...you should see this.

The Obsessive Skier is extremely near-sighted. So, he can see small things very easily. For instance, he can see the details of one flake of snow that falls on the sleeve of his jacket. (Cool, huh?)

He is also obsessive. Particularly about skiing. And thus-ly, the snow conditions at any given time. Here is a helpful graphic for analyzing the wide variety of snow a skier might experience in Colorado:

As Mark Williams of INSTAAR at The University of Colorado at Boulder writes: "Snow on the ground is a dynamic medium. The properties and characteristics of fallen snow change constantly as a function of energy fluxes, wind, moisture, water vapor, and pressure. For example, the time window for good skiing in mid-winter may last several days after a fresh snowfall in cold continental climates. During spring conditions the time window may be only an hour or two as rock-hard boilerplate turns to ideal corn conditions before additional energy inputs turns the snowpack to unskiable slush. Physical properties of snow change over time. Furthermore, snow properties can vary widely over small distances, both vertically within a snowpack and horizontally over space."

For obvious reasons, therefore, you should see this. And study it. The quality of your next ski run is determined by what you see going on with snow crystals like these.