lp -- Fun!

Matt

yunlong wrote:
VtSkier wrote:

(snip)

All right, let me rephrase this: Your initial writing was
neither accurate nor clear. I took reams of space and
discussion and time to figure out what you were trying
to say. After great lengths of questioning and discussion
what you were trying to communicate became clear.


Ok, let's hear it how you describe it, and make it CLEAR. Mind you, I
haven't changed my story.

I don't have to describe the mechanics of skiing. It has
been done by better a)skiers than me and b)better writers
than me. I simply thought that you might have something
worthwhile and perhaps different and better. It turns out
that you were simply describing badly what better writers
than you have already written about clearly.

(snip)

With regard to bad writing...[i]

That is a good example of your pompous self-righteous attitude;
when/where do you read I said that "the world revolves around [me] and
that [i] can use any words that [i] want in any way that want and
expect the listener to understand without further explanation"? Or you
cannot tell what is my saying and what is your own thinking?

I rest my case.

(snip)

It is English, after all, that we are conversing in.

It is world wide usenet, an international setting, and
let's notforget, the subject is SKIING.

With regard to bad writing, because of what you wrote
in reply to my statement about English, the reader can
only surmise that you think "world wide usenet" is a
language or that you wrote a non-sequitor.

Hmmm, so now "world wide usenet" is a language.

No, "world wide usenet" is a stage. Cannot tell the different function
between a "language" and a "stage"?

The subject
certainly is skiing, but the words used to describe the
subject of skiing are in ENGLISH.

English may be a tool, but it is not the subject of interest in this
newsgroup. Not that your English is any better, but your attempt to
spam a SKIING newsgroup with your half-baked English to show-off that
you are knowledgeable in something, to redirect a skiing subject that
you cannot handle, is truly pathetic.

exasperated sigh We are bounded by words. This is a
discussion. It uses words. I have conceded all along that
you may well be a good skier. Even a good teacher. I can't
know this by direct observation (partly my fault as I
refused your kind offer to ski when I was in the Tahoe
area, also conceded).

You write. You write about skiing. You write about skiing
in ways, using words and constructs that (apparently) don't
mean what you wish to say. The "apparently" part of this
statement is from reading better explanations that we have
drawn out of you for the move that you initially wrote
about in an unclear manner.

Further, you insist upon meaning that really only have
meaning to you, or are part of a jargon of another
activity.

"Slipping" as you used it, would have clear meaning if
we were pilots. In this latest discussion about it you
did not explain your use of "slipping" in aeronautical
terms until way late in the discussion. In the earlier
discussion of a couple of years ago, you did the same
thing. Used a term and then didn't define it properly
until late in the discussion.

Why in god's name are you hanging onto "slush powder".
There is simply no way this can have any meaning at all.

My English, or rather my command and use of the English
language is somewhat better than yours.

(snip)

No that reflects my knowledge that most of the skiers
that I know have a sense of humor.

In "a little knowledge mentality."

Exactly. It would appear that you have taken something
seriously that was not meant seriously.

(snip)

But lock of perception.


Hmm, is a lock of perception like a lock of hair
or it like a lock on a door? Spell checkers only
go so far. You still have to read what you wrote.


Nevertheless, meaningwise, it is closed enough, a closed-mind locks
proper perception out, so it is lacked of perception.

True enough, cheap shot, but I'm not the only one shooting.

Perception is gained through context. There are
words in English which sound and are spelled the
same but have different meanings. They are called
homographs. The only way to discern the meaning of
the work is through context.

For instance if I wrote, "I can't bear to see you
suffer like this." or maybe, "There is a bear
attacking my garbage cans." The word "bear" is used
in both sentences and the meaning is very clear.
The word is the same in both but have very different
meanings. The context is what reveals the meaning.


Yup, we can see how you are language-bounded. Don't you know, you can
really ski without all those nonsenses you tried to make a sense out
of?

Well, indeed I CAN ski without all of these "nonsenses" that
we write. However...
YOU started WRITING about skiing.
I (and others) could not understand what you were writing.
So we asked, cajoled, prodded and insulted you into telling
us what you were writing about. Turns out that you weren't
writing about anything new.

(snip)

First of all, we weren't talking about the expression "wet
powder" we were talking about the expression "slush powder",
but...

No, we English speakers never use the term "'wet' powder"
when referring to anything. For instance flour is definitely
a powder, don't you agree? If I add water to it, it's
no longer called flour or powder. It's call "dough" or maybe
"batter" if it's wet enough to be stirred. It's not called
"wet flour".


I see, partitioned English and its mentality, you got me on that one.

Thank you, but I can't help but think that Chinese would
be any less "partitioned". In German, when something new
comes along, a word to describe it is often made up using
familiar words. For instance a television in German is
"ferensieaparat". This is litteraly an apparatus to see
pictures. In English it's translated as television.

Remember, this is for new stuff. If making bread were a
new activity, the word for "dough" might well be "wetflour".

Snow has been around long enough that high latitude people
(those living above 35 degrees north or south) have developed
many words to be descriptive of it. Some words may well have
started out like our "wetflour" example above, but language
has shifted so that the words are now distinct. Further, a
word that is descriptive of a change in the original item
may be borrowed. Dough might be (or have been) something on
its own. When water was first added to flour, the result may
have resembled the other "dough" and so "dough" was adopted
for the result of water and flour rather than "wetflour".
We do this a lot in skiing for describing snow. Look at Bob's 38
descriptive words for various snow conditions including
"elephant snot". That is certainly a metaphorical description
is it not?

Many descriptive words probably started out metaphorically.

I'm really not trying to be a jerk here. I might concede
"wet powder" as descriptive. I might even concede that the
12% stuff I skied at Alpine was "wet powder" or even
"wetpow". How's that for a new word? But there just can't
be anything called "slush powder". You see you've used two
nouns with meanings which are polar opposites. when you
use "wet powder", you are using an adjective and a noun
to make a sensible statement. "Slush powder" is just not
a sensible statement.

(snip)

Or the whole bashing of "slush powder" just you guys egoistic nonsense?

No, see above.

(snip)

(This dialog is about skiing in sticky (say 25% water)
slightly cut up fairly new snow)

Hmm. Watching LAL ski it, I'd say that a good
carving technique would be the way to make turns.

I doubt that,

Set the skis up on edge and let them arc around.

carving is a good way to dig into cruds.

LAL, are you there?

You are not going to do much in the way of skidded
turns in that stuff.

That's what I figured, you haven't got a clue on what
flatboarding is.

I just went back and reread your original "Flatboarding II"
post. We have had a long discussion on what that post actually
means, and the "slipping" especially we beat to death.

Skis react or move or do what they are supposed to do when
pressures are applied in ways which make this happen. Skis
can be skidded to another direction or they can be turned
in a carving manner to another direction or they can turned
by using a combination of both to some greater or lesser
degree.

Your post noted above, essentially says that a turn in
flatboarding is initiated by "slipping" the outside edge
of the inside ski. If I visualize this correctly, your
intent is to bleed of some speed in the process of
initiating the turn, not totally unlike a sharp down
hill pressure on the tails of your skis to set a platform
and initiate a turn in "old school" parlance. Move is
different, result is similar. Scrubbing off speed and
initiating a turn. Both of these, it seems, requires
some part of the ski or skis to skid (or slip).

Watching LAL turn is this crap I observed that he simply
rolled his ankles in the direction he wanted to go and
just waited for the skis to come around. I don't know
what proportion of his weight was on which ski. Somehow
I think that as long as there is "some" weight of both
skis with a larger proportion on the outside ski,
that's OK.

Anyway, I tried skiing it by using technique I use for
"slush" here in the east. Slush moves pretty well and
if it's steep, you initiate a turn by hopping your tails
up and around to the opposite direction you want to go
(tails go right for a left turn), land hard and push the
slush out of the way. Builds great "slush bumps" by the
way. The "sticky" snow I was talking about had too much
cohesion to move in the same way that slush does. What
I was doing simply didn't work. No turn that relies on
skidding would have worked in that stuff.

(snip)

But you didn't get what "slush powder" was?

It isn't.

(snip)


But you do differentiate the difference between "slush powder" and
"powder"?

No, I don't differentiate between "slush powder" and "slush"
since "slush powder" cannot exist, I cannot compare the two.

(snip the rest)

MattB wrote:


It is about having fun, isn't it?

You bet! So don't take the pinhead razzing too serious, eh? ;-)

http://tinyurl.com/542lp -- Fun!

Ummm, you seemed to have crossed your tips. You'd better work on that
tele technique... PINHEAD. -- Fun!

A.

PS- Some of my best friends are pinheads... but i don't hold it against
them. ;-)

Sources close to the investigation reveal that, on Fri, 18 Mar 2005
13:41:40 -0600, VtSkier wrote:

yunlong wrote:

[big snip]

Many descriptive words probably started out metaphorically.

I'm really not trying to be a jerk here. I might concede
"wet powder" as descriptive. I might even concede that the
12% stuff I skied at Alpine was "wet powder" or even
"wetpow". How's that for a new word? But there just can't
be anything called "slush powder". You see you've used two
nouns with meanings which are polar opposites. when you
use "wet powder", you are using an adjective and a noun
to make a sensible statement. "Slush powder" is just not
a sensible statement.

Agreed, but he may not be getting the metaphor of polar opposites.

He may read that and think it's an example of the partitioned mind
dividing the world into North Pole and South Pole and forgetting about
everything in between. The rest of us know that it means you can't
get close to both poles at the same time, but he seems to think the
existence of the equator destroys the distinction between north and
south.

Or at least that's my best effort at reading him charitably.

--
Bill Griffiths
"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no such thing as justice." Hobbes

Sources close to the investigation reveal that, on Fri, 18 Mar 2005
18:53:13 -0600, Sven Golly wrote:

Bill Griffiths wrote in
:

Or at least that's my best effort at reading him charitably.

How about "he's an egotistical whack job"?

If that's your charitable interpretation, what's your worst case?

--
Bill Griffiths
"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no such thing as justice." Hobbes

Bob Lee wrote:
yunlong wrote:
Bob Lee wrote:
yunlong wrote:
[...]
"What do you call it?"

Corn, hardpack. chalk, chopped, firm, graupel, cement, sugar,
snot,
hoar, wet, heavy, light, ice, frozen, refroze, frozen chicken
heads,
slop, granular, freshies, fetchies, windpack, windblown,
windbuff,
crust, creamy, crap, crud, death cookies, death cantalopes,
glazed,
firn, rime, styrofoam, satstrugi, faceted, punchy...but deciding
which word would depend on the snow's characteristics and
properties.
And none of those listed are powder or slush.

Wow, so you think those terms are better than "slush powder"
to describe the snow condition?

Yes. At least those terms mean something - and because they
aren't meaningless, they are better.

Better? It sounds like a confused mind couldn't figure out which term
to use.


And you say that you understand/know all
those terms are for describing a snow condition, but you
cannot comprehend "slush powder"? Yup, partitioned mind it is.

Here's the problem: Slush is heavy, wet, and mushy - powder
is dry, light, and fluffy. You cannot have something that is
dry, wet, light, heavy, fluffy. and mushy at the same time.

Yes, those conditions are always existed in a powder field at the end
of day.


I tried to be simple and go slowly, tell me where I lost you.

And I tried to tell you that your narrow[-minded] definitions have
prevented you to see things broader.


IS


Bob

Bob Lee wrote:

......"**** off".....

a little man playing his little thing;

premature ejaculation?

IS


Bob