Alone on planet Jupiter

Jupiter sits on top of Park City and is one of the places where I like to recreate when I have my skis on.

The place can get mobbed on big powder days but you'll never see me lining up for making “first-track”. It simply isn't my style. I like to come to that special spot after the crowds are gone but the skiing is still excellent.

Yesterday, conditions on most of its runs were very, very bad and there was not a soul in view, except for the lift employees, the ski patrol and some rares skiers who pointed their nose, struggled to get down and turned around as quickly as they came.

After finding out how bad the main bowl (pictured here) was, I took a chance on one other run, “Portuguese Gap”, that also happens to be my favorite on this part of the mountain; it was so good that I took three consecutive runs there.

That's right, I stuck around and didn't fall like a fly, just as the rest of the other skiers did, but again in skiing parlance, I must be quite a cockroach!

A matter of skiing style

We all approach sports and leisure differently. Compared to my contemporaries, my way of skiing is peppered with idiosyncrasies that make it radically different from them. I tend to make it a rather intense experience and there is very little room for being laid-back or dreamy about it except for the time I'm riding the lifts.

For one thing, I never stops in the middle of a run; it's always non-stop from top to bottom, regardless of the distance. If I'm with family, I may slow down a bit, but I wont stop willy-nilly at the top of a lift, smell the roses and decide where to go; there's plenty of time to make that kind of decision on the way up! I generally ski as fast as the conditions and my body allows it.

When I get a choice between an easy and a challenging run, I always pick the latter; I love difficult snow, impassable terrain and this has nothing to do with masochism. Unlike normal people, I always keep an exacting count of what I do: Number of ski days, total vertical, etc.

Finally, unlike most skiers of all ages, I am totally conscious that my days on skis are counted, so this point alone explain why I make the very best of what I've got left!

Fifty years ago: My bro and I

During the winter 1966-1967 I was teaching skiing to kids coming from Paris for one month at a time, and was working with my brother who had been instructing for one or two seasons.

I had no certification whatsoever at the time and was teaching the little ones how to ski down the hill, snowplow, turn and side-slip. If I did my job well, they might earn their “1ère étoile” or “2ème étoile” pin.

In those days, while still a teenager, I wasn't looking forward to begin serving 16 month in the French army the following November and didn't know what I would do with the rest of my life.

Already, my big secret dream was to teach skiing in America, most particularly in Aspen or in Whistler. I remember having applied for a job to Jim McConkey, ski school director at the British Columbia resort and he had even offered me position! I already had good tastes...

The lightning “excuse...”

This had never happened to me. Yesterday, while I was enjoying some great skiing in some good snow at the top of Park City, the entire ski resort shut down at 2:30 pm because of lighting danger.

I was a bit miffed, thought for a while that this weather danger was an easy excuse, but probably wouldn't have enjoyed receiving a huge electric shock while riding up a chairlift!

Trump's family business

By now, most of us have seen that Trump is intent to run his administration as if it were his own family business.

Conflicts of interest don't seem to bother him and he just elevated his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared as his (most) trusted advisers. I must say that I'm far from being impressed by the sum of the couple's intelligence.

Then, like in any large family businesses, there are the other employees who aren't too happy to see the “family” become front and center in the day-to-day operations. So, comments are made, innuendos multiply and soon, the working atmosphere turns into a permanent hell.

What we've just seen with Bannon is only the beginning of this destructive process. If you're familiar with any big family-run business, I leave the rest of this story to your imagination!

Trump's good decision

I was pleased to see that we finally responded to Bashar al-Assad barbaric ways.

It was largely a surprise, because back in 2013, Trump had admonished Obama not to intervene in Syria and that just a few days ago, his administration pledged not to get involved in that conflict.

So, while this spectacular action demonstrate that Donald Trump works more on instinct than through a well thought-out strategic process, our new president probably feels good as he can show the world that he's able make quick and powerful decisions on his own and this wasn't a shock to me.

What too much money does to people...

Lord Acton (1834-1902) famously said: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men..."

It often seems to me that the word “power” could easily be interchanged with “money” in that same quote, as we see everyday the devastating effect money has on humans, from nouveaux riches to many politicians, entrepreneurs artists or famous athletes.

Too often, being rich isn't enough; there is a visceral need of maintaining a high level of wealth at all cost and, more often than not, a real addiction forms to amplifying the thirst for even more wealth.

This flaw in the human psyche pushes what would normally be good people to do things that are simply irrational or just awful. Think about Lance Armstrong or Hillary Clinton and you get the picture.

Most of us need to remember Jesus admonition “lead us not into temptation” and, of course, be perceptive and honest enough to see what temptation is all about.