Living near Boulder Colorado I’ve gotten used to hearing the expression “It sure Smells Like Snow” from the fall through the winter and into the spring.
Huh?
The reason why is called “Upslope” and when we have upslope conditions we often get pounded with new snow along the front range. The reason people say “It Smells Like Snow” is that there are huge Pig Farms east of Boulder towards Greely and eastern parts of Colorado, and during real upslope conditions the air starts to stink a little bit! Upslope conditions exist when surface air flow forces a given parcel of air uphill in our case from the East toward the West. When this air parcel travels back uphill, the ambient pressure decreases, because pressure always decreases with altitude in any fluid. Look up your Gas Laws. In a hurry, you’ll see that if the ambient pressure is lower than that of the parcel’s, the volume of the parcel must increase, and then the temperature must decrease so the parcel can assume the same pressure as its environment. The parcel is introduced into a new lower pressure. It wants to be at that pressure too, but in order to that, it must cool down. In nerd-ease, this is called adiabatic expansion. In the winter this equals a Big Powder Day.
In the Animation above you can see what a winter upslope condition looks like on radar. Notice how you can see the pattern of the weather moving counter clockwise backing into the Rockies. Time to get the board out!

It was my extreme pleasure to get to visit the Great Barrier Reef this summer with my lovely wife and daughter. I can not craft the words to describe the beauty of this place or the intensity of this experience. We stayed right on the reef at Green Island Resort which was fantastic. I am hesitant to commit to go somewhere for several days where there is only one resort and you have no alternatives if things don’t work out, but at Green Island every expectation was exceeded. This meant we could fully take in and enjoy our visit to the Reef.
I am truly glad that my sweet daughter was able to see this Greatest of All Reefs while it still… exists. Pictured above, a giant wrasse seen just inside the outer reef. Truly deserving of the title as one of the “Wonders of the World”.

Spent a great day a Keystone snowboarding through some fresh powder. My friend said he had found “this awesome shelter in the unpatrolled tress of North Mountain, we should try to find it again”. Seemed like a good idea, see if he could replay his inner GPS. I brought a Garmin GPS to get the position if we found it for real.
The first run we missed it by a mere 50 yards, it took a few tries but we were in fact able to locate this lean-to. We broke out our foods and stuff inside around mid-day. It was hilarious the two groups who came by, obviously knew of the spot, obviously of-the-same-mind. It should not be surprising to meet folks like yourself when you share likes, dislikes, personality disorders, or whatever. Check out the spot in Google Earth here.