SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
High in Colorado's Rocky Mountains, snow is still falling, and the people who love it are still skiing. That includes a longtime ski instructor who has channeled his love of snow into a unique collection. KUNC's Alex Hager reports from the slopes.
ALEX HAGER, BYLINE: Russ Scholl clearly loves his job. He's been on skis for nearly seven decades and teaching at Breckenridge for 10 years.
RUSS SCHOLL: Jeez, I started skiing in 1959, so you do the math. Haven't missed a season since.
HAGER: Scholl is a friendly guy, a sort of goofy uncle type. His big, bushy white mustache picks up icicles throughout the day on the mountain. Riding the lift up through the conifers, he talks about his passion project.
SCHOLL: When I started teaching skiing, I carried a notebook with me. And it - over time, when I heard an unusual slang word for the snow conditions we ski and ride in, I would jot it down on my notebook.
HAGER: And when the mountains were shut down during the pandemic...
SCHOLL: I thought, you know, I'll put it in a table for - the table - a table, the periodic table of elements, just out of the blue.
HAGER: That periodic table contains more than 130 different terms for snow.
SCHOLL: I love the term cold smoke. Diamond dust. Mashed potatoes is a great one. OK. So this is chokable snow. Now I understand it fully. So it's dust on crust (laughter). But I do have yellow snow on the chart. Don't make this snow. Don't eat this snow. Don't go anywhere near this snow.
HAGER: We're taking a long ride up one of the highest-elevation ski resorts in the country, nearly 13,000 feet above sea level.
SCHOLL: We're going to get up above tree line and see what we find.
HAGER: Sounds cold.
SCHOLL: It could be. Yeah.
HAGER: Let's hit it.
SCHOLL: Let's go.
(SOUNDBITE OF SNOW SQUEAKING)
SCHOLL: And you put enough pressure on it, and lo and behold, the snow squeaks. I like that - squeaky snow, or as some New Englanders call it, screaming lobster.
HAGER: As we squeak and slide our way back down to the lift, I ask him, why do this?
SCHOLL: Freshman year, I took Chemistry 101. I did so poorly, I nearly flunked out of college because of chemistry. So here, all these years later, I'm getting my retribution against chemistry. How about that (laughter)?
HAGER: And with how many people he meets on the slopes, someday, he might have to make that periodic table even bigger.
For NPR News, I'm Alex Hager in Breckenridge, Colorado.
(SOUNDBITE OF FUGAZI'S "TURKISH DISCO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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