Vanishing strength?

In our yard, there are have two compost tumblers that we began purchasing more than 10 years ago and that we still continually use. 

A few weeks ago, I emptied one of them, spread its black, powdery content over part of our veggie garden, and then attempted to rotate the full and not yet composted one and could barely move it, yet alone get it too spin. 

I felt it was extremely heavy. For years now, I been able spin the 80 gallon device without straining myself too much, but this time, it took me several minute to make it do a 360 degree movement around its axis. A few days ago, 

I was dumping some new vegetal waste in the empty drum next to it, so I decided to give a spin to the full one and, once more, had terrible difficulties getting it to fully turn around. 

Without making any more excuses, I concluded that it wasn’t that the tumbler was overloaded or any other plausible reasons that were opposing my manly strength, it was just that I wasn’t as strong as I used to be!

Measuring a ski instructor activity…

First, we need to pick a measurement unit. Calories, income, number of days, hours or vertical drop? The latter unit, as imperfect as it may be could be the best one, and nothing prevents it from being associated with a number of days or hours spent on skis. 

This is why I wonder how many vertical feet can a full-time, active ski instructor, rack up in one season? Although the question might seem trivial, it’s still a legit and appropriate for those interested in the profession. 

Before trying to come up with an average per day, let’s assume that the professional instructor puts on their skis 120 days in a season, for an average of 6 hours on the job, with a good mix of high-speed and fixed-grip lifts. This would also include personal skiing, clinics and other on-hill presence. 

That’s about 720 hours of skiing. Assuming on the other hand that most of their students are advanced to expert, let say they ski an average of 15,000’ vertical per day (2,500’ per hour), we get to 1,800,000’ vertical for a full season, which seems like a lot. 

This might be valid for the Alps in which lifts run a bit longer, and also for younger and more aggressive instructors. Perhaps a range from 1 million to 2 million for full-time teachers, with an average of 1.2 million at Alpine resorts, and 750,000’ to 1.5 million with an average of 1 million in the American Rockies? 

Does this make any sense? Let me know...

How I became even more ski-obsessed

Folks who happen to stumble over my blog must think that skiing is the only thing that counts in my live, like if “I lived to ski” and this is not far from the truth. From the first time I strapped skis on my feet, I loved the feeling it gave me and I was hooked for life. 

Yet, as I’ve explained in the past, the skiing continuum in my life would be broken many times. First when I had to served in the military, then when I joined the wholesale side of the ski industry in France, and during all the years I was marooned near New York City. 

During all these years, skiing was by far my main preoccupation, but since I couldn’t do it practically, I idealized it and promised myself that one day, I would catch-up, and this is precisely what happened. My only consolation was to work in the ski industry and be intellectually exposed to my favorite sport on a daily basis, an excellent recipe too for deep and lingering frustration!

All that pent-up desire once release and enabled became totally obsessive. While I believe I’ve skied some 50 million vertical feet (15 millions of meters) in my lifetime, I have done 40 of them in Park City over 37 seasons, and my practice intensified ever since I retired. 

Will it dwindle and stop sooner than later? You bet, it will, this is good and that’s life! Does that justify my intense passion for skiing? In my mind, yes, of course. For the rest of the world, people are free to judge me at their leisure and disagree with my behavior or wonder if I’m a bit or totally crazy, but that’s fine with me.

My take-away from the French presidential election

This year, most of my countrymen voted against Macron and against Le Pen instead of voting for either of them in large numbers. They simply didn’t like the choice offered to them. 

Macron prevailed because the majority of the French voters are smart enough to understand that a Le Pen presidency would be akin of Putin or Trump’s. Sadly, issues weren’t discussed as they should have, as the main focus was the extreme polarization between the two candidates and what they represented. 

One of Macron biggest problem is not only that he lacks charisma, but also that he’s been unable to shed his pretentious attitude, making him a polar opposite of former president Chirac. 

Among many topics, what was conspicuously absent of the election was an honest assessment of Emmanuel Macron performance of his pandemic management. France counted 31% more deaths compared to Germany, 43% compared to Holland 43% and a whopping 76% more than Norway. Clearly, Macron should have done better than that! 

This said, the French president did very well by working closely to Germany’s Merkel in forcing the EU to support every member state through that medical emergency. Of course, Macron’s victory and his ability to govern will hinge greatly on the results of the upcoming legislative elections slated for mid-June. 

Until then, many things will remain unsettled in my native country...

Very last ski day of the season

Since I was still shy of 2 million vertical feet worth of skiing for the entire winter season, I simply couldn’t put away my ski gear away and close the book on skiing for this year. 

I was still missing 37,321 feet, not a small number on account of my age and of the changing spring conditions, so this Monday, I drove to Snowbird to top it off.

The conditions were pretty good, following a generous snow storm over the weekend, and while only 3 lifts were still running, Peruvian, Mineral Basin and Little Cloud express chairs, the small crowd of fanatic skiers on the mountain were not a problem, nor were the lines at the lifts. 

I showed up at 9:30 am and left at 2:15 pm, after skiing 41,654 vertical feet that required some serious work, half on groomers, the rest on tricky fresh snow, making a real physical effort to bring my total vertical for the season over these so-important 2 million feet! 

It’s now time to repair the boards and forget about skiing for the next seven months...

Is the United Nations still relevant?

The United Nations (UN) is an expensive and heavy international body, an assembly of 193 sovereign and independent stats, but that is totally paralyzed and unable to function well because the way it was designed at its inception. 

Its Security Council made of 15 members (5 are permanent, 10 are present on a rotating basis) leads formal and informal debates, which lead to ‘resolutions’ or ‘decisions’. These official decrees have force of law, but in the Security Council, all votes are not equal.

The permanent five members (China, France, Russia the UK and the United States) have veto power over substantial resolutions. Under the UN charter, these permanent five alone hold the veto. Historically, Russia has been the most frequent veto user, followed by the US and the UK. 

When one of the 5 permanent members votes against a resolution, it fundamentally ends it, even though the other 14 members might have voted yes. Any permanent member can block a resolution as it has absolutely nothing to fear from any Security Council proposal it considers unacceptable. It simply casts a vote and the matter is over. 

The issue of the Security Council’s veto has been a point of contention for many years and clearly shows that the UN bylaws should be changed, but don’t plan on this anytime soon even though I’m saying this and I’m a citizen of France and the United States!

After Earth Day…

This year, Earth Day has come and gone without much being said about the sad state of our planet’s health, the event being largely eclipsed by the war in Ukraine and overarching concerns about the availability of fossil fuels to maintain our daily level of comfort.

That’s when I ask myself the question: “What’s been my contribution this year to my home planet?” Not much, I confess. I ordered an electric car but its delivery date is slipping on weekly basis, we didn’t drive much this year, haven’t flown anywhere yet, and continue to lead a modest and frugal life. 

On that very day I spread over my veggie garden what little compost remaining of a full, large barrel accumulated over a year and this was it. As a household, we still have a long way to go before becoming totally carbon-neutral or reaching “net zero”, the new buzzword that means an even greater commitment to decarbonization and climate action, that doesn’t rely on just “offsetting”. 

We heat our place with natural gas, which in the cold winter climate we live in, is hard to replace by heat pumps or geothermal system. Well, we’ll see how we change that, but in the meantime, we’re committed to do what we can and, in the great scheme of things, every action even small counts...

The price to pay for a dry ski season

This past ski season saw very little in terms of precipitations. I’m talking about snow of course. 

All season long, the cover stayed thin (we were lucky that it stayed cold enough to keep it) and I witnessed the explosion of moguls on most Park City slopes and quasi inaction on the part of the grooming crews who didn’t dare to tackle bumps and churn earth and rocks amid the snow they were trying to till. 

Usually, if November and December are snow-poor, January transitions into a much deeper base, February is usually very good, while March sees the highest depths. This didn’t happen in 2021-2022! So, this bring me to the next subject: 

A poor snow cover makes up for exposing all kinds of obstacles ranging from big boulders to rocks, to finer gravel and to stumps, roots or the like that will do a job on ski base if enough pressure and speed are applied. 

This is how this season, my “good skis”, fast became permanent “rock skis” and why I never used a brand new pair of Dynastar I had set aside for the time when snow would be plentiful and worries about hitting rocks would have vanished. 

This brings me to the painful point brought forth by that situation: Our family skis need to be rebuilt, refinished and re-tuned from scratch and that’s a task I am mildly not looking forward to, even though when I don my apron and finally get working, I always end up relishing the activity. 

Must be my love for skiing!

The French presidential debate

We were brave enough to submit ourselves to the grueling 2 hours and 45 minutes French presidential debate this past Wednesday between Macron and Le Pen.

In spite of the mental strain, were glad we did stick to it until the bitter end. We don’t know much about the real or perceived French issues at the moment; we have just a cursory idea of what the main ones are, and we sailed through the duel between the current president and his opponent just as we had done it five years ago. 

This was almost a replay of the same debate in which Marine Le Pen performed terribly, clearly lost it in the end, and killed her chances to win the election. This year was quite different. 

From the get go, Marine Le Pen adopted a pleasant demeanor, spoke simply and clearly, stayed totally composed and her controlled behavior made Emmanuel Macron tense and nervous as we saw through his body language and some of his rude and macho responses as he tried to regain control. 

In the last hour he recovered some of his cool, but by then we felt that his opponent won the debate. This said, if we lived in France, we would never vote for Le Pen, but would reluctantly support Macron. Of the two though, Le Pen is the one I’d prefer enjoy having a beer with. 

I still hope Macron wins Sunday’s contest because Marine Le Pen is more likely to follow the example of Donald Trump, and this I can’t recommend.

Harvesting dandelion

A few days ago, I set out to go pick up our first dandelion salad of the season. At first, I struggled a bit, having a hard time finding anything, then it got better. 

While I enjoy this form of foraging, passers-by that happen to see me, seem to wonder what I’m doing squatting in the meadow. 

No one had quite the curiosity or the guts to ask me what I was doing then, but this is quite annoying as I would have had to explain that 

1) dandelion is edible, 

2) my mom used to harvest it around the family house in the Alps where I grow up and 

3) that I considered it a delicacy. 

A royal pain in the ass to have to justify myself in such a manner! 

Upon my return home as I brought four servings worth, I share that observation with my wife, who agreed that my courage to stick my neck out like this was nothing less than extreme courage!

“The longer you ski, the longer you live.”

This quote is attributed to my hero, Klaus Obermeyer who turned 102 years old last December. He was born on Dec. 2, 1919, in Oberstaufen, Germany. He began skiing at three on skis fashioned from orange crate slats. 

Later, during World War II, as he was no fan of the Nazis, he found his way into the United States to seek a better life. His first stop was in Sun Valley, Idaho, and later in Aspen where he joined the ski school and has remained there ever since. 

As a ski instructor, Obermeyer realized that the ski-wear wasn’t really good and needed to be dryer, warmer and more comfortable, and this what led him to create Sport Obermeyer in 1947 (the year I was born). 

 In addition to more functional clothing, he formulated a high-altitude sunscreen, popularized the turtleneck, created the wind-breaker, and (pun intended) tinkered with the first ski brake designs. 

 Still very active, he claims to swim half a mile a day and says in one year he swims all the way to Denver and swims back to Aspen the following year. He also practices Aikido, a martial art based on positive energy. 

And yes, he still skis, although COVID has cut into his schedule. In a November 2021 interview, he said, “The longer you ski, the longer you live.” That’s a belief I share too and this is why Klaus Obermeyer is my new role model!

Last ski day at Park City Mountain

Easter Sunday was closing day at Park City. Overnight, the mountain had received 3 inches of nasty “spring powder” that made turning a real challenge, but by me that meant even more fun during the three hours I was away from home. 

Once I was able to navigate that tricky snow skiing became pretty good, the mountain was literately empty and by 11:30 am I had skied more than 20,000 vertical feet. This was my 109th day of skiing representing a total vertical feet skied close to two million which made it my sixth best season on that basis.

Even though I removed the ski racks from my roof that afternoon, I reserve the right to ski one more time at Snowbird to get just over that two million number. 

I just need to convince my wife that it’s a worthwhile idea!

How fear makes us forget technique

Two days ago I was discussing the problems heavy spring snow creates for, among others, (weaker) older skiers. 

Because it makes things much harder on us, it’s easy to get apprehensive, if not scared at each new turn and by so doing renounce speed, become tachophibic and also forget the essential elements of technique.

So we end up slowing down, and, as a result, doing bizarre contortions to produce a turn. The result is that we end up having to work twice as hard and getting exhausted twice as fast. 

Instead, we should remember that in heavy snow, speed is more important than ever before and has to be combined with the best skiing technique we’re able to remember and deliver. 

This won’t come naturally and is an attitude that we must think consciously about from the very first turn until the end of the day and the bottom of the last run!

Filtering out narcissist and psychopath Leaders

When we consider our political leaders, we hope that they’ll be able to pull rabbits from their hat, be super-creative, motivating and can change everything around us for the best. Yet, don’t spend enough time thinking about their current and potential character development. 

People who seek powers (candidates) do it generally for two reasons: To serve their constituents (rarely) or – most of the time - to satisfy their personal needs (recognition, power, ambition and sometimes nefarious desires).

If we were, as a whole smarter, we would deconstruct them to search if there’s a potential for evil in them (if we can call their narcissist, machiavellian, psychopath or suspect ideological views that way). 

The problem, of course, is that’s not easy and one would need to dig deep into the politician’s past, their innuendos and other tell-tale signs to uncover likely negative trends that could predict their future development. 

This was easy in the case of Berlusconi orTrump, perhaps less in the case of Putin, that well-behaved KGB bureaucrat. As for the upcoming French election, Marine Le Pen and her father offers a dark-enough background to bring up red flags all over. 

So what does these considerations leave electors the world over? Perhaps to opt for the boring, unattractive and unexciting candidate like a Biden or a Merkel, but a lot safer in terms of potential behavior…

Heavier snow, reduced power

In recent days we’ve received lots of snow and at this time of the year, it is much denser than what we know as “Utah super-light power”, so when it’s deep and heavy, it demands enough muscle power to respond adequately. 

So, when a skier is into their mid-seventies, skis don’t always do what the are told or what they’re supposed to be doing. 

Right, heavy snow is a game-changer and regardless of technique, skills and age, it has consequences. 

What’s the most vexing, though, is that it goes again my trademark skiing philosophy of “remaining feather-light” and I quickly discover that there is some “power ingredient” evidently missing to the equation. 

Well, we’ll have to produce the effort if we have to, since it’s a small effort to ask at the very end of our ski season!

We’re so precise at Park City

As we were doing our daily walk, I spotted that sign in a neighborhood not far from our house that displayed a 13.5 mph speed limit.

I mentally tried to figured out what it meant in kilometer per hour, but that wasn’t the 20 I was expecting and after checking on my phone I found that it was 21.708 kmh. So why that exacting, low speed limit? An inside joke? 

Perhaps. At any rate, I dug deeper and found out that a website “Roadtraficsigns” sells a variety of signs, including some that can be personalized to a ridiculous degree, like the one I saw. I was immensely pleased to have solved that pesky mystery.

The Ukrainian hostage taking

If there is a terrorist, it’s Putin. He’s been telling the world: “Let me do whatever I want, don’t forget that I sit on 6,000 nukes” or something to that effect. 

The net result is that the “free world” has been paralyzed by fear after hearing that threat and has let Ukraine fend for itself after the Russian terrorist decided to invade that country. What Putin bluffing then? Probably. 

What should have the West (NATO) done? Quell the invasion right away, crush the Russian forces to oblivion and teach the small man a big, memorable lesson. But since we didn’t want to upset our definition of personal comfort, we declined, and after having had a terrible time with his invasion, the Russian terrorist is backed into a corner and now, infinitely more dangerous. 

So what should the West do, beside feeding Ukraine with more military and life support? Well, to me the best solution is clear, “neutralize” Putin, get him out of the picture once and for all. Is it even feasible? 

Given the technological tools at our disposal, that should be, but what’s missing is the will to even try it and the only hope left is that it happens from the inside of Russia.

Macron vs. Le Pen

Even though we could, in spite of a complicated process, we choose not to vote in the French election for the simple reason that we don’t reside in that country. 

We’re not close enough to fully understand what goes on in our native land and have no vested interest there either. We just follow the politics from a distance and strive to appreciate the impossible choice offered to our family and friends who live over-there.

To us, Macron has always appeared as an aloof technocrat who is totally unable to level with his constituents. 

Le Pen is a nationalist-extremist, Trump-style, which for us is a non-starter, yet she’s a woman and has recently rounded her extremist edges to make herself more appealing. 

As for Mélenchon, we see his clownishness and a program that speak “socialist” to those that have been marooned by Mitterand’s party. 

Finally there is the (good) relationship with Putin that exists for both, canceling this liability out. So with this in mind, what do we think might develop after the runoff election? 

We believe Macron still is likely to win, perhaps with just a hair-thin margin, as long as he doesn’t screw up the April 20 debate and doesn’t make a huge blunder during the campaign.

The Joker will found among Mélenchon’s electorate that might sit out the vote, or even go for Le Pen that follows a similar populist vein; at any rate, Macron will have to remain extremely vigilant and tactical if he wants to win...

Only $55 million for a space odyssey?

This weekend, a mission, called Axiom-1, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida towards the International Space Station (ISS). into clear blue skies following a smooth countdown. Leading the flight was Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who is now a vice president at Axiom. 

The customers were Larry Connor, managing partner of the Connor Group, a Ohio real estate company, Mark Pathy, CEO of Mavrik Corporation, a Canadian investment company; and Eytan Stibbe, an investor and former Israeli Air Force pilot. All forked $55 million a piece to get up-there. 

We don’t know how much Axiom and the ISS get out of these $165 million, but the ISS was built at a cost of $150 billion. NASA's participation was $59 billion ($100 billion in today’s dollars), Russia's $12 billion, Europe's $5 billion, Japan's $5 billion and Canada's $2 billion and most of the cost of transporting the hardware was NASA’s with its space shuttles.

The cost of operating the facility costs NASA (excuse me, the American taxpayers) about $1.3 billion a year, so they can use a few extra dollars! This is only the United States’ share; the other partners like Russia, the European Space agency, Japan and Canada pitch in too to a much lesser degree. It’s also not the first time the ISS welcome space tourists. 

The Russian started the scheme and most recently Yusaku Maezwa, a wealthy Japanese traveled on the Russian Soyuz rocket to get there. While a war is raging in Ukraine, all that “space tourism” idea and the million dollars thrown into that flight of fancy makes me cringe. Well, I might just be a tad jealous...

Ski areas’ reluctance to report fatal accidents

More than a week ago A 21-year-old Park City resident died from injuries sustained in a serious accident Friday at Park City Mountain Resort. 

The accident wasn’t reported to the public until the Summit County Sheriff’s Office got involved. Once more, the ski resort, like the rest of them in America tend to sweep fatal incidents under the rug. 

This kind of news is obviously not good PR, but by “burying” these kind of news, other skiers are never made fully aware of dangers that are lurking all around and collectively, never learn from them, which is highly regretable. 

In the case of that last victim, a ski coach, someone who obviously wasn’t a beginner skier, ski-patrollers found him at the bottom of what they estimated to be a 30-foot embankment at the bottom of the Temptation ski run. 

In spite of the care administered on the spot and transported to the Utah Hospital by helicopter in Salt Lake City, the victim was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Who needs a new brand of ski?

I don’t, but that’s simply my humble opinion. 

I just learned that Bode Miller (the famous American ski racer) and Andy Wirth (a well know ski area operator) are launching, Peak, a new ski brand featuring 6 revolutionary all-mountain, high-performance skis. 

With my age advancing and my muscular power retreating, I could use a ski’s magic to reset my performance. This said, the 10,000 manufacturing facility in Montana’s cowboy country isn’t quite giving me the total confidence I need to make the switch.

Both principals are talking about their new “Keyhole” technology, let’s hear it from Bode: 

“ I learned years ago that a cutaway in front of the binding, unlocks the torsional performance of a ski. We’ve integrated this feature, calling it Keyhole Technology, into all our skis and it has yielded great results. After years of research, design, and experimentation and over three months of testing the 2022/23 line of skis here in Big Sky, Montana, I can verify that these skis rip…and we are just getting started.” 

Wow! That impressive to hear and would even be more impressive to ski on, but let me not get ahead of myself, I still have a brand-new pair of Dynastar waiting to be used in November of 2022...

Aren’t you glad to live in a perfect Democracy?

Seriously? Are you totally sure? 

If you live in the USA or in France, you are told that your country is really democratic and told to feel fortunate about it, but not so fast. according to the 2021 Democracy Index from the Economist magazine, the annual survey, rating the state of democracy across 167 countries on the basis of the following five measures: 

• Electoral process and pluralism 
• Functional government 
• Political participation, 
• Democratic political culture
  
• Civil liberties. 

The survey also finds that more than a third of the world’s population live under authoritarian rule while just 6.4% enjoy a full democracy. The global score fell from 5.37 to a new low of 5.28 out of ten. 

 

If you think countries like France or the United States of America are paragon of democracy, think again. France ranks 20th while the USA has to be content with a 26th position. 

Norway is Number One, while Afghanistan is dead last. Look at the colored table and you’ll be able to surprise yourself. 

So if you live in Paris or in New York, you can see that we could do significantly better!

Hundredth day on skis…

It so happened that yesterday was my 100th day on skis this season, and in spite of almost no snow left, I made it a great one by inviting my grand son to make some turns along with me. 

The day was perfect, pure blue sky, just 21 cold degrees in the morning that quickly warmed up to 51 by early afternoon. 

The snow was of the spring kind, hard in place, powder in the shade and buttery where the sun had some time to touch it. We moved all over the mountain, found from fresh tracks and didn’t see where our time went. 

Just pure fun and simple joy!

My love for pasta

Last night, as we were having some pasta for dinner, the conversation turned to why I love Italian-style pasta as much as I do. It all began when I was a little kid, age 5 or 6 maybe, for sure before I went to school. 

There was that house on the edge of the slope next to my parents’ where a team of Italian loggers were staying. Every day, after work, they were preparing some pastasciutta to restore themselves after a long and hard day in the forest. 

Often times, when they saw me ambling around my parents house, they would invite me to partake in their one-course, evening meal. Their recipe included tomatoes and herbs which was not the way my mom was making her pasta dish and I loved eating my pasta, “Italian style”. 

Evidently, ma parents were not overly worried by my absence and this was in an era when parents weren't too paranoid about their little kids where about. 

Not only did a get a free, tasty meal, but the lumberjacks taught me some pretty salty Italian songs that I learned on the spot, setting the foundation for my attraction to foreign languages!

Spring skiing: being at the right spot at the right time

I have discussed many times the variability inherent with the sport of skiing and must say that spring skiing adds a lot to the complexity and the number of variables when a skier sets out to make the best of their time. 

It starts with the classic admonition “follow the sun” which is meant to ski in priority areas where the sun has been shinning (thus softening the snow) for a while, but that’s not enough, if the snow was frozen stiff overnight, there are days and spots where it never softens up.

Same thing if the sun is anemic and fails to impact the snow. Conversely, if night temperatures were to warm the snow decomposes too fast and is rotten slush for most of the day. 

This is why there is never any guarantees with spring skiing whether it means that there will be any good moments or how wide open the window of time for these “sweet spots” we all look for will be. 

Good fortune, not rigid planning, is finally what shapes spring skiing

Ukraine and the “Pottery Barn rule”

The Pottery Barn rule is an American expression that means that if you go inside a store, "if you break something, you bought it, or you’ve got to remake it", by which customers responsible for damage done to any merchandise on display. 

In the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when and if the dust settles, the bill to Putin and his citizens will be overwhelmingly enormous. President Biden has vowed to make Vladimir Putin “pay a very heavy price” for invading Ukraine. 

The cost thus far has included financial sanctions and possible criminal liability for war crimes, but it should not end there. If Ukraine manages to push back Putin’s army and regain its independence, it will need a massive influx of cash to recover and rebuild. 

This means that the international community must make sure Russia pays for everything. During the course of history, victors of war have often demanded financial reparations from vanquished aggressors. In the case of Ukraine, even if Russia ultimately decides to cut its losses and withdraw, Ukraine will be in no position to compel Russia to provide restitution for the devastation it has created. 

So far, the damage estimates are getting close to $100 billion and will probably greatly exceed that amount when all is said and done. Fortunately, western powers have frozen assets that include Russian central bank reserves, Oligarchs’ private bank accounts, real estate and mega-yachts scattered around the world. Collectively, these frozen assets are valued at about half a trillion dollars (Russian central bank reserves are around $630 billion, of which more than half are frozen, plus assets of people associated with Putin that might be worth at least $300 billion), much money that could be used to help Ukraine rebuild. 

While these frozen assets can’t be legally confiscated, the international community can refuse to unfreeze them until Putin pays reparations. Under international law, Russia is obligated to compensate Ukraine for the harm produced by its illegal war of aggression. 

There are a variety of ways that Russia could satisfy this obligation. It could negotiate a comprehensive lump-sum settlement. It could establish a bilateral tribunal with Ukraine like the Iran-US Claims Tribunal. It could enlist the help of the UN just like for the Compensation Commission that handled civil claims arising from Iraq’s unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait in the early 1990s. 

In each of these scenarios, frozen assets could be used to compensate Ukraine. Let’s simply hope that the West remains united in forcing the Russian government to pay a just price for its barbaric invasion and its human and material consequences!

Reconnecting with an old friend…

Fifty-two years ago I began teaching skiing at the Avoriaz ski school. Not only was I thrilled to work there, but I met a bunch of different and outstanding co-workers. 

Some I knew a little bit, most I didn’t. Among those was a guy by the name of Pierre Meugnier. If I remember correctly, he came from Paris by the way of Leysin, Switzerland where he was a ski instructor at Club Med. I guess that’s where he met, Lisette, his wife to be. 

He was also a mountain guide and was always singing “Mellow Yellow”, Donavan’s hit song at the time. To complete the picture, so to speak, he had lost an eye and wore a glass one instead. 

A few days ago, my friend Anselme told me that Pierre was paralyzed from the waist down, the result of several bouts with cancer. He had also told me that once, I stood for him when he was harassed by a red-neck ski instructor from Morzine (episode I can’t remember). 

So, yesterday I called Pierre who currently moved from his Swiss home at Châtellard, in Switzerland, to a more convenient place in Vallorcine, near Chamonix. We chatted for have been 10 minutes and we both feel great again. 

Yes, as it felt more than half a century ago!

How to ski better, later in life?

The obvious answer is that it starts with a dedicated and intense practice before one gets too old, but it also requires a true passion for the sport. 

This, in my opinion isn’t only true for skiing but for any sports that can be practiced later into life. 

The reason its requires a great deal of passion is because that intense trait takes the drudgery out of the hard work required. If it’s fun, it’s never work, right? 

So, what I recommend, when possible, is to always include some “hard stuff” into a ski outing, always skiing runs non-stop from top to bottom, always returning and redoing a run when one had a mishap, as soon as possible.

Always adding “one more run”, skiing bad terrain, big moguls and bad snow and bad weather when available. 

Going a tad faster faster when it’s safe and possible and never discount the possibility of going skiing even when the conditions look far from auspicious; you’d be surprised how many times they’re in fact far better than what we imagine them to be. 

All these little tips will make you an old and able skier before you even know it.

Calling a spade a spade

I still believe Biden was right when he called Putin “War Criminal”. It’s undiplomatic, but some people don’t have to be handed so delicately. 

Further, the Russian dictator also became a terrorist when he began his invasion of Ukraine by putting a nuclear gun on the world’s head.

So it was only right to hear someone who knows a thing or two about real war criminals confirms what the entire planet knew, but few politicians had the courage to call in such way. 

Today Carla Del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has called for an international arrest warrant to be issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview by the Swiss newspaper “Le Temps” published Saturday. 

Isn’t it time for the rest of the world to confirm that Putin indeed is both a war criminal and a terrorist that must be stopped?

A message from Park City Mountain

Today, I received a special message from our local ski area that, as you may know, is owned by Vail Resorts. I’ve regularly been a vocal critic of its way of operating and was delighted to hear that after several years and a very rocky winter season (pun intended), the resort operator had finally its “come to Jesus moment”. 

Here's what the message said: 

“Dear Go11, 

As the ski season is coming to an end, we have finally taken the time to review your complaints and decided to do something about them. You had mentioned us not cutting whippers and aspen growths all over your preferred terrain, complained about our slow, fixed-grip chairlifts, our inability to spend more than $15 per hour to staff our mountains, the poor choice we’ve made in upgrading Silverlode to an 8-passenger lift and Eagle to a 6-pack. 

We also heard your criticisms about us playing chicken with the weather and not making enough snow, not grooming runs that ought to be smooth and not bumpy or rocky, and finally for selling too many Epic passes and flooding your mountain with countless skiers and snowboarders. 

Well, we’ve finally understood what you meant through your French-accented remarks, understood your many points and we take the following steps: 

We’ll begin by setting up a whipper and fallen-trees suppressing patrol that will get to work as soon as the snow is all melted. It will shave all that undesired growth and remove the fallen trees wherever you might want to ski. 

You already know that we’ve decided to hike our hiring rate to $20 per hour and since we take your pass money in advance, we’ll pay even more if we have to. We will upgrade those fixed-grip chairs upon which we used to “park” skiers for hours on end, making them all express lifts. 

We’ll move the base of Motherlode further down into the drainage, make it a 6-pack, and extend its top station to the edge of Puma ridge, then cut a run from the now congested Miner Camp / Silverlode area, so skiers can overflow from there to Motherlode. 

Further Motherlode will enable skiers to access Puma ridge, Thaynes and offer a decent access to Jupiter and to its west face. The old Motherlode express-quad will replace the slow Eagle lift. We’ll make snow as early, as thick and as late as we need to, and will no longer pepper our groomed runs with pesky little rocks. 

As for the number of pass we sell, we still have no idea how congested your ski area will be, but crowds might shrink as folks must go back to work, and we promise to send the excess visitors to Andermatt-Sedrun that we just acquired in Switzerland; we’re confident that the local there will be so excited that we’ll never see these Epic pass-holders again!” 

After reading that, I had never been so happy in my life. Wow! You see, I don’t need much to get all excited!