Cool tuck vs. true tuck

Lately, I have been focusing on ways to increase my dwindling speed while I’m stuck on flat level cat-tracks during spring mid-afternoons, so the study of tucks has taken a priority in my observations and interest about ski technique. 

After revisiting my countryman and former neighbor Jean Vuarnet’s contribution to the modern tuck position, I also pondered about a form of tuck that I’ve observed on American ski runs for the past 25 years. 

That apparently nameless, streamlined position consists of bringing one’s hands on one’s ass and letting the poles extend behind so they follow the turbulence. While it provides a short-lived boost of speed as the skier’s center of mass is brought to the back, it’s not as aerodynamic as it might look and can’t measure with a high or normal tuck position.

Trust me, I’ve tried and measured it. In order to locate a name for that gliding position, I’ve attempted to ask Alpine ski experts on both side of the Atlantic, but few had an immediate answer and this was Park City’s Thomas Cook who recognized it as the “Jerry Tuck”. 

Some like Konrad Barteski, former British DH skier who placed 2nd in Val Gardena, Italy, in 1981, commented something like this: “That is a dumb position. Having spent some time in a wind-tunnel, only a dumb would use it". 

Sandy Liman, another ski expert posited that it was a “cold fingers” tuck, “most commonly seen on north facing cat tracks in December”, a vivid illustration, but necessitating an extremely warm rear-end to be effective. 

Over the years, I’ve been guilty of using that position on many occasions too, in an effort to experiment it, blend-in or to extract some aerodynamic miracle out of it, but most of all, because I found it cool. 

More recently, I’ve compared it to high-tuck position and found out that this alternative doesn’t even come close! The only good outcome of that analysis has been to find its name, the “Jerry Tuck”. 

Seth Masia, an established ski journalist proposed "Tailfeather's Tuck". As for me, I like "tail-tuck" or "fake-tuck". Then in looking for a French name, I was attracted by “Comet” because of the trailing light behind that celestial body. 

Of course, if you have a better idea, do chime in, please!

Can my skiing still improve?

I don’t know if it's the same with you, but some days my skiing sucks, while some others it can really feel out of this world. 

Skiing is made of so many variables that no one day or one single experience is ever the same. Likewise, we sometimes feel that we ski like Gods while the next moment we ski like klutzes. 

This realization make me think, when all is good, both the conditions and my skiing form, that I truly ski better than half-a-century ago. 

Hard to believe, but true. For one thing, I certainly was trying harder, not striving to ski smoother 

The equipment certainly plays a big role in making me feel that way, but frequency, mileage, experience and pushing the envelope have had an undeniable effect, not just on maintaining my skiing form, but in making it ever sharper, better than what it was half a century ago. 

Let’s hope it continues, ha, ha!

Revisiting the high tuck

Park City is a great ski mountain, but it has many flat level traverses that call for the most aerodynamic ski positions in order to save time. 

Using a full-tuck to travel these is not really practical, scares people and bring unwanted attention, so this winter, I have rediscovered the high tuck, which is another version of venerable tuck, but with legs extended. 

I get it by adjusting the hands upwards and moving them closer to the face, resting just below the chin. According to wind tunnel tests by the US Ski Team it works almost as well in decreasing drag than raising or lowering the stance. 

This breaks the air with a sharp point of contact. Lining up arms with legs decreases a racer’s width and exposure. Closing up other gaps, like the one between the elbows leaves fewer areas for air turbulence to build up, resulting in less drag. 

According to these tests, a good high tuck with proper hand position is way better than a low tuck that impedes turns and flexibility. 

With it, it still possible to turn effectively from the high tuck as well as absorbing terrain irregularities, making good speed, and quickly regaining the use of the poles if the situation demands it.

Dear, Dear, Deer Valley!

Since it was born in 1981, Deer Valley Resort has built a fantastic image and it’s pretty clear that Edgar Stern’s vision has been the motor driving that achievement. 

It has also rallied the oldest, most conservative skiers by refusing to allow snowboarding on its slopes and has solidified the strong support it enjoys from that general affluent and loyal group. 

As one would logically conclude, a season ski pass at Deer Valley is also very dear as it sells now for $2,550. This compare to $783 for an unrestricted pass at nearby Park City Mountain, yet the third of Deer Valley’s pass price gets you three times more skiing terrain, much more run variety and even a longer season. 

About nine times the value! 

This is mostly the reason why I’ll continue to get my ski fun at Park City Mountain!

Charting our post-Covid days...

As we’re all getting vaccinated and as we’re seeing some light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel, isn’t it time to begin planning now for our brighter future? 

No matter how we feel and what we say, that pandemic has frozen us in place and had taken away most of our coping and planning capacities. 

It has left us with a mixture of lethargy and laziness. At least, that’s what I think and am the first to admit. 

As the beam of hopeful light grows larger, it’s time to pick up things where we left them, re-invigorate ourselves, re-open the flow of creative juice and ask much more from ourselves that we have for the last 12 months. 

Call this reinvention or resurrection, but I’m all for it and ready to restart my engine!

Suez: like in the good old days?

The huge container ship blocking the Suez Canal reminds me of my cruise around the Cape of Good Hope when a Suez crossing wasn’t an option back in 1971.

Today, that Canal still handles 12% of sea trade, and each day of blockage disrupts more than $9 billion worth of goods, according to Lloyd’s List. 

If the problem drags on, shippers will have to consider making a U-turn and heading for the southern tip of Africa, and then Europe, or staying stuck in the Red Sea and Mediterranean. 

This would significantly increases the trip duration and costs. Sailing from the Suez Canal to Amsterdam takes just over 13 days when traveling at 12 knots, compared with 41 days if traveling around the Cape of Good Hope. 

I thought it was fun then, but I was so poor that time and even money weren’t a consideration…

Vail Resorts does the right things!

After extending the ski season from April 4th to the 11th, Park City Mountain, through Vail Resorts, its owner keeps on doing some good things. 

Next season, their ski passes will be 20% more affordable which is not only a step in the right direction (rate hikes in previous years were excessive), but a good way to compensate for all the hurdles its clientele had to go through this past season (reservations and distanciation, among others). 

This move will put enormous pressure on its competitor Alterra that just announced no price increase for 2021-22. 

Kudos to Vail Resorts and let’s hope they finally cut some of the whippers that invade our ski runs and our future will (almost) be perfect!

Chamonix ENSA and pedagogy in the early 70s

Fifty years ago I was in Chamonix for my five-week ski instructor training session at ENSA, and today, I have a hard time remembering what theoretical courses we received. 

I remember we learned about snow and avalanches, maybe the history of ski technique but very little, if anything, about pedagogy, customer relations and basic client’s psychology. 

The on-snow classes were all about technique, demonstrations, drills, explaining or demonstrating turns and other critical movements, a timed slalom race, an introduction to speed skiing (downhill) and plenty of endurance skiing in an apparent attempt to weed out the lesser skiers. 

As far as classroom was concerned, everything was mostly centered around safety like study of snow and avalanches. 

There was nothing about understanding students’ psychology, their fears, apprehensions, their sense of gliding and also no effort was made to introduce any rudiments of empathy, ability to step into one’s ski boots and technique aimed at relaxing students. 

Nothing either about organizing classes, group or private, general pedagogy and addressing a host of issues that always came up in practice. 

I don’t know what ENSA’s curriculum is now for modern instructors, but I wouldn’t be surprised that brute technique still overrules everything else in training ski instructors

My new approach to skiing

As I grow older, I absolutely don’t want to get hurt and see my ski season come to an unwanted and premature end. I also know that healing, at my age, takes much longer. 

Falling is therefore not a desirable option and staying safe has become a priority, without becoming a constant an overbearing obsession, but this new outlook has made a measurable and positive difference for me this season. 

My other priority has been to prefer quality of skiing over quantity, be it speed, accumulated vertical drop or total days skied. 

Instead, I focus more on my technique, my skiing pleasure, the corrections I want to incorporate into my skiing, my efficiencies and learning or discovering new paths, new trails and better ways to ski down the mountain. 

Yet, I still continue to ski very challenging runs and trees for me, because I find it essential to stretch my skills and never stay with a bad experience without erasing it by doing over correctly! 

A true win-win proposition!

Partial power outage...

That Sunday morning I get up early, goes into my office, turn on the switch, no light! My WiFi isn’t working either, all is dark, yet the furnace and the fridge are on, but there’s no light in the kitchen or elsewhere. I go downstairs and check the circuit breakers, nothing is tripped! 

I call Rocky Mountain Power and notify them of the situation, I’m told a technician will be sent to my place after 7 am. I check if we’ve gotten some new snow, turn on the outside switches and surprise they work and there’s more snow! 

I can’t understand what’s going on. Around 7:30 am my wife tells me the lights in the master bedroom and bath work. I bring the coffee machine there. Around 8 am the tech is on the ground, moving snow around to find out the location of the underground junction box, and explaining that this is a partial power outage caused by a missing phase in the circuitry. 

He works on it and reestablish the 130 V, not the 240 V supply, and tells me it’s either the cable to my house or the transformer that’s the problem. It later turns out that its the junction box serving both my house and my neighbor’s was completely soaked in water and in, large part, badly corroded.

The tech fixed that problem and the power was restored. I was impressed with the speed and quality of the service. We learn something new everyday!

Explaining the skiers surge in Park City

Every time I went skiing this winter, I was struck by the difficulties I had in parking my car. I’m not talking about much longer ski lines, a by-product of Covid-19’s rules of distanciation, but about the sheer number of skier’s cars in the ski area parking lots. 

I first thought that it was in direct correlation with the intense cabin fever suffered by every American, and skiing being an obvious and wholesome way to enjoy the outdoors, at least for those fortunate enough to afford it. 

This might have more than offset the reluctance of some destination traveler to come over during the pandemic. 

Then, yesterday, as I was listening to an NPR piece lamenting the shutdown of the Canadian-US border, it finally downed on me that the extra crowds were probably the result of all these US residents who couldn’t travel to Canada to ski because of the border closure between the two countries. 

So, I went into my files, did some research and found out that while both Canada and the United States lost both their international visitors that season (roughly 14 and 3.3 million respectively), the US might have potentially regained most of its citizens skiers that would have skied to Canada.

In Canada, these US visitors represent 56% of its international clientele, that accounts for about 7.8 million skier-days. 

So if you subtract 3.3 million international skiers that didn’t come to the US this winter, you end up with a net gain of 4.5 million skier-days for the United States, that is a 9% increase overall and probably a 10 to 12% increase for popular destinations like Park City with easy air access. 

Let’s stay tuned for the final May tally!

Welcome to Spring (skiing)!

In Park City, the March equinox is scheduled to happen today at 7:37 AM. I had to check with the local astronomer for the exact time as this date officially marks the start of the spring skiing season, even though these conditions have been present for quite a few days already.

Spring skiing brings too much warmth, tricky snow and a bunch of dangers that aren’t not normally with us the rest of the season. Granted, it’s not cold! 

So we need to become more tactical, patient, keep our our eyes wide open, follow the sun around the mountain and be ready for a vast array of nasty surprises. 

On most days, it consists of frozen slush on non-groomers in the morning, followed by molten lava in the afternoon that sticks to the skis, with very little good snow in between. 

While more spring sun can normally work wonders on one’s face tan, this year’s Covid-19 with its mask-wearing obligation won’t help in that regard and on the whole, spring skiing will continue to be as challenging on our legs as usual!

When “old-fashion” feels okay

Recently, I’ve been skiing around Jupiter, that is the uppermost lift-served area over Park City and have been riding its antiquated double-chair and thought that it was finally good that such a relic of the past be kept intact in our fast, modern, ever-changing world. 

True, I’ve often been saying the opposite, but now, as Park City is overrun with skiers from all over the country, it’s good to still have a preserved, natural area that can remind us of the good old day and I truly appreciate is as such. 

So, today I would like to acknowledge that I’ve change my mind and want to keep Jupiter the same, forever!

Septuagenarian skiing (continued)

Today, let’s turn to that advantages of skiing when one’s is more than 70… 

If you’ve began skiing very young, you’re likely to have accumulated a wealth of experience and efficient abilities that have been built on an improved technique, an impressive mileage and a continued exposure to a vast array of terrains, snow and weather conditions. 

The older skier “has seen them all”, or almost! There’s also a great appreciation and understanding for speed, gliding, saving techniques when things go wrong, falling “gracefully” and knowing one’s limits. Did I mention “reading the snow”, knowing the terrain and using it to get the most fun out it? 

All these resources go a long way to compensate some of the pitfalls we covered yesterday, so never underestimate them and always remember to use them.

Finally, being over 70 means having nothing to prove and no one to impress, so even if you form isn’t the most beautiful and your attire won’t make heads turn in the ski lines, don’t worry, you’re skiing for your own pleasure, not the gallery’s.

Septuagenarian skiing

How does one’s relationship with skiing evolves past the age of 70? That question is something I’m asking myself everyday and wondering how other skiers in that age group respond to it. 

The most obvious hurdle is fear of getting hurt through falling or collisions, especially these days on super-groomed runs. Getting back up can also be a major issue, especially in deep snow. 

There are also problems associated with age, like sens-related issues such as loss of balance, poor eyesight, hearing-loss, blurred memory as well as chronic pain whether joint or back related. In addition, it’s fair to mention a decrease in muscular strength and more physical fatigue for the same amount of exercise.

Let’s not forget an overall body stiffening due to a hardening of the muscles, tendons and other tissues that make shock absorption far less efficient and I’m not mentioning bones that become weaker. 

Living close to a ski area also plays a huge role. If skiing is distant the older person will ski far less often and may resent the enormous of time absorbed by the sport itself, the commuting time and the traffic conditions (crowded roads, parking difficulties and driving on snow).

Cost can also play a role in terms of the soaring price of lifts tickets or season pass, obsolete or won out equipment that should be upgraded, gloves that need to be replaced and maybe a helmet that should be added to the panoply. 

There are other issues to like not having one or several partners to ski with, particularly when the spouse doesn’t or no longer wants to ski. 

Finally, with each new year, there seem to be more apprehension towards starting a seasonal routine as it takes a very strong motivation to turn the switch on and decide to enlist for yet another winter. 

If you think of other issues, let me know and we’ll add them to the list as I intend to develop that topic in future blogs. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you the good reasons for keeping skiing as a septuagenarian!

Lost on Wheaton Way ?

The other day, as I was driving down from Empire Pass, between Deer Valley and Park City, I noticed “Wheaton Way”, an unfamiliar street sign on the short, steep road connecting the old mine to Silver Lake, the upper section of Deer Valley resort. 

I thought to myself: “Bob Wheaton can’t be dead!” since streets are normally named after folks that are deceased, unless they’re elected officials who is no longer in office. I looked up on Wikipedia, no Bob Wheaton was listed, so in order to find him out, dead or alive, I intensified my search and could find nothing proving that he had indeed passed away. 

You see, Bob Wheaton used to be the general manager of Deer Valley Resort, until Alterra, the new owner of the resort, decided to remove him a few months later. Since the inception of the ski area, Bob had executed, to the letter, the vision and plan of its founder, Edgard Stern. 

He also deftly built a powerful image among the local politicians and business associations, to the point that when he was terminated, the Park City Area Lodging Association recommended that he be honored in some way.

Without missing a beat, our mayor and our Park City council members unanimously approved on December 20, 2018, four months after it was announced that he was leaving Deer Valley, to publicly name that portion of road after Bob Wheaton. 

While there’s is a “Stein Way” honoring the legendary Stein Eriksen who passed five years ago, there is not, to this date, one street to enshrine the name of Edgar Stern, the rightful, original founder of Deer Valley and its unique way of doing business. 

This goes a long way in showing that by cleverly cultivating his image with the most influential folks in the community, Bob Wheaton finally got a small street named after him without having to die for it. Good strategy!

Please, encourage me!

How would life be if we had people cheering for us constantly and offering their encouragements on a daily basis? 

I’d be tempted to say that we’d achieve much more and we all would have an even better track-record to prove it. 

But alas, life is far from always being a spectator sport where the gallery cheers for us and helps us reach out for accomplishments we’d never quite believe we could accomplish. 

This leads me to the next point: If few or even no one was there to encourage us while we were doubting, trying or in the midst of struggling, wouldn’t it be a good enough reason for encouraging anyone in need of a nudge, of a start or waiting for tilting a tipping point towards greatness. 

Think about it... It’s about your family members, your friends or anyone deserving of not being ignored and waiting for that magic enabling signal!

One year ago today...

Just a year ago, on a Sunday morning, we heard on the radio that Colorado was closing all of its ski resorts pursuant to and order from its Governor. 

That very morning, I was scheduled to go skiing with my grand-son, but at about the same moment I also learned that all Utah ski resorts were shutting down as well, so the outing was canceled. 

At first, the stoppage was planned for just one week and frankly, while I wasn’t sure ski operators would reopen for the reminder of that season. 

Yet, I was optimistic that with Spring and Summer coming, the virus would lose its potency and we’d soon be totally out of danger and life would return to normal. 

With almost 540,000 death in the US alone, and soon 3 million worldwide, I was also totally wrong!

Let me revel “The Secret” to you!

I’ve been so much influenced by one positive-thinking book, “Think and Grow Rich”, back in the days, that I wanted to read “The Secret”, the updated standard bearer of that life philosophy. 

From the get go, the fancy presentation of the book, its questionable rooster of so-called experts, as well as the professed belief that eyesight or health problems could easily be fixed by the “Law of Attraction”, rang warning bells in my mind! 

In fact, the few good advice contained in the book could be dispensed by a short, 25 page outline, and the rest is all marketing fluff, feel-good prose and borderline fraudulent. 

And where is the “secret” in all this? The good advice is just common sense and isn’t locked inside some remote vault! 

This book is totally forgettable and some research on Wikipedia about Positive Thinking, or the New Thought Movement, and its beneficial effects as well as its pitfalls might be a good alternative primer...

Want to ski more smoothly?

While riding the chairlift with my wife and observing the skiers below, I pointed to her a seemingly good skier looking down on his skis. 

I critiqued that visual fixation to the immediate perimeter along the ski tips as a way to blind skiers to their immediate surroundings and chart their itinerary in a smooth, continued and much more efficient way. 

This leads to skiers stopping to often instead of benefiting from the continuum of linked turns and steady momentum. 

Sure when the skier’s ability, the run, the terrain or the snow bring challenges, the natural reaction is to fall back to one’s immediate surroundings and obliterate the big, more essential picture.

As a way to train for looking ahead I suggest that skiers, on easy terrain, train themselves how not to see their ski tips at all and trust that they’re in fact an extension of their feet. 

They’ll soon realize they don’t have to see them and will get used to glancing away and continuously plan their evolution down the slope for a smoother, much effortless skiing...

A solution to French teenage murderers?

Recently, a 14-year-old girl was found dead on in Paris, after being thrown into the Seine river. She was the victim of an ambush organized by two 15-year-old classmates. 

This sad event had a huge impact all over France with Social Media being designated as the obvious and largest culprit. 

From a distance and common-sense perspective though, this terrible tragedy puts most of the responsibility squarely on those parents who have long given up raising their off-springs. Instead, they’ve let school, media or technology assume their parental role. 

Under French law, the culprits, being minors, can’t be locked up for more than 20 years. Shouldn’t the parents face the music too and assume partial penal responsibility for the act of their kids by being locked up for a matching number of years, not to mention the assumption of civil liability arising in such situations. 

If the law was changed in that direction, behaviors would change drastically the concept of parenting and its responsibilities.

Vail Resorts’ good deed

A good deed from that mega-ski resort may sound like an oxymoron, but it appears that Park City Mountain, through Vail Resorts, its parent company, will extent our ski season by one week from April 4 to April 11.

The resort said that it was a way of saying thank you to its pass holders and guests for their continued support, for following safety protocols and showing personal responsibility during this unprecedented season, and for helping them open and stay open. 

I am very appreciative of the gesture, and you guessed it, intend to take full advantage of it. 

In recent past, I have prayed, burned incense, sacrificed a stray deer or limping squirrel, but none of my efforts worked, while just doing nothing produced a real miracle. 

A technique to remember for creating future dreams that must come true!

Five weeks in Chamonix…

Fifty years ago, I was packing my bags to go to Chamonix and attend the “Auxilliaire’s”, five-week training session at the old ENSA (Ecole Nationale de Ski et d’Alpinisme), to get my second-stage ski instructor certification and the cool pin that came with it. 

I didn’t know anyone there and never stayed much in touch with my new-found colleagues. I got to ski le Brévent, la Flégère, les Houches and les Grands Montets, learned about technique, avalanches and managed to graduate under the guidance of Professeur Martinal. 

This was an easy rite of passage, a pleasant learning experience and a major step into my nascent ski industry career. Five weeks I’ll never forget…

My take on the Meghan & Harry's saga

On Sunday night, like millions of others, I invested two hours of my time, including one hour of commercials, to learn that Millennial and Monarchy don’t mix well. I know, Meghan Markle isn’t quite a true Millennial, but if you average her age and that of Prince Harry it works. 

So, I found out that Monarchy, that also is the torch bearer for colonialism is also still a hotbed for racism. I’m not surprised and while I feel sorry for Meghan to have been railroaded into that rotten deal by Prince Harry. That said, I’m confident they’ll survive the break with the Royals and will have a good life playing in their Santa Barbara chicken coop. 

This sad show showed me once more that the British Monarchy, like the Church of England it represents, are now obsolete and irrational institutions, that there is no “firm” or institution, but an old Queen and her stupid son who are marooned in tradition with their head stuck in the sand for lack of a better descriptor.

What was funny in the interview though, was the royal, if not godly role played by Oprah, the pope of pop culture, who unfortunately failed to ask Harry the quintessential question: “Do you see any future in the British Monarchy?”

Folks who love their cars

When it comes to automobiles, there seems to be a huge gap between driver’s satisfaction (a very subjective notion) and objective, technical ranking of cars. 

In a recent Consumer Reports’ article, the magazine was comparing how it rates car against how users perceive their auto, and the results were pretty striking. 

Tesla clearly came on top of that ranking while the magazine’s testers were far from being enthusiastic about the brand. Are Tesla owner fanatical about their brand or is there something that testers have missed? 

Other surprises, Lincoln and Ram/Chrysler were immediately following the electric car company, while they are not trending on the market. Both Subaru and Hyundai were most in keeping with the magazine’s ratings. 

Yet, so-called “luxury brands” like Lexus and Infiniti ranked below their standard, parent brands (Toyota and Nissan)! 

Just to say that what people perceive to be right can be faraway from what well-meaning engineers and professional testers determine. This said, I would tend to believe the actual users!

Is being competitive bad?

Some religions and philosophies seem to look poorly at competition and at anything “competitive”, saying that it’s bad as pit people against each others. 

Yet, I’m one of these individuals who have grown into thinking that competition was good and was one of the pillars to growth and enrichment, both mentally and materially. 

Often, competition is equated to capitalism and its endless drive to grow and improve whatever is on its way in spite of all of its ill-effects, but by the same token, material and social progress are the results of various forms of competition and it makes it hard to condemn that drive altogether.

I'd think that, in the end, the healthier form of competition is the one we can hold against our own selves and I hang on to that one as a motivator for personal growth, healthy as well as good mental living! 

This is in fact what competition in sport should always be about, but too often, it gets hijacked by hubris and become yet another capital sin...

Can skiing faster be safer?

Yesterday, I learned that my 76 year old neighbor got into a ski accident three weeks ago and ended up spending four days at the hospital for broken ribs. He doesn’t clearly remember what happened, but thought that he was hit from the rear by an out-of-control snowboarder or skier. 

He fell as a result of the impact and the culprit left the scene of the accident. Today, he’s doing okay and is still recuperating. He simply told me “Keep on skiing fast, so you won’t get hit from behind by someone out of control…” 

There sure is a lot of truth in that admonition that I practice every time I ski by myself. When I’m in the company of others, I generally lead, but pace myself to a speed that feels comfortable and secure to those following me. 

Under these conditions, we all become potential targets to these speed demons that can lurk behind us and mow us down like blades of grass… 

I can’t tell either how long I’ll be able to ski fast enough to afford myself this kind of active protection, but except for certain circumstances (spring skiing being one of them), I avoid perfectly groomed run where these colliders love to roam and prefer rougher terrain and marginal snow conditions!

Skiing “Indicator” at Jupiter

Recently, when I’m skiing, I’ve become less reluctant to spend time exploring and snooping around instead of just skiing like a machine. 

A few days ago, I had skied down “Six-Bells” the first time this season; it’s a small steep couloir (45 to 50 degrees) that sits on top of Jupiter ski runs and had noticed a rather significant opening, skier’s right from that particular narrow passage.

That passage, so to speak, is called “Indicator” and quite surprisingly, I had never tried to venture into it. 

So, the other day, I purposely plunged my skis into that unknown gully and quickly found out that the first part was very, very steep, something like 50 degrees. It was also tight, and even though I’m skiing on 180 cm skis, there wasn’t much wiggle room! 

It was rocky in the upper section too which forced me to proceed with caution and wiggle my way through some trees in order to protect my skis. I finally got to the bottom of it, and promised me to try it again when there will be a more abundant snow cover...

Half-way vaccinated!

In the past days, my wife and I have received our first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine. We didn’t chose, and got the Moderna version. 

By the end of this month we’ll get the second dose and hopefully will be sheltered from that pesky virus. Park City and its County were slow to start the vaccination process, but I must say that the effort has now picked up steam and the whole procedure we went through was flawlessly organized.

It took place as a drive-in format inside the now dormant Park City movie studios and was a breeze from beginning to end. 

A little burden has been lifted off our shoulder and with now half of the family having begun the process, we can’t wait for its three remaining members to get their respective shots!

Victim of American propaganda?

At regular intervals, I’m asked why in the world did I leave my magic Alps to come to America. Most often than not, I mutter some inconsequential answer. 

The reality though, is when I was a small kid, we used to receive a pamphlet or magazine at home, touting the beauty and wonders of America and its society, and when I read that material, I must have instantly fallen under the spell. 

Our family’s material life wasn’t even close to that fairyland described herein and at the time, I was pretty much taking my marvelous surroundings for granted. That dreamland description must have made a permanent mark upon my young mind and from there, irrevocably driven my destiny.

Nothing anyone could do about that! Obviously pure propaganda, that literature was part of the “American Way of Life” indoctrination from the USIA, an anti-communist agency founded during the Cold War in 1953, by President Eisenhower, with the mission of “understanding, informing and influencing foreign audiences in order to promote interest national and deepen dialogue between Americans and US institutions with their counterparts abroad.” 

I was evidently part of that targeted audience and in my case, it did work to perfection!

My battle against that shrinking time…

The more projects or fun activities I have, the less time I have to fit everything piece into a tight 24 hours. 

This seems to be my dilemma these days and I must admit that I end up wasting far less time than say, just ten years ago! 

Sure, I probably could do better, but I value everything I do so much that I don’t intend to make cuts anywhere. 

This scarcity also explains why days, weeks and years don’t last as long as they used to, and even though time is distributed perfectly equally to all of us humans – no inequity there - I seem to chronically run out of that precious commodity! 

Now, as rare, precious and healing some idle time might appear to be, I believe that if I had it, I would no longer have the wasteful impulse to squander it!

Inspiring books about mountaineering exploits

Recently, I’ve been reading a series of high altitude climbing-mountaineering books relating exploits and mishaps taking place in Asia, between the Karakorum and the Himalayas, and must say that not only this adventure reading keeps me on the edge of your seat, but is for me, also highly addictive. 

If I were not in my early 70s, I would get involved at once in that wonderful endeavor! No wonder then, that many climbing vocations have been ignited by the revelations contained in a regular dose of this kind of reading. 

I can vividly remember that, as an 8 to 10 year old child, I spent time in the summer in my Alpine pasture with a city-kid my age, from nearby Thonon, on Geneva Lake’s south shore, who had been totally raptured by reading the work from Roger Frison-Roche, that French prolific mountain writer who gain celebrity through “Premier de cordée” (First on the rope) in1944. 

That reading triggered his life-long passion for climbing and for trying to getting me bouldering on local cliffs. At home we had no such books, let alone nothing to read but the newspaper! Fortunately or unfortunately, I had no access to such books, and I obviously missed getting sucked into hard-core mountain climbing. 

If that had been the case, I might not be alive today to tell that story...