First winter at Avoriaz, France

Throughout that fabulous winter, learning was the key word.

Learning to ski in all kinds of snow and terrain, learning how to jump off rocks, falling badly, getting all banged up and getting repaired, learning how to teach, learning how to use my limited, crude English ski vocabulary with all kinds of skiers, learning how to become a faster, more reliable slalom skier, learning how to have fun and finally “living the dream”!

Skiing and bad weather

To a passionate skier and most of the time, weather has little effect on skiing quality.

It will take an awful blizzard and hurricane-force winds, or a tropical downpour and a nuclear meltdown to make any ski day a bad one.

Most of the time, skiing is always good, sun or not, cold or a bit warmer and most often than not, there’s always a good surprise in store for the adventurous or optimistic skier.

Poor visibility? Ski in the trees.

There seems to be a response to any situation. Snowy days with the sun filtering through the cloud covers are for instance the very best experience anyone can ever have; a surreal visibility with perfect snow quality.

What is true, at least based on my extensive experience, is that, in the majority of instances, every outing was much better than initially expected.

Finally, what’s certain is that when the weather is already bad, it can only get better, so what do we have to lose?

The old man and skiing

These days, when I ski, I sometimes think about Hemingways’ book “The old man and the sea”, and I try to imagine a parallel between me, my skis and the aging fisherman and his boat.

I also think of exploits I might want to do on my skis, but that’s were the comparison runs short.

There are no formidable marlin or famished sharks roaming the slopes to keep me busy and worried. There is just a snow that changes its appearance and its mood, day after day.

What is true though, is that my vanishing muscular strength is complemented by more than six decades of experience that get me where I want to go and in the style I can live with.

So, to the untrained observer eye, I seem to accomplish a lot with very little means. This, I think, is the essence of growing old.

Where’s my soul?

I’m a renegade that believe that soul and spirit are one and the same.

This of course isn’t what religious folks think; they say that the difference between soul and spirit in humans is that the soul is at the center of the senses, desires, affections, and appetites. The spirit, on the other end is what connects us, or refuses to connect us to God.

As one might expect, the scientific consensus is that there is no such thing as a soul. Most modern scientists, believe that the mind is a complex machine that operates on the same physical laws as all other objects in the universe.

As for me, I am of the opinion that the mind and soul are the same and unique thing.

Our mind comes preloaded with some kind of software that includes for example fear of the of snakes, fight or flight instinct, and that education and life experience works just like additional software provided by apps or AI, making us into the full-fledged individuals that we are.

Is Park City Mountain too big?

I’ve always been one to complain about Park City Mountain’s old and slow chairlifts.

Well, when Vail Resorts purchased Park City Mountain in 2014, it got itself a huge mountain with plenty of lift and much acreage, but probably didn’t realize that many of the lifts it got were old (fixed grip) and needed replacement.

By contrast Whistler-Blackcomb in Canada has only 37 lifts that serve more than 2 million skier-days, Vail has just 31 for 1.8 million and Park City a whopping 42 lifts for just 1.5 million skier-days.

Lifts aren’t self-driving yet, require plenty of attendants and lots of TLC. Call Park City less efficient if you will and certainly much more costly for Vail Resorts to operate, maintain and upgrade, so we shouldn’t be surprised to have to put up with so many old and slow lifts.

We just need to be patients in more than just one way!

Why my next car will be electric…

I like my planet, would hate to see it go down the drain and I’m also convinced that the use of fossil fuels by some 7.7 billion humans is killing it.

I don’t like organized religions too and even less religious extremists like the Saudis that are Salafist Muslims.

That version of Sunni Islam has its roots in the 18th-century Wahhabi movement originating in Saudi Arabia and whose poster-child is no other than Mohammad bin Salman aka MBS.

This guy, not content to cutting Jamal Khashoggi into small pieces or hacking Jeff Bezos’ phone, it also spreading its religion’s nefarious teachings the world over and yet, appears untouchable.

I’m not even mentioning the 19 Saudis that perpetrated the 9/11 attack. MBS is the main reason why my next car will be electric.

Film Festival in small dose

We used to be very much involved and passionate about our annual Sundance Film Festival, but for the past few years, we’ve reduced our commitment and if everything goes according to plan, we might see just two movies during the ten-days event.

On Saturday we saw “Vivos” the story of these Mexican students that were brutally attacked the police in September of 2014. Six people were killed and 43 students were abducted and never heard from again.

A good movie – albeit a tad too long – by the renowned artist and filmmaker Ai Weiwei, “Vivos” takes a lyrical and unique approach to tell the tragedy that beautifully humanizes each and every victim as an individual and affirms they are forever vivos (alive)…

Effortless skiing

Don’t ever try too hard when you ski! It simply costs too much in wasted energy, stress and anxiety.

Over the years, many seasons and countless turns, I have found that by thinking the opposite, everything goes suddenly much better.

I just think (and believe) that I’m skiing effortlessly, which forces me to do just that, with exerting a minimum of physical force and using speed and gravity to their utmost.

The best is that it works wonders and bring a big smile to my face. Don’t just try it out of curiosity; practice it regularly every time you ski!

Back to mindfulness

For the past four days I have been meditating and I’m glad I reignited that daily practice of mindfulness.

For the moment it will become my new, new year resolution. Hopefully it will stick! To be verified...

Sarkozy discovers overpopulation!

Someone share a YouTube video of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy raising the subject of world overpopulation during a business leader symposium last September.

I’m no fan of “Sarko” has he’s nicknamed in France, but he did what no current or former world leader would dare by attacking overpopulation.

Of course, he couldn’t see the clear causal relationship of global warming and our 7.7 billion people trampling the planet, nor could understand the importance of electric cars vs. vehicle CO2 emissions, but he at least had the merit of bringing up an otherwise taboo subject to a group of opinion leaders...

Tracking air polution around the world…

About one month ago, I discovered and became familiar with Purple Air, a company based in Utah, less than one hour away from Park City.

Since 1999, it produces air quality monitors and has a world wide monitoring network that provides particulate levels in real time.

Unlike other products in networks, Purple Air sensors can be purchased and installed by anyone. Its outdoor sensors start at $229 and the company also offers an indoor sensor for $179.

A significant worldwide network is already available and its map can be consulted live to check for smoke, dust and other particulate air pollution.

Seems to me like a must-have unit to have if you live in a high, fine-particulate environment, like California, Salt Lake City, the Great Lake Region, or many parts of Europe and Asia.

Skiing like a… Parisian!

Le Printemps, a major Paris department store had installed a dry-ski slope, complete with rope tow on its roof from 1964 to 1970 and I happened to be one of the last instructors to give ski lessons over Paris rooftops.

This was just 50 years ago. The Avoriaz Ski School had been selected for staffing the store’s rooftop between the Holidays and February, during the winter of 69-70. Annette Richard and I were the last team to come and instruct, just before the mid-winder school holidays.

We were hosted by the Tenaille family, in their plush apartment on Avenue Rapp, in Paris 7th district, whose daughter, Marylise had worked at Avoriaz.

It was a novel experience skiing on a dry slope using a plastic brush system. A by-product of brush manufacturing, with short-haired bristles sticking upwards, the dry-slope material was manufactured by Dendix in Chepstow, England and was found on artificial slopes throughout the world.

I remember that we had to occasionally water the surface to lubricate the bristles to speed up gliding. We had a good supply of skis and boots that we adjusted to the very few students brave enough to take a chance on the weird slope, plus a few visits from folks who just came to watch some skiers trying to make a few turns under the gray Paris skies...

Discovering Snowbasin’s best part

Almost 12 years ago, I drove the one hour plus, from Park City to Snowbasin, to ski the 2002 Olympic site to the downhill and super-G events.

I did it on two repeated occasions. It was late in April, and only the Strawberry gondola was running, so I missed the “John Paul” side of the mountain.

This area was named after John Paul Jones, a nearby Ogden native who lost his life in the Battle of Belvedere, Italy, during WWII, where the 10th won, as the first Allied unit to cross the Po River. Jones who had a special love for the area and was an avid believer in the Snowbasin concept.

He died before he could ever see the realization of his dream of the mountain.

When I returned yesterday to ski with my grandson, we did it all, and boy did we love the Allen Peak Tram and the John Paul Express chair!

This would seem among to be the very best skiing in all of Utah, at least for the kind of skiing I love and practice, and this was too seconded by my grandson who skied like a champ all afternoon long...

Failure proof?

I always thought that (some) failure was the recipe for success.

Not so according to our Democratic Candidates Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar that – according to Warren - were “The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in...”

This was said under the context they both are female, yet for me, winning all the time is absolutely no guarantee that the pattern will go on forever. I might be more confident of someone with a checkered track-record of failures and victories.

One learns an awful lot from defeat, but very little from success.

In fact, the latter might bear the seeds of hubris and what is now absolutely guaranteed is that one of the two, Warren or Klobuchar, will lose this primary contest.

What’s a “fine skier?”

I often get this question from my wife: What make a “fine skier?” Like to many similar questions, I’d like to answer this one by “It depends...”

It depends on what kind of skiing we’re talking about like freestyle, alpine or just racing, among other categories, so I would like to stick to “Alpine” which is the form of skiing I practice and enjoy and from there, deliver my own definition.

For me skiing is the result of ease, efficiency, fluidity, adaptability and the whole end result has to be fun. The way I see it, skiing isn’t limited to running gates, skiing on corduroy or under a picture-perfect blue sky and over the finest powder there is.

The realm of skiing is only limited by the imagination of the beholder, so it can take you into all kinds of ice, snow or lack-thereof, all kinds of terrain, like into the woods, into places where you and your skis get stuck, into the edge of cliffs you don’t want to jump, etc.

It’s a passport to adventure and with plenty of practice, it makes you a fine undefeated skier that stops at nothing and do the seemingly hard work as if it were extremely easy.

And you, what’s your definition of a fine skier?

Park City’s game-changing shortcut

Skiing at Park City Mountain (PCM) is generally a fine experience, except for one huge trouble-spot, especially during the holidays or most weekends. It happens at Silverlode, a six people detachable chairlift that gets terribly crowed because

1) it’s like the “Mid-Vail” of Park City with its huge and modern restaurant,

2) it serves a bunch of highly popular runs,

3) also because people see people, are attracted by them, stay “glued” to them and the whole spot seems hopeless to most.

To me it’s not, because there is an easy solution. PCM needs to cut a wide enough cat-track going from between the SilverQueen Gondola and the Mine Camp restaurant, arcing to the left and returning towards the Motherlode chairlift base station.

Of course, the slope between the two lifts is virtually zero (same 7,980’ altitude), but Motherlode base station could be moved further down, into the ditch and be anchored on the opposite side of the drainage and it would work just fine.

Just my two-cent...

Seventh Democratic Debate

This past Tuesday evening we sat down and watched the 7th democratic debate and came out feeling a little tired and at the end of our rope.

Why? Because we’re just tired of these debates that bring nothing really new and interesting. We’re just awaiting the final selection determined by the popular vote.

The probable winner will be found between Biden, Sander, Warren and perhaps Bloomberg. Let the chips fall where they may.

The only thing anti-trumpists need to do now, is go out and vote. ...

Skiing Powder Mountain, Utah

Until yesterday, I had heard a lot about about Powder Mountain, but never had a chance to ski it.

This lesser known ski resort located east of Eden, Utah, in the North of the state, straddling Weber and Cache counties and distant 55 miles (89 km) from Salt Lake City airport.

Yet, this is no small resort as it covers 8,464 acres (34.3 km2) and is, in - at least on paper - the United States’ largest ski resort by skiable acreage.

I skied with Ski Utah’s chief, Nathan Rafferty, tried to keep up with him in a raging blizzard and had a memorable time in the process.

I’ll be back to Powder Mountain!

Future Wasatch Transit?

Car traffic has become a major problem with all Utah ski resorts and particularly up Little Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood and Parley’s Canyons.

Too many skiers inside too few cars, not enough roadways, shrinking parking spaces, no good mass transit and on snowy days, a real mess.

Over the years, many ideas have been bouncing around, but none satisfactory or well enough develop to coalesce into a productive debate and some concrete solutions.

From tunnels, to trains to gondolas or perhaps a futuristic hyper-loop, all solutions have been developed.

Unfortunately, there never was an overall starting thought process that should have been made by analyzing the origin of skiers (airport arrivals, different Salt Lake Valley areas, Wasatch back population, etc.), looking at a Google earth perspective map and listing all the possible transportation options or schemes.

This work is what must be done and has yet to be formulated so a productive evaluation can take place.

Working a the “Petit Pin”

The first winter I worked at the Avoriaz ski school, in the northern French Alps, just 50 years ago, snow was rather scarce early in January and so were the potential students and work.

To earn a few Francs, Eric Eartz, the Parisian entrepreneur-owner, had hired me to install some insulation inside the lower level of his makeshift eatery.

The project was very much disorganized, the environment was cold and nothing was that pleasant. It was just a job, but I soldiered on.

When I left to go to Paris and teach skiing for 2 weeks on a small plastic ski slope installed on the roof top of “Le Printemps”, a large department store, the snow began to fall in earnest, so much so, that it might end up being the snowiest winter of the entire 20th century in the Morzine region...

The crashed Ukrainian airliner

How would you feel if a love one of yours was of the many victims of the recent crash near Tehran?

You might feel that the Iranian defense forces are a bunch of trigger-happy, imbeciles and would be rightfully angry about them, but I can’t help to think that you’d be even more angry about the other imbecile that “started the fight”, namely Trump.

Without his decision to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, this sorry series of incidents would never have taken place.

So if one of my loved ones had perished in that plane crash, I would immediately see who the real culprit is.

Bring on the Yakuza!

After Ghosn’s spectacular evasion from Japan, that country’s auhorities must be profoundly humiliated and looking for ways to retrieve their famous fugitive.

As we often say, all is fair in love and war, and if Shinzō Abe’s government wants the beleaguered auto executive under its control, it show asked the Yakuza for help.

For those who don’t know it, I’m talking about the infamous Japanese Mafia. They are well-known for their strict codes of conduct, their well organized nature, and unconventional ritual practices.

Adding to that the intriguing nature of Beirut as the epicenter of espionnage, we’d have a wonderful continuum in the “Carlos, the fugitive” saga.

I had predicted a month ago that Carlos Ghosn would flee, so let’s see if my hunch about the Yakuza bringing back the famous escapee materializes one more time…

Learning to live with whippers?

It seems like ski resorts have given up the war against whippers that populate their fun runs, especially early in the season.

They expect users to cut them with their steel edges instead. These pesky twigs aren’t too bad if they’re less than half-an-inch in diameter, but above that size, they can really ruin a skier’s day and create a clear and present danger.

So what’s the big deal, would you ask me?

Well, for one thing it’s making skiing more dangerous, especially when resorts never forget to claim as much “skiable acres” as humanly possible, and also a strong deterrent to spread more skiers on their whipper-infested runs and free a little more space on the rest of their crowded runs during peak periods.

As I have said before, the should cut them on a regular, rotating basis. Perhaps define five or six zones and each year, work on one of them with hand loppers or machines.

Not complicated, just a simple matter of scheduled maintenance.

Carlos Ghosn’s side of the story

We made the effort to watch the entire Press Conference Ghosn had set up to express his side of the story. All along he controlled the entire event, even if it felt more as a circus than a smooth PR affair.

Not only did he act as the alpha wolf he is, but as the middle eastern merchant he was born. He didn’t convince me much and while the Japanese authorities were probably not as nice as they could have been, especially with regards to banning visits from his wife.

This said, his former colleague Greg Kelly, also accused of financial misdeeds is still in Japan awaiting trial. If I were Ghosn, I would fear that Kelly might try to plea-bargain and say unpleasant things about his boss, in order to minimize his exposure.

It’s also important to remember that back on September 23, 2019, the SEC filed settled fraud charges against both Ghosn and Kelly for false financial disclosures that omitted more than $140 million to be paid to Ghosn in retirement.

Also today, Lebanon imposed a travel ban on Carlos Ghosn just after his Press Conference. All this doesn’t pass the “smell test”, at least for me...

Story and intellectual snobbery

Last night we tried to watch “Clouds of Sils Maria”, a 2014 drama film written and directed by Olivier Assayas, starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloë Grace Moretz.

In spite of the movie’s impressive reviews, nominations and rewards received, it was just a waste of our time.

The story was wishy-washy, the acting unconvincing and the whole was like putting lipstick on a pig. Which brings me – once more – to the classic assertion that a good story is key to a good movie or a good book, no matter how exceptional the acting and the directions could be.

So it’s often better to have a great story poorly acted and directed, than a weak one, even if it’s enhanced by the best stars, creative direction and stunning cinematography.

Look at the story as the ingredients needed for cooking. The best chef in the world, the best sauces, best recipe and presentation, won’t be able to make up for a less than acceptable quality of ingredients.

The same goes for any story, written or put up on screen.

Managing FOMO

FOMO or fear of missing out is defined as "a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent". it’s also defined as a fear of regret, that might lead to a compulsive concern that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, a profitable investment, or other satisfying events.

So with that in mind, how can we best manage FOMO? For one thing, FOMO folks want to indefinitely keep their options open and have a hard time making decisions and living with them. Decision making ability is fostered by intense practice and most people aren’t used to make decisions because they simply lack practice.

To overcome FOMO it is critical to be patient and take the time to study the situation so it’s possible to know when it’s the proper time to move forward. Patience is also useful in measuring FOMO. Its outcome sometimes takes a long time to develop and it’s often too easy to draw premature conclusions.

It also helps to be mentally prepared to fully accept and live with the consequence of a decision that may turned out to be bad. Finally, it helps a lot to always remain grateful for what we have and to accept that we can’t have everything. Needs are limited, but desires are endless.

Rubbing things the wrong way…

This weekend, we dismantled our Christmas tree and I took it to the Park City special recycling center created just for that purpose.

In the past, I used to place the tree on the roof rack, but these days, since our seasonal ornament isn’t taller than 6 feet, I somehow stuff it inside my car, but make sure it’s oriented in such way so it slides easily out of the vehicle when I unload it at the recycling place.

I want to pull it off without ruffling its branches and having them hook up into the interior of the car.

When I explained this to my daughter who is fluent in French but doesn’t necessarily possess all the vocabulary nuances of her parents’ mother tongue, I introduced the expression “à rebrousse-poil”.

This means rubbing something up the wrong way or ruffling something up, which are mere approximations in the translation of that act, which means in fact “going against the direction of an animal hair”, but generated much laughter, discussions and research in this early new year!

Too many skiers on the slopes?

With now more than 7.7 billion humans on earth, it’s only right that we begin to feel the squeeze on the ski slopes as well.

I skied late this week with my daughter thinking that the “tourists” would be long gone, but boy, was I wrong!

I don’t know for sure where they all came from, but they were still there with us, keeping us tight company, bringing the lift lines alive and making skiing down the hill a deadly game of chicken.

Agility and reading what folks in front of you are thinking, has now become part of the required skill-set of modern, proficient skiers.

In a previous blog, I was frowning upon using too much speed, but sometimes, skiing faster than the herd, shelters us from out-of-control skiers or snowboarders that could hit us from behind. We’re simply getting out of harm’s way.

What’s astonishing tough, is that with all this humanity on the slopes, how can we still manage to have any snow left?

Fine skier vs. fast skier

Part of skiing’s appeal is that it’s the closest thing to flying or be liberated from gravity. Of course, it’s also a form of emptying one’s mind, of contemplation and of complete change of scenery, but the feeling of speed and freedom is an important attraction of the sport.

A few days ago, as we were racing to reach a ski lift before it might be closed for the day, my daughter said that I was skiing dangerously too fast. She was absolutely right and as I thought about it, I’ve tried to see the difference and the limits associated with being a fine skier and fast skier.

I have also concocted that little graph to illustrate the point I’m about to make. When a skier is very good, he or she can afford to ski faster in relative safety.

There are of course many parameters to consider beside ski proficiency. Terrain and snow conditions, crowding, weather, visibility, equipment failure, obstacles, avalanches and personal well being (mental and physical) among many others.

Greater safety is attained when the skier is not skiing and greater danger is reached when proficiency is no longer enough to allow full control by the skier.

So here you have an omnipresent, fine and moving line that always lurks around when you are on your skis, and the bottom line is that one is always better off focusing on acquiring proficiency rather than speed...

Fabulous tools, deteriorating actors?

With all the tools that are available to us, are we becoming better humans, are we standing still, or regressing as we also become lazy and in a certain way, corrupt?

This is a pretty compelling question to ask ourselves on the eve of the 2020s. In other word, is technology and the information it brings us, a help or a hindrance to mankind?

I would be tempted to say that it’s a definite help, but when I see all the bogus news, Facebook, Instagram, the attitude of society and all the rest, I sometime wonder?

What about you?

Recycled Resolutions

On New Year’s Eve, I ran into that piece of humor about unkempt resolutions that get rolled over, year after year.

I thought “What’s wrong with that kind of recycling?” and thought that I could join the movement.

Hopefully, after years of struggling to let that resolution take shape for good, it might materialize in its entire glory.

Nothing that hoping, dreaming and persevering couldn’t accomplish, right?

Another year, which resolution?

New years come far too early and don’t seem to let us enough time to ponder about making resolutions that are workable, doable and most importantly will stick. It seems that 2020 is no exception for me.

Just last year as we were having dinner with my grandson, he was sharing is new year’s goal and asked me point-blank what was my resolution. Thinking on my feet, I almost didn’t hesitate and blurted out: “Too learn Spanish!”

Of course, I’ve been there before with very little to show for it and it’s fair to ponder if it will be different this time, or better yet just roll my eyes and say: “el tiempo dirá...”