Ski Magazine's ranking joke

Ski Magazine's 2018 resort issue keeps on sinking and getting stuck into slushy and absurd reporting, unless it's a matter of payola, pure and simple.

While Park City's Deer Valley got back its number one position, Park City Mountain slid down to number 16, after places like Whitefish, Crested Butte and Breckenridge! Give me a break...

The moribund magazine (that's my opinion) must be on its last rope to publish absurdities like that scoreboard, unless it has finally embraced, full-tilt, the fake-news trend.

Seriously, as Park City residents, our hearts are torn between the two resorts when it come to their respective advantages and drawback and after much consideration as a family, we finally picked Park City Mountain for this coming winter.

Ski Magazine might consider that I probably know nothing about skiing...

Leaving Geneva...

If you get to Geneva airport late in the afternoon and are intent to head towards the nearby French ski resorts, be prepared and don't count on some smart road signage to get you quickly on your way.

Most likely than not, your GPS will route you smack into the center of town where you'll be and stay stuck for a very long while, especially on a week day. Of course, the Swiss are not going to promote the French ski resorts with helpful signage!

There is a better way by circumnavigating the crowded, tiny metropolis through the French “autoroute” system, but you need to know where you are going and do your homework before hand.

But who ever said that driving in Europe was user-friendly?

Watering fake plants at Paris airport

It seems to happen all the time, we always managed to get caught with water in our carry on luggage, especially in Europe, where security is senseless as one is forced to clear security even while in transit for another flight...

Add to this a sleepless night across the Atlantic and you have a recipe for frayed behavior. Rather than give up the nice bottle that contained the undesirable liquid, I told my wife to drain it in one of the many green plant containers that lined up the perimeter.

When he saw her acting on my order, one of the security officers screamed at her “Don't do this! Those are fake plants!”

The importance of air service to skiing

Destination ski resorts live and die by the availability or the absence of good air service and abundant passenger seats. The larger the passenger traffic at an airport, combined with its closeness to a resort will have a huge impact on business.

Over the past 40 years, the average ski vacation stay in the USA has shrunk from the traditional full-week, down to 3 to 4 days, making a short transit time between the airport and the resort extremely critical.

Historically, Denver and its large airport has pretty much build up the Colorado ski industry.

Today, thanks to its Delta Hub and its closeness to most of its best ski resorts, Salt Lake City is becoming a force to be reckoned with; a new airport terminal, under construction, should further enhance Utah ski industry's posture.

Europe is quite similar with Geneva and Easyjet becoming huge assets to skiers coming to the French Alps and nearby Swiss ski resorts...

Big September snow!

Last weekend was so snowy that it really felt like real winter.

Snow flakes were enormous, and soon, the white stuff began to seriously accumulate, breaking branches on trees that were still covered with leaves and creating a true winter landscape.

Some skiers even got out to take an early slide. I didn't feel like them at all.

For me, winter is always far too early until November 20 comes around. Call me a late bloomer!

Park City and the Hyperloop...

Earlier, this month, I envied Colorado and Vail's good fortune to have been picked for one of the next Hyperloop roads and passed my thought on to our local politicians.

Diane Foster, Park City Municipal manager, said she and Jack Thomas our mayor have had contacts with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies three years ago, and had been told that we were too close to Salt Lake City, represented too small a population and on such a short segment, the Hyperloop couldn't reach its maximum speed before it'd need to slow down.

In addition, she had said that climbing the steep grade of Parley’s Canyon would also be a huge challenge. Since, I'm not one who takes no for an answer, I'd like to turn these arguments on their heads.

Here is how I see things. Before we run we need to walk and just like the present one-third of a mile track in Nevada, we could lobby hard to be chosen to develop a test track between Salt Lake, Park City and Heber to verify basic stuff like loading/unloading, acceleration and deceleration.

As importantly, it could test mountain climbs that soon would be required to climb the Colorado Front Range, clear both the Eisenhower tunnel and Vail Pass that are both extremely challenging, in advance of implementing the system planned for that region.

Summit and Wasatch county account for 70,000 people, vs. 80,000 for Eagle and Summit, Colorado! Even if the Hyperloop can't reach its top speed when it gets to Park City, who cares, as long as the transit time between the airport and Park City drops from 40 to less than 5 minutes!

As we all know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and there's always an other side to any argument.  If it makes any good sense though, any sensible and potentially good idea should be seriously considered.

The Vietnam War

Last week, we began to watch “The Vietnam War” a 18 hour PBS documentary about this tragic conflict.

What we've learned so far, is that the French set up the stage for a terrible colonial war that ended up in costing the lives of about 3.4 million people and that the Americans, once engaged at picking up the pieces let by my countrymen, ended up digging an even deeper hole for themselves.

All along, it also showed that we've learned nothing when we witness the same scenario still playing out in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Time to exit Facebook?

I didn't appreciate Mark Zuckerberg coming out swinging and announcing that he was going to deliver the Russian-inspired ads that might have rigged our last presidential election.

All this to say that it might be time to exit Facebook, but I frankly am concerned about missing out. That's right the infamous “Fear of missing out” or FOMO...

This is simply to acknowledge that social media can be terribly addictive. I'm going to seriously “reconsider” and take it one step at a time, carefully explore my options, anticipate my suffering and pretty soon, plan to let you know if and when I will cure my social media dependency!

The gift of fearing not

I have been convinced for years that fear is the most powerful impediment in the way of a successful, fully-lived existence.

I am often jealous and always envy fearless individuals. Sure, at times, some tiny bit of fear may help someone stay alive, but by in large, fear is an obstacle that gets in the way of most exciting things and achievements.

Besides our own specific genes and DNA, I don't know exactly what may make us less fearful than others, but I would guess that regular practice (read, repeated exposure to fear) may help us become more fear-tolerant.

So aside from facing it and embracing it as often as possible, I really don't have any other specific training plan to offer, in order to dull that curse called fear...

Death on Facebook ?

If you are on Facebook, you're familiar about the frequent reminders of “friend” birthdays. The more friends you've managed to garner, the higher the frequency.

So, yesterday, as I noticed that one of my High School comrades, back in France, was celebrating an extra year, I congratulated him, throwing a bit of my personal humor, in the process, to add some pizzazz to the notice.

Minutes later, I got a message, from one of this friend's relatives letting me know that he had passed away six month earlier. I had no way of knowing, as there was no mention of his demise on his still active Facebook wall.

It's true that after receiving my comment, that same relative posted a message on that friend's wall reminiscing his passing half-a-year earlier, but other than that, he was still alive according to Facebook.

What death must be like

If you don't believe, as I do, in some form of afterlife, you might ask yourself “how does it feel to be dead?”

To me, the answer is quite evident: “It will feel exactly the same as it felt before one's birth.”

Of course, you might think that my response simply is a cop out because I can hardly remember stuff before I was four or five, let alone what happened to me ten days ago, so let's not even talk about what happened to me before I was born!

Sundance's evolution

This past weekend, we drove to Sundance resort. This is for us an annual ritual to drive 45 minute to that magical spot. Unlike most places in the “civilized” world, we always find the place totally unchanged, year after year. 

Well, almost, because in the absence of obvious change or “new stuff”, the place ages. The buildings fade away, the wooden stairs split, the vegetation invades a little bit more.

A pessimist could say that the place is going to the dogs. I say that I'd love to be in charge of maintenance at that resort, because there would be nothing for me to do!

Employees are not engaged, seem absent-minded, as if the place had fallen asleep. Robert Redford, the owner, turned 81 in August and this might show...

Finally, flat-fee realtors!

If your house sold for $500,000 or $1 million, would you enjoy paying the real estate agents involved in the transaction $30,000 or $60,000 in commission?

I guess not... Even though I tried briefly, decades ago, to join this shady profession and quit a year later because I found it particularly unethical, I've always considered its selling commission structure like highway robbery.

In a 2015 Gallup survey, real estate agents ranked below lawyers and used-car salesmen for trustworthiness with a dismal 20% rating! In spite of it, this strange system has held-up because it was a de facto monopoly and had the support of one of the strongest lobby in America.

Yet, today, we're starting to see some erosion in that outrageous commission scheme and it's a good sign. So, with this in mind, just bear with me, as I try to explain. A traditional listing agent typically charges 3% commission for listing a property and that's where a flat fee of say $3,000 charged by Redefy compares to the $15,000 or $30,000 portion of the commission mentioned in the above example.

The seller will still have to fork up the remaining 3% that goes to the selling agent, but instead of paying respectively $30,000 or $60,000 in total commissions, the amount will drop to $18,000 and $33,000 respectively.

Purplebricks is another company (from the UK) that offers a similar business model at $3,200 per listing and there are plenty of others outfits like Homie, that seem intent to making a dent into the cost of selling and buying a home.

I just hope these alternative solutions make it, spread like wildfire and are not thwarted by that nefarious and powerful monopoly, called National Association of Realtors.

Obit, the movie...

This weekend, we went out to see a documentary called “Obit”. It featured the way obituaries come to life at the New York Times, driven by a team of writers who are crafting the live stories of people that are more or less famous.

This process is filled with time-pressures, painstaking research, creativity, sometimes errors; occasionally, they'll even write an obituary in advance so can be pulled out from their files, updated and brought in to press at a moment's notice.

What the New York Time does is simply exceptional. While the idea behind this film was great, the execution could have been more streamlined, perhaps made a bit shorter and less boring.

This said, my take-away was that we should all write our own obituaries in advance of our passing, so they fully reflect who we really are and what we think we have accomplished – or not during our earthly passage!

Time to get on the Hyperloop!

You probably have all heard about the Hyperloop transportation technology. If you haven't or want a refresher of what this new mean of transportation is, it simply consists of a sealed, low-pressure tube through which passenger pods travel free of air resistance and friction thanks to magnetic levitation, reaching speeds around 600 mph.

Presently a third of a mile loop exists in Nevada and in 2016, the Hyperloop launched a competition involving 100 countries. The number of candidates was first narrowed to 24 finalists in April, and just now, the 10 selected routes were announced in the U.S., Canada, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

Those of us in the ski tourism industry know how critical ease of access is to destinations ski resorts like Park City. In fact, I'm convinced that it's our ease of access, not so much our snow, the Olympics or our exotic liquor laws (!!!), that have put Park City on top of the U.S. ski map.

This has also dovetailed with a shrinking length of stay by winter visitors over recent decades; as a result getting there fast is key. The bad news for people from Park City is that a 360-mile route from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Pueblo going through Denver Airport, Denver, along with a spur planned all the way to Silverthorne and Vail, was one of these lucky 10 sites selected.

With Hyperloop, Vail travel time would be just 9 minutes away from Denver. This means that Utah's competitive advantage over Colorado would vaporize if we choose to stay on the sidelines and not become part of that new technology. In terms of timetable, Hyperloop hopes to see 3, out of the 10 full-scale systems, operating by 2021.

It appears pretty obvious to me that Park City can't ignore this new development, but must move as a community, joining forces with the greater Salt Lake City area, from Provo to Logan, Utah, to get as soon as possible on the Hyperloop bandwagon.

The stress-free life

For more than a decade, my job and my life have been much stress-free than they used to be when I had to be a rain-maker, was expected to pull rabbits out of my hat and counting on the miracles I performed to please my boss and keep my job.

To me, the joy of retirement has been more a situation of having been free of stress than work, or just having time for myself.

The proof is that, even in my new life, I still love to work and sometimes still get far too absorbed by it.

When we stereotype people...

Often time, we have that discussion about how Americans are different from French people from a culture and attitude standpoint.

This is when I decide that what makes more difference than the country of origin is where the individual stacks up in the socioeconomic ranks than geography or even traditions. Think about it.

Humanity is pretty much the same everywhere and today's big difference is more likely to be found in someone's actual stage on life and how hard or easy it is to survive day by day, than by that person's passport.

Not an "Epic" incentive

Vail Resorts isn't that generous, but is trying all kind of tricks to get its clientele to commit early to their next season's ski pass.

In May, they begin by asking for a $50 deposit towards the pass lowest price by offering a few “buddy passes” that are a bit cheaper than their outrageous window price and will let you ride the few lifts open during summer as long as you don't have a bike in tow (if you do, you must buy a special day ticket or a season pass). 

If you can't decide to purchase your season's pass by Labor Day, the cost goes up by $20 until the final deadline at the beginning of October. All in all, skimpy incentives in relation to more than a 6 percent increase of their pass price over the previous season!

The Steve Bannon Interview

Sunday night, I watched the Steve Bannon interview, by Charlie Rose, on CBS's "60 Minutes" and saw about 30 minutes of feisty exchange between the two.

Too bad that Charlie lost a bit of his temper (which happens all the time he sits down with folks he doesn't like), but in the end, it didn't change much of the outcome.

I was hoping to discover the real genius in Bannon; after all, the man had “fabricated” our 45th president, but instead, I discovered that he was a mirror image of Trump and someone making up his "strategy" as he spoke.

Just like Donald Trump, the man who served as the White House Chief Strategist during the first seven months of his presidency, is a big mouth and a bully, but there is nothing of substance behind his boisterous remarks and, at least in my view, the Vice-Emperor had no clothes.

Thank you Charlie Rose for debunking the only mystery left in the Empire of the Donald.

The double-edge of tourism

Just as a follow up to yesterday's blog, I was thinking how tourism can be a double-edge sword and how it can destroy and homogenize what otherwise makes a place attractive to visitors if not kept in check.

I speak both from what I see happening in my hometown valley, back in the French Alps today, as well as my four decade of living in Park City. Visitors (and tourists) come to specific places because of their beauty and their character.

Remove the latter and you take away most of a place's appeal. This means that tourist spots must be vigilant in not letting visitors, or worse yet, second-home owners, dictate what the place ought to be or should become.

This pressure happens all the time whether one lives (like me) in the Rocky Mountains or in the Alps. Typically, over a short period of residence, a significant percentage of second-home owners develops a tendency to resent the tourist trade and whatever makes the place authentic.

These same folks quickly get tired of the “charm” that got them to purchase a home in the first place. Instead, they strive to recreate the universe they've left behind with all of its trappings. Furthermore, as time goes by, a large percentage of these second-homer morphs into permanent residents when they elect to retire at the resort in question.

Kept unchecked, these pressures lead to the planetary homogenization that can be found everywhere, except perhaps in Corsica, because of the islanders' forceful push-back.

Classically, these new comers become the tail that wags the dog and if no one objects, they'll do everything to ruin the place, its character and its authenticity

When in Rome...

...Do as the Romans do, at least that the way life should work. Recently, not far from my native hometown, up in the French Alps, a bunch of second-home owners started a petition and presented it to the City Hall at Le Biot, to protest the noise made by cowbells, as a herd has been grazing on the ski slopes opposite to their cabins and condos.

These malcontents were mostly made of Brits along with a Belgian and a French, I believe, and all but one of the dozen of households involved is a year-round resident. That rather trivial and petty grievance reminded me of my life experience, coming from the France and setting foot in America more than 40 years ago.

To survive, thrive and make the best of my American experience, I simply had to adapt to my new home, its different values and its unique culture. I did the best I could to lay low at times, make no waves or never fight against the main stream. This was what I believed then, what worked perfectly well for me, and what I continue to abide by today.

This is also what I expect newcomers to do; if they don't like it, it's always time to move on. Not rocket-science by any means! So, if these folks that can't stand cowbell music want to feel better, they simply have to leave. Adapt or perish!

Shopping for hard-to-get stuff

Thanks to the internet, it's a breeze to buy “stuff” online; from electronics, to shoes or even bicycles. Yet, there are some rare items and many mundane services that are not always so easy to shop for, so doing so requires a tad more creativity in the way we conduct our research.

Not everyone that has something to sell necessarily has a website, a merchant account or even an email address. That's where it pays to communicate through texting or through house services like Angie's List, to finally get closer to getting what you want or need.

Just “Googling” a rare item or a certain service won't spit a result right away and it's often necessary to spend a huge deal of time searching and looking into places or domains that we never envisioned going to when our search began.

So, if you want to find what you need on line, put on your thinking hat, be very persistent, don't expect a river of good deal flowing your way the first time around, spend even more time, and you'll eventually be rewarded!

Wall Street and Population Control

I often blame overpopulation on religion, but it's hard to deny the fact that our capitalistic system is also what supports it. It too, actively contributes to a deteriorating environment that leads to climate change, hence my finger-pointing at Wall Street.

As we all know, capitalism requires sustained production growth to remain stable, improve standards of living and keep a growing world population employed. Then, all that production need consumption; without it, the system would cease to function.

Evidently, this leads to a vicious cycle where constantly improved production demands even more consumption and more consumers to keep the machine running. This shows that mass consumption or consumerism isn't just a passing cultural behavior; it's instead an essential element of capitalism, an economic system in which the mad dog keeps on turning faster to bite its own tail.

This cycle is almost impossible to stop, because companies are constantly pressurized to cut costs; if they don’t, their competitors will.

Reasonably, one way of cutting costs would be to re-invest some of the savings into the environment, but capitalism has no built-in mechanism to do that, so it would require some forms of non-market intervention either by the State or by organized social forces.

Obviously, States' main concerns are to grow their GDP and keep their population working. States are also permanently under the pressure and influence of big business, have little incentive to intervene and only social forces are left to pick up the slack. In summary, Wall Street or capitalism have absolutely no incentive to discourage runaway births and could care less about the effect of overpopulation on the environment.

As firms are constantly pressured to cut costs and optimize profits, issues like overpopulation fall pray to the compulsive market behavior of developed or emerging Nations and are never discussed by their governments that prefer to keep their citizen unaware of that stark reality.

Without the intervention of social forces, capitalism as an economic system, is simply unwilling to reduce the world population and protect the planet.

When there's smoke, there's fire...

For days, we've been dealing with hot and smoky weather, so much so that I thought my eyesight was impaired, but the air has been filled with so much smoke from local and out-of-state wildfires that we no longer can see clearly, even through short distances.

I guess that our lungs have been filling with smoke and we can only hope for some isolated thunderstorms and rain showers along the Wasatch Front, scheduled for today, to scour the skies of some of that smoke.

Now, while we breathe this filthy, smoky air, we also doubled-down with a surge in chenopods and ragweed rated “very high” on yesterday‘s pollen index. Hopefully, we'll all survive!

Mountain-bike and Concentration

I've written this so many times; riding a mountain-bike demands concentration from the time one leaves home to the time the bike is safely hung back inside the garage.

Today, as I was riding and enjoying it thoroughly I came across a group of mountain-bikers that were stopped in some blind corner (where else, I wonder!) One lady, who evidently spilled badly, was all bloodied in her face, her bike front disc bent and she wasn't a happy camper!

I did what I could to help and went on my merry way. As I was riding, I was thinking that there isn't one single moment that's open for lowering one's guard on a mountain-bike.

Danger is lurking every linear foot along the way and if one doesn't concentrate 100%, one is bound to bite the dust.

That's right even a good, almost “safe” 99% won't do. I'll try to remember this...

Uncovering Trump voters

Last night, as we were strolling by our former home, we met Pat who lives on the opposite side of the street.

We stroke a conversation, and somehow, as we complained about the current chaos in Washington, he told us that he had voted for Trump, believing in his outlandish program and promises. This said, he still gives credit to the man with the yellow hair-piece for a roaring Stock Market.

Pat, who is about 60, claims having a good education (MBA), but it probably was truer when he was younger, as it unfortunately no longer comes across in the way he speaks and the way he acts. He's got a good job with our State University and should know much better than voting for the Donald.

Of course, he's not the only one and as a matter of fact, he and his peers got the man elected. Today, he doesn't think that the product he's got is what he hoped and voted for, but to me, if totally makes sense that he, and his horrible choice only reflects his lack of good judgment!

Another ski season in view...

This long holiday weekend was the first deadline to get the best possible deal on our Park City Mountain season ski pass and we didn't miss it.

We got some brand new passes for the 33rd time since we've lived in town and we'll see how much fun they'll deliver and how many days they'll let us shred the mountain.

Since I'm an incorrigible optimist I hope the answer to these two distinct expectations will be “plenty” and I'll try to behave reasonably well so I don't get hurt and don't harm anyone anytime I'm dressed as a skier.

Let's keep our fingers crossed while making sure our ski tips remain uncrossed!

Can't wait to be 75 or 80?

The 2017-18 ski pass prices are out for the Wasatch Front of Utah. Prices do vary a great deal, and if you are as old as I am, it's always interesting to see what's offered to older folks.

First, I must say that Park City Mountain (part of Vail Resorts' Epic Pass) does nothing for seniors. Cheaper passes for all, perhaps, but they figure that when you're old and want to ski you need to be rich. Shame on you Vail Resorts for the way your discriminating against old folks like us!

Deer Valley Resort, with it outrageous prices, show that the give “breaks” for seniors. Yet, those still will break the bank if older geezers continue to cling to that resort's “rich” and “old” image. Not impressed!

You'll need to drive far away from Park City if you want a genuine old-person discount.

First, to Robert Redford's Sundance resort that offers a $150 pass for everyone over 65; great job!

Then, Alta must be commended for its $50.00 season ski pass, but you need to wait till you're half-dead as a skier; that's right you must be 80 to qualify, so I find it a real stretch and may not want to wait that long to indulge with the overblown Alta mystique.

Finally, I must salute two resorts that are in the northern Wasatch range, Powder Mountain and Snowbasin, that both make a genuine effort to attract the thinning ranks of the 75 + age group, respectively with $20 (yeah, no typo) and $80 season pass prices. Way to go northerners. I may give you a try pretty soon!

As wedding anniversaries pile up...

Yesterday was our 42nd wedding anniversary, so when I woke up and reminded my wife about it, she exclaimed “I thought it was already the 50th!”

This says an awful lot if you know me and if you're a bit familiar with my adventurous and sometime reckless behavior.

It inspired me to post that remark on Facebook and it generated a huge amount of “likes” as well as countless admiring and humorous reactions.

We still have a significant number of years to go since we'll make it to the half-century mark (God willing) but these few years might go even faster than the 42 that seem to have eluded us!

Park City's urban forest

When we moved to Park City, more than 32 years ago, there were not many trees around, to the point that from our wooded Chappaqua home in New York, to Utah's arid high desert, my wife hated the barren landscape we found upon arriving there.

Since that time, things have changed a lot. The tiny aspen and evergreen saplings have turned into large, mature trees, overly crowded and often time, far to close to the homes for good views and fire safety.

With that new grown forest has come a complete ecosystem, including birds, rabbits, squirrels and regular year-round visits by deer, elks and moose that always manage to find enough leaves to eat, and flowers or veggie gardens to trample.

From empty desert to lush urban forest in just three decades!