Sick of Covid

After 18 month, the entire world is now Covid-sick. I’m not talking about the full-blown Covid-19 with hospitalization and being placed in a ventilator and what-not, but just living under that pervasive threat, that lingering uncertainty and with all that surrounding noise that is for the most part totally useless and destructive. 

The rock-bottom interest rates make no sense, the stock-market neither and Trump’s legacy on demonizing masks and vaccine has created too much unneeded and irreparable chaos and damage. 

No matter how mentally strong we are, this feels like a never-ending dystopian story, an everlasting “freeze” and, with time, this lingering crisis becomes very hard to sustain.

Maybe I’ve got some form of ADD, but I like to do things, go forwards, try new roads, but I can’t! I feel somehow held back by this social psychosis called Covid-19. My usually strong drive feels blunted and I can’t get my fierce motivation back. Is it the age, Covid or both? Or is this just me, or do you feel the same?

The Army we have…

The late Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld famously declared, "You go to war with the Army you have." I guess, based on that kind of comment, our army was less than prepared and competent at the onset of the Afghan and Iraq wars. 

Did it get better? Not as far as both theaters operations were concerned based on the time we got stuck there, all the casualties and the obscene price-tag of these adventures. 

That’s why I’d now tend to agree with Rumsfeld, as our military performance has equally failed to impress me, particularly the last two decades in Afghanistan, pacifying the population and training a new army at the tune of more than 2 trillion dollars for each war! 

The top brass kept on promising us that the cultural turn-around of that backward country was always “around the corner” and that the following month would see some definite progress. Had Biden not pulled the plug on this serial incompetence, we could have stayed in that place for another 30 years without seeing one once of improvement. 

Of course, now it’s Biden’s turn to be blamed when whatever blame that must be parceled out, ought to be placed on back of the most costly military institution in the world. If this is not woeful incompetence on the part of our generals present and past, I don’t know what is.

Today, in view of that total failure, lack of good judgment and sound plans, I wonder if there’s any working strategy left to defend our country if it suddenly fell under attack...

A first trip ‘round the world, part 47

In terms of my favorite Mt. Buller ski runs, I might have left another good one for last; namely, Federation, which in those days was part of the competition's Orange Lift Network. 

We got there because they’d let us, as I assume there was some kind of reciprocity between the Blue and Orange Lifts to let ski instructors ride all lifts, free of charge. 

From a skiing standpoint, Federation’s skiing was, almost like Bull Run’s, no as large an area for sure, but the second best ski bowl available after Bull Run that was steep and had good snow quality when there was sufficient coverage to ski on the whole mountain. 

Remember that in those days Mt. Buller had no snow-making and the bottom of the southern ski runs were too close to the typical snow line. With a vertical drop of only 625 ft, Federation’s bowl was significantly shorter than Bull Run’s. 

The particularity of Federation was its “bluff”, a small rounded cliff that was running across the top from side to side and transitioning the slope from gentle to very steep. Compared to Bull Run slopes Federation’s were much more wooded, adding to the challenge as no one wants to hug a gum tree! 

This place was another favorite of mine, that I loved to escape to when I was able to get there for some free skiing. The terrain was seemingly rougher than that of Bull Run, but was varied enough to justifying skiing the place every now and then.

The old T-bar made by GAM, an Australian company, that we used to ride on, was upgraded to a triple, fixed-grip Doppelmayr chair with a much increased vertical drop going to 1,000 ft just in time for the 1981 season.

 I don’t know where the extra 375 ft. of vertical were found, most likely by moving the top station much higher towards the flat top and by moving the bottom station further down the hill.

Let’s go back and compare the two lifts, plus all the new ones, as soon as we get a chance!

A first trip ‘round the world, part 46

At Mt. Buller, there was plenty of fog, a lot rain and drizzle, sometime - thank God! - some snow and, from time to time, ice sculptures on lifts that were out of this world. 

It's also true that the high humidity, the semi-permanent drizzle conditions, the quasi-maritime climate, all seized by a sudden snap of cold and frost, created a "perfect storm" for this kind of phenomenon.

On such days, early morning, while we were still snug in our beds, the lift crew was already working at trying to remove the frost that was paralyzing our chairlift, so the mountain could open on time. 

With the kind of climate we were under, our Pomas, T-Bars and Chairlift were often bearing the brunt of all these elements. 

The extreme and volatile weather conditions we were under, on a few occasions, meant that our ski lifts were fully iced-up, frozen in place, and unable to run. 

The lift crew had to first assess how much ice was covering the bull-wheel, the ropes and the towers. 

Then, in freezing cold temperatures and with howling winds, the crew had to climb up the towers armed with aluminum hammers, and banged away to break the frozen ice off the lift. 

As they chipped away at the ice, the vibrations from their hammers often removed the ice on the next chairs, and on long sections of the cables, between towers, as well as on the sheaves attached to these. Sometime, when exposed, the bull-wheel was a real challenge to free from the ice. 

Of course on our lone chairlift and everywhere else, it was critical to make sure that all the ice would be removed to prevent later fall and possible injury to skiers below. 

While I've never seen these kinds of buildup of ice in the Alps or the American Rockies, I guess these situations also happen to a certain extent in places like British Columbia, Japan, Scandinavia and of course, New Zealand...

How many more?

Yesterday marks the 36th year that we arrived in Park City and began to set roots in that magic spot. 

As we begin our 37th year as “Parkites”, how many more years can we hope for? 

If it’s another one, this will make Park City the place I have continuously spent half of my total life compared to all the other places I’ve lived since I’m born. 

If it’s more, I’ll take them all gratefully, as long as I am still healthy, and I promise that I do everything possible to make the best out of them in that little Paradise!

A first trip ‘round the world, part 45

In retrospect, I believe that Kooroora was the most dangerous ski run at Mt. Buller, because of its out-of-control “booze-culture”. I also thought that Australians were heavy drinkers. Well, yes and no. 

They were among the heaviest drinkers in the world, guzzling more than ten liters of pure alcohol per year, at least according to some data I recently read. I’m sure it had not changed much since we were drinking at Kooroora. 

According to the World Health Organization, Australians drink more pure alcohol per year than Americans, Canadians and the Japanese. The report states that: “Australians drink 10.6 liters of pure alcohol each year, much higher than the global average of 6.4 liters.” 

The reason we did survive Kooroora is that we benefited from some serious training in France, a country in which, the same report claims, the average person consumes more than 12 liters of pure alcohol, beating the Russian that could only handle 11.7 liters and the Aussie of course! 

Then, what about America? We’re still below the 10 liter level, but Covid-19 may derail that good behavior. The report also found Australians were among the highest binge drinkers in the world with 45% of them identified as such. 

This affects mostly youngsters aged between 15 and 19. Binge is defined as “heavy episodic drinking” where 60 grams of pure alcohol is consumed in one sitting, In that category, putting Australia almost at the top of the world. 

There must have been a “binge” virus when we were at Mt. Buller, and those of us that were not vaccinated caught it. What is certain though, is that we always showed up every morning, on time, for the class lessons. At 23-24, we still felt that we were absolutely indestructible! 

This said, I’m glad we checked out of the Kooroora bar before delirium tremens hit and before they’d bury us at the Mansfield cemetery... 

I’ll raise my glass to that! 

A first trip ‘round the world, part 44

I’ve always been interested in ski teaching technique. Perhaps this is due to the fact I was self-taught as a kid, and didn’t benefit of any guidance until I began working in a ski-school and attend the training programs at ENSA in Chamonix. 

This lack of early education must have been behind my curiosity and my interest in the matter. The French Ski School at Mt. Buller was totally focused on teaching the French technique, especially since from the beginning, its lead instructors from Maurice Jaun to Alexis Saudan or Gérard Bouvier, were all member of the ENSA faculty. 

Next door, at the Austrian ski school, things were different and maybe less orthodox than the true Austrian skiing technique. Yet, because we were neighbors, they were too hard to ignore and I must say that their mere presence perked up my interest in knowing more about their teaching method. 

So, I’d like to first spend a few moment explaining the Austrian approach to ski instruction. It developed after World War II, when Professor Stefan Kruckenhauser took over the leadership of the Ski Home (the Austrian ENSA) at St. Christoph, just over St. Anton. Starting in 1955, he became the evangelist for his "Wedel" technique and spread it all over the world. 

In 1956 the "Austrian Ski Curriculum" was published and that book proved to be a bestseller translated into many languages. Let’s say that he was the equivalent to the French tandem Paul Gignoux – Emile Allais, except that their “Ski Français” that came out in 1937 was to my knowledge never translated and hence, the widespread notoriety of the Austrian technique can be traced to the effort made to translating an essential technique. 

To simplify, “Wedel” was sacrificing appearance for efficiency, which wasn’t far or different from the French’s obsessive: “Christiana léger”. That curriculum was in force until 1970, but Kruckenhauser and his instructors did their best to observe the confluence of racing technique and an ever changing technology to draw their own solutions and evolve their method. 

All these technical developments and especially the "Wellen Technique" (which could have meant “riding the waves”) had just appeared following the 1968 Aspen Interski, when we arrived at Mt. Buller in the newly published "Austrian Ski Curriculum". It was published by the Austrian Professional Ski Instructors’ Association.

At about the same time, Georges Joubert “Teach yourself to ski” was published and validated the new wide-track approach proclaimed by Kruckenhauser, “the Pope of skiing”. Joubert was smart enough to get it translated into English, by Curt Chase, at the time the Aspen ski school director and was able to get his views out of France. 

In Austria, Kruckenhauser's own son-in-law, Franz Hoppichler who began managing the Federal Sport Home at Obergurgl in 1959, would take over the leadership of the Federal Sports Home at St. Christoph in 1972.  

In a nutshell, that new direction was born from observing Killy and his effective, if not iconoclast skiing form and began a departure from the Austrian dogmatic philosophy of “perfect-looking style obsession” and “reverse-shoulder”, into wide-stance and a more utilitarian way of skiing. This was also a defensive response to the growing popularity of the French ski technique. There was of course a questionable “down-unweighting” element, but, I guess, no one is ever perfect! 

One thing that was notable though, was Kruckenhauser advocating to keep beginners on short skis until they understand the basic element of the sport and have decided that this game can really be fun after all—something nice in 1.50-meter skis for ladies and 1.70 for men. This latter part was a very good idea, and I still can’t understand that the French way of teaching never addressed the excessive length of skis as a tyrannical hindrance to learning. I remember that at the French Ski School, all male instructors were always on 207 cm skis!

The Austrian ski school at Mt. Buller was let by Walter Frois, from Wolfurt in Voralberg, home of Doppelmayr ropeways. The Australian season over, he’d return to Alpine Meadows, California where he also ran the ski school there and worked with Mike Porter. According to Mike, Walter worked at Zürs up until 2-3 years ago. He now lives in Daalas a small hamlet at the base of the Sonnenkopf ski resort. 

At Mt. Buller, his team included Austrian, of course, but also Swiss like Pierre Pfister, from Glion sur Montreux, René Zeller and some Americans like Mike Porter from Vail, and the whole group was teaching a mixture of Austro-Swiss-American technique to their students, including down-unweighting along with “wide-track” turns. 

Absent modern ski sidecuts (we’re still in 1971) down-unweighting didn’t quite work with novices because that new theory required a significant amount of speed beginner skiers were totally incapable of. The old French method using down-and-up un-weighting was still much more appropriate and adapted to teaching new skiers…

Why good leadership is so difficult

Over the years, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to be in leadership positions and can attest that enjoying the spotlight provided by being a point person can be much more challenging than it’s rewarding. 

Making decisions often becomes becomes the necessary and constant evil on a daily basis. With it, the path to decision-making is paved with landmines and while one learns to avoid them as much as possible, accidents become a statistical price to pay. 

In other words, leaders have to accept that in the process of moving forward and deciding, failures are unavoidable and must be accepted as part of the landscape. It seems to me that the more decisions a leader – or anyone, for that matter – makes, the better their quality and, over time, the failure rate is likely to go down. 

The greatest difficulty is in getting going, in ramping up the process, and in deciding, there’s often much pain and nail-biting in store for the decision-maker when outcomes go sideways. 

So here you have it. There’s never any free lunch. Everyone wants to be, or be seen as a leader, but very few are willing to take the heat if things turn out badly, so herein lays the reason why so few heads of state are cut out to lead. 

The leader in training has to accept that the path will be arduous and all the criticism and that there will be plenty of boos waiting around the corner before savoring victories...

A first trip ‘round the world, part 43

I had never spent any time in an English-speaking country prior to my coming to Australia and during the 8 years I learned the language at school, none of my teachers were native speakers either. 

After that, I spent all of my free time during a 16 month military service in the French Air Force, brushing up whatever knowledge I had in the tongue of Shakespeare with “Méthode Assimil”, a French self-taught method that got me a head-start when I began teaching skiing to English-speaking clients (mostly Americans) during my two first years as an instructor. 

Following that, I was lucky to benefit from at least 40 day “immersion learning” of the Australian language on the boat and well-prepared to handle the Australian way of speaking on the first day I taught at Mt. Buller. 

Sure, my ski vocabulary was woefully inadequate and I soon discover that my poles were called “stocks” and the Molony’s ski rental down the road from the ski school was named “ski hire”. Since that time, I’m now into my 45th year of American English and I still must pay very close attention in order to occasionally understand an Aussie speaking. 

But why in the world do they talk so “funny”? There are lots of theories about that. 

One is that, due to the proliferation of flies, Aussies tried to talk with their mouths as tightly closed as possible, thus explaining the slur and shortened words that we hear today. 

Another theory is that the hordes of drunken convicts slurred their words so much that it added an intoxicated tone to their speech pattern. 

The scientific version is that Australian English began to split from British and Irish English after the Colony of New South Wales got established in 1788. Australian English arose from a mixture of early settlers that came from a variety of regions in Great Britain and Ireland. By the 1820s, the new slang was quite distinct from the languages spoken in Britain and Ireland. 

There’s of course the Aboriginal influence that also impacted Australian English—mainly names like dingo, kangaroo, boomerang, wallaby, that have also become international. 

Other examples are cooee and hard yakka. Cooee is also a notional distance: “if he's within cooee, we'll spot him”. “Hard yakka” means hard work. Also of Aboriginal origin is the word “bung”, from the Sydney pidgin English, meaning "dead", with some extension to "broken" or "useless". 

Many towns or suburbs of Australia have also been influenced or named after Aboriginal words. The best-known example is the capital, Canberra, named after a local Ngunnawal language word meaning "meeting place" that is also behind Mt. Buller’s notorious “Kooroora”. 

Of course, typical Australian expressions include “outback”, meaning a remote, sparsely populated area, the “bush”, a native forest or a country area in general, and “g'day”, a typical form of greeting. The complete list of course is much more substantial and it would fill pages of that blog and use time we all don’t have… 

I guess that’s why we all love 'Straya, right? 

A first trip ‘round the world, part 42

It was snowing lightly that night and my buddy Carey Petrovik, suggested that me, JP and a bunch of his friends from Mt. Beauty, go hunting the wombat down valley on the way to the town of Mansfield. 

I’d never been a hunter and the last time I held a firearm was about 4 years before, during boot-camp as I began my air force compulsory service. 

Never one to turn down the prospect of some adventure, JP was quite enthused by the prospect of leaving Mt. Buller for a night, so we acquiesced and down we went, piled-up in Carey’s friends in what seemed to be a beat-up Range Rover. 

When we got there, it was raining pretty hard, no snow on the ground, of course, and we found ourselves at night, in the middle of the bush and in the mud with nothing to see in front of us. With the rain and the cloud cover, it was pitch-dark, and I was afraid we might tear our ski school jackets as we moved into the deep thicket.

For the life of me, I didn’t even know what a wombat was or even looked like. In the state of Victoria, Wombats were seen as a varmint by many, particularly by farmers who had serious problems with their burrows in the meadows where their tractors could get stuck if the earth collapsed underneath. 

But as Carey put it, “if you're going to shoot a wombat on the paddock, another ten are going to come in and use that hole…” As we were “hunting” we caught sight of what appeared to be a wallaby, JP said he stepped on what felt like a platypus and I was afraid there might be snakes. 

Then later on, Carey’s friend said they saw a wombat, shot it, but missed it. Sometime, well after midnight we returned to Mt. Buller, soggy, our après-ski boots muddy, feeling cold and empty-handed. The wombat won 1-0, so we skipped bar closure time at Kooroora and went straight to bed.

A first trip ‘round the world, part 41

I remember that during the 1971 Australian Alpine Ski Championships that took place at Mt. Buller, we were visited not only by my friend Joël Gros, but also by another Frenchman, the coach Robert Tessa, from Les Deux Alpes ski resort, near Grenoble France. 

Robert had been retained by the Australian Ski Federation to coach its Alpine Team, along with Ben Griff, through the end of the 1972 Olympic season, culminating with the Sapporo Games in Japan. A handsome man, he was a person of very few words, either aloof, but more probably shy and modest. 

It’s funny that he made a strong impression on me and that I can still see him in my mind’s eye. Marcel thought he had come to Australia to promote Dynamic skis for the summer, but he was more into the ski scene than just that. 

An excellent skieur, Robert Tessa, had made it to the French Development Team and had won the famed French “Challenge des Moniteurs” (a classic, yearly ski instructor slalom race series) in 1969, and was an active ski coach at Les Deux Alpes, near Grenoble, France, where my friend Jacques Guillaume, remembers having worked under his guidance. 

Actually, the Tessa family goes back a long way at what was called the Mount de Lans, before it was renamed Les Deux Alpes. There, Rodolphe Tessa, Robert’s dad, built a first inn to welcome hikers and skiers that ventured all the way to this pastoral mountain hamlet, and where Alpine skiing really took off between 1946 and 1955. 

Later, this modest establishment would evolve a lot and become one of the iconic hotels of that growing mountain community, and Robert Tessa also owned a ski shop at the entrance to the ski resort. Just like us, he had taught skiing at Mt. Buller and developed relationships with the Australian ski federation that led him to become a national coach. 

He followed his Australian assignment by becoming the men’s head coach of the French ski team, until its ill-fated implosion, at Val d’Isère, in December of 1973, at which time he resigned upon the firing of the top French team skiers by George Joubert and was replaced by Noël Grand.

I saw Robert Tessa once more during an international distributor meeting, organized by Look ski bindings at Les Deux Alpes at the end of June of 1977. 

He was our guide and took us from the top of Les Deux Alpes lifts down into La Grave, I believe. Today he lives in Tain l’Hermitage a quaint town on the banks of the Rhone river, not far from Valence, France.

A first trip ‘round the world, part 40

Fifty years ago, there wasn’t much lodging in and around Mt. Buller. There might have been between 1,000 and 2,000 beds, but folks came just for the weekend as the average length of stay for the season was just 1.25 nights. 

Skiers came mostly on Saturday, stayed the night and drove back to Melbourne in less than 4 hours on Sunday, while only a small contingent made it to town on Friday night. Week-long stays were rare Today, it’s lodging capacity has grown to more like 8,000 beds, but the average length of stay is still under 1.4 nights, as Mt. Buller stubbornly remains a weekend ski resort. 

I guess folks from Central and Western Australia still prefer to enjoy their ski week in New Zealand, Japan or perhaps Thredbo or Perisher! People who want to stay for a week need an excellent selection of restaurants, bars, shopping, personal services or else they get bored and would rather stay home. Fifty years later, there are only 9 restaurants at Mt. Buller! This, of course is the typical chicken and egg story.

Aside from the rather upscale Arlberg Hotel, the much rougher Kooroora, and the Pension Grimus, there were mostly rustic “lodges” owned by ski-clubs and individuals from Melbourne, where skiers would congregate and, each weekend, literally pile up on top of each others, often in pretty promiscuous conditions!

There was another hotel option though, called Enzian, named after “Gentiana”, the ubiquitous, dark-blue Alpine flower. That inn was rather large, modeled after the typical Austrian Gasthaus and was budget-priced and still remains that way to this day. 

It was located in the back of our living quarters and Kooroora, just next to the Chamois run and a short walk to the heart of the village center. This unpretentious hotel was taking pride in offering a “True Australian Alpine experience” and was welcoming skiers or visitors and their families with genuine warmth and friendliness. 

This was a place where young folks, just like us, gathered, in which parties were happening all the time and where we often ended our evenings…

America not as white as it used to...

A week or so ago, the American census bureau made public its 2020 count of the American population. 

Officially we’re around 331 million living in America, probably not counting 10 to 25 million undocumented people that have been roaming the country for years and have generally been assumed to amount to a “fixed number” of 11 million for as long as I can remember. 

It’s the only number that hasn’t changed in 20 years! The point of this last census though, is not so much how many we are, documented or not, but what our skin color is and where it’s going. This summer mine is rather well tamed and I would now describe myself as “brown”.

Well, more seriously, the trend is no longer good for white folks. That color of skin is now under serious threat. Not that whites are officially on the endangered species list, but they’re losing ground fast. That’s what I had already noticed and the census bureau remarks make a lot of sense. 

For those of us who so desire, but haven’t quite made their minds up yet, now is the time to become white supremacist while they’re some whites left. Just don’t procrastinate for another 50 years because, then, that color will have dwindled and become minority!

Per capita Olympic medals?

To many folks, the upshot of the Olympics is the number of medal their own country was able to garner and hoard during the two-week festivities. 

Usually, larger and well-to-do countries like the United States get the larger number of medals, but often, much smaller countries like Jamaica or New Zealand get many more medals based on their population than the US does. 

So, I’ve always wondered which countries would lead a medal count contest based on their population? I wanted to do the math myself, but found a website from Craig Nevill-Manning, a Kiwi, who had the same idea but executed it, and not only did the count based on population, but also, on GDP 

1. Based on Population 

What this means is that some countries are more “productive” in terms of finding top athletes in their population, for instance, tiny New Zealand with less than 5 million people got 20 medals, white the much larger United States with more than 330 million “only” obtained 113 of them, which makes the Kiwi 69 times more productive than the overall medal winner! 

While San Marino doesn’t count as the tiny principality is actually part of Italy, New Zealand and Jamaica’s performance is quite impressive at around 250-330,0000 people per medals. Canada, France, Russia or Germany are in a much higher population per medal bracket, comprised between 1.5 to 2.3 million. 

The US is a notably above that threshold at close to 3 million, China at 16 million, while India at close to 200 million has some serious work to do. 

2. Based on GDP 

This indicates that poor countries, with small GDP, like Jamaica’s $14 billion, got 9 medals, which comes to $670 million per medal, against very rich ones, like the US’s $20,000 billion, only received 113, bringing up the share of revenue per medal to a staggering $71.9 billion, which shows a distressing lack of efficiency on the part of wealthy countries. 

Kudos for the top 20 that showed that a small GDP doesn’t precludes stellar performance. That also applies to New Zealand that does great too at 4.34 compared to the other wealthy nations that follows at between 6 and 10 times GDP per medal. 

Of course, it gets much worse with the USA, but not much better for India that is saved by a dead last Saudi Arabia. https://www.medalspercapita.com/

Can we trust the Talibans?

Now that Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman promises that the new rulers of Afghanistan would respect women's rights, forgive those who resisted them and ensure a secure country that doesn’t provide safe harbor for terrorist, the next logical question is: 

“Can we trust this bearded guy?” More broadly that question begs to ask ourselves, a more general question “Who can we trust and what is our level of confidence in the people we see, work with, live with or are governed by?” 

To re-frame that question in yet a different way we could ask ourselves on a scale from zero to one-hundred percent, what is the level of confidence, or trust factor we have in person A, B or C? This can make for a fascinating exercise. 

Look at the picture gallery below and for each one of them persons represented, plug your rating in. True, I didn't show Putin, Xi or Bolsonaro. I didn't want to waste your time.

I have already helped you make your move by bravely indicating my view, for whatever it’s worth, so by all means, don’t take it seriously, it’s just an example. 

When you’re done send me your vote!

A first trip ‘round the world, part 39

At any mountain resorts, there’s always some excitement in reaching the highest point of the mountain. 

In the case of Mt. Buller, its namesake peak stood at 5,922 ft, but the highest lift, back in 1971, was part of the Orange Lift Company and consisted of a double Poma surface lift that reached 5,440 ft high. 

Not so high that one would require supplemental oxygen, but pretty high for Australia’s Snowy Mountains. A short hike was all what was needed to reach the actual summit. I didn’t do it the first year, but I believe the second in 1972, along with Philippe Coutaz. 

This, of course, was considered “off-piste”. There, one could find a few good, steep couloirs on the south side, just below the top and next to Fanny Finish, that connected fairly easily with a double-ended Poma. 

When I experienced it, back in 1971, I had found it a bit unusual and it took me a pretty long time to fully remember how the lifts were setup compared to what’s visible on the map 50 years later.

To get to the top, one needed to ride the same double-ended Poma-lift called “Summit Access/Howqua” from Bourke Street, right by the Austrian ski-school. Again, that lift with two different loading points at each end, operated as two lifts serving different slopes. 

Either from Bourke Street or from Howqua, riders were going up to the top of the plateau and stopped on either sides as they let go of their platter. 

According to some of the accounts I’ve read, the Summit Access/Howqua Poma was quite fast, its rope running at 1,280 ft. per second, or 15.5 mph, and making it allegedly, the fastest lift in Australia and possibly the world. 

Today this whole area of the mountain has been totally transformed, as shown on the ski-map below.

The Afghan lesson

In modern times, American wasn’t the first occupying war power trying to get Afghanistan to behave better. It began when the Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in December 1979. After losing 15,000 men, and their empire collapsed, they pulled out in May 1989. 

During that period, we worked with Pakistan to support the mujaheddin. When we invaded in 2001, we wanted to get revenge over 9/11, but George W. Bush should have thought a tiny bit before getting there, on account of what the Soviets had experienced. 

Not only that, he started the job and got distracted by the unnecessary Iraq invasion, and from there, Obama and Trump never had the gumption to pull out. Sure, the Russians had absolutely no incentive to help us after the support we give to the mujaheddin and were too happy to resupply weapons to the Taliban. 

Over 20 years, our military leaders kept on saying that it would get better, but it never did since they were simply clueless, as was our State Department about the way Afghans thought and acted. In simple terms we never understood their culture, their belief system and their behavior. 

The US military was woefully incompetent, which makes me fear about its ability to defend its own country, but that’s a whole different story. 

The bottom line is that America doesn’t and cannot seem to understand different cultures and when this becomes a glaring reality, we ought to concentrate on our own country, clean up our own mess and address our many problems. 

The role of America as world’s policeman is over and Biden was right in standing firm on his decision.

The Electric Dog

It’s hard to stop progress and after electric cars, bikes and lawn-mowers, it’s now time to expand the “electric-thing” to address other lifestyle situations that need to be solved and should be next in the relentless race for continued improvements. 

As any good, opportunistic inventor, I’m thinking of turning a nagging problem into a welcome solution through massive innovation. 

For too long, dogs have been – in my opinion – a plague upon the daily life of many Parkites - the name given to folks living in Park City. Some dog owners don’t leash their animals as they should, some (my next door neighbor) let roam theirs free all around, the more adventurous ride their bikes with their dogs leashed and running to keep up with the bicycle. 

In addition, many old ladies are sticking their micro-dogs on their laps while driving, others still not picking up poop after their pooch, and others openly say that we’re sub-humans for not owning a dog that sheds its hair all over the house, smells and tracks mud when it returns home from having been outside. Worst of all, “dogs that have never, ever bitten anyone” one day or another end up biting someone when the circumstances are right, even though the victim is totally innocen. Have I mentioned ticks? 

To address these problems, I couldn’t thing of anything better than the electric dog (ED). No more emissions (read dog poop), no more barking at night or anytime at all when that behavior is unwanted, no more shedding hair with their 100% synthetic fur, and no more wild roaming. 

Let me explain, my dog would be a demilitarized version of the robot-dog used at Tyndall Air Force Base, for security and surveillance of the base located 12 miles east of Panama City, Florida (see video). 

The regualar ED would never bite anyone and might result in a reduction of one’s homeowner’s insurance premium. Typically, the ED, could be used, as a husky, to draw a sled, as a substitute for a horse in backyard skijoring, or even as an adjunct mode of propulsion for non motorized biking, mountain-biking, as well as skateboarding. 

The ED would be of the “plug and play” type and could be fully recharged overnight for a complete day of gratifying and worry-free dog ownership. Tax credit? Good question, I have not yet thought about that one... 

Fiery Saturday afternoon

Yesterday, around 2 pm, I got a text message from my daughter in law with a picture of Mt. Olympus under what appeared a cloud. I responded humorously to it, until I noticed that it suddenly became cloudy out, stepped out of the house and was hit by the pungent smell of smoke. 

She was right, it was both unusual and serious! 

The fire started as the exhaust of a vehicle catalytic converter ejected hot particles off the roadside, igniting a brush fires south of Interstate 80, near Parleys Summit, a few miles away from Summit Park, the beginning of the Greater Park City area. 

Around 3:25 pm, the fire had grown to about 2,000 acres (800 ha) and was moving fast. Several firefighting companies got immediately on the scene and began fighting the blaze with air and ground crews, including Salt Lake Unified agencies. 

As of 3:45 pm there had been 12 aircraft, in the air dropping water and fire retardant. 

The fire forced the evacuation of 6 to 8,000 people living in the western part of Park City greater area to the local High School and evacuation orders are going to stay through the day if not later, as crews continue to work on the fire...

The 2030 Winter Olympic Games

Recently, Sapporo in Japan, seemed to be ready to stage the 2030 Games before the COVID-19 pandemic pushed Tokyo 2020 back to this year, while Pyrenees-Barcelona in Spain is the other potential candidate talking with the IOC to host these Winter Olympics. Québec City might also join the fray and enter discussions with the IOC's Future Winter Host Commission. 

This still leaves some room for including a potential bid for Salt Lake City to host the 2030 Winter Olympic, in spite of the fact that there hasn’t been any substantive as well as active discussions over a bid between our capital city of Utah and the gang in Lausanne. 

Salt Lake City is used to bid unsuccessfully though; it already bid to host the Games in 1932, 1972, 1976 and 1998 before being awarded the 2002 edition. Let's hope that practice makes perfect, and now it would be ready for an encore in 2030 or 2034, using Lindsey Vonn and Ted Ligety as spokespersons for a renewed candidacy. 

What’s remarkable is that the IOC has already given the 2032 Summer Games to Brisbane, but there is a clear lack of interest and motivation to organize the Winter Games for 2030. Do we really need or want these games? 

The politicians do of course, but the regular folks in Park City and Salt Lake City are more divided on the issue. We have already too many visitors jamming Park City streets and nearby mountains, and sure don’t need more traffic and people. 

There’s however a special consideration that might tip the scale towards having them again, if the Federal Government would be willing to fund some state-of-the-art and super-efficient mass transit between Salt Lake and its nearby mountain communities like Park City. 

That would be a great deal if the Games could return, as long as the cost of updating and improving our traffic infrastructure was paid by the rest of the US taxpayer. 

I know, it’s pretty unfair, not very fiscally responsible, but so materially self-serving!

My take on the Tokyo Olympics

Unlike what I announced earlier, we watched more Olympic TV than we first anticipated and we enjoyed most of what we saw. What did we see? Mostly gymnastics, swimming and some track and field. 

I was pretty tired of it all by the end though, and I’d like to offer a few comments to Thomas Bach and his friends who reign supreme inside their Lausanne brand new Babel Tower, over in Switzerland.

First the Games are bloated with 339 events, representing 33 different sports. Five are new sports entirely (baseball/softball, skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing and karate), while others see the inclusion of new events within the discipline. 

Nothing has been dropped since 2016, which also saw the return of golf and rugby. With such a plethora of things to see, most folks get a headache, just like when they go shopping for too long and see way too much stuff. 

So, my prayer to Mr. Bach goes something like this: “Can you cut that number of events down to 50 and fit them all within one week, please?” I doubt my demand will ever be satisfied, unless you and everyone else scream that too much is finally too much.

If not, expect to see an Olympic hot-dog eating contest before you die!

A first trip ‘round the world, part 38

Snow never was created quite equally around the planet. Local climate and geographic location play a huge role in how the snow feels or behaves when one comes to its contact. 

Just like for baking a cake, snow depends on temperature, moisture and ingredients. It’s clear that the Australian ski resorts low elevation didn’t help much, considering their low latitude (36-37 degrees) relative to the equator. 

In simple terms, cold spells were much rarer and temperature tended to be higher. Relative humidity also played a huge role on snow texture and quality. 

Water contents in very humid regions, or in the case of man-made snow, can be extremely elevated (Eastern US, Japan, Australia or New Zealand) which makes for super-dense snow, while water contents is generally extremely low (5 to 15%) in regions like Utah or Iran, allowing for super light powder and a virtual absence of ice on ski slopes.

Likewise, temperatures also effect the amount of water in snow. Low temperatures will keep the snow dryer while warmer conditions get the crystals much closer together. 

Because Mt. Buller was located only 85 miles from the ocean, its weather could change in an instant and was always very humid, if not downright misty or rainy, a reality for which skiers and instructors alike had to be fully prepared, from dripping ski goggles to garbage bags, to slicks and rubber gloves. 

All this gave us a snow that stuck well on its steep, south-oriented slopes, and that could make for good racing conditions when the base was there, and good edge hold in the few steep couloirs that could be found, like around Mt. Buller’s summit, provided the night before had been cold enough. 

On the other hand, alas, hardly ever any good powder at all. In many ways, I consider Australian skiing as a small window opened on the bleak future of skiing everywhere else, as we step seriously into global warming!

Believing in God, Siri, Alexa or Google?

What do you believe in? Who do you believe most? Where do you get answers to your most important questions? 

Is it from your God, your Mom, Dad, Partner or your school? Based on recent polls, America’s church attendance and belief in God is declining steadily. 

A good question would be “Are these beliefs sliding towards someone or something else?” Obviously, like for many folks, lots of my questions get some answer through Google, like others might get it through Alexa or Siri.

Have these sources become the new Gods and along with Wikipedia, our compass of truth? I’d say yes, since I don’t give much credence to other conspiracy theories and “Q anon-like” movements. 

In truth, We turn to these search tools more often than we turn for answers to our fathers, mothers, friends or spiritual leaders if we happen to have some. Not just our little secrets, but everything. 

I recently read that fifteen percent of all Google queries are new; they’ve never been searched before, which means that we are not at the end of our learning curve. 

Since God has never talked to me, during my dreams or my waking hours, I am left to rely on my voice-assistant and ask: “Hey Google, what am I doing here, on earth?”

Finally, a solution for Little Cottonwood Canyon?

In recent years, accessing Snowbird and Alta, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, near Salt Lake City has become a huge traffic nightmare, with a narrow road without any avalanche protection, like what is common in the Alps, and with limited parking at the ski areas. 

The avalanche protection should have been put in place in the early 70s when Snowbird opened, but the State of Utah was too cheap to bite the bullet, and too ignorant to understand anything about avalanche mitigation. 

Today, two solutions are considered. An expanded bus service with road widening, or a 3S-type, 32 passenger gondola.

The bus option would be the fastest, getting people up the mountain in about 37 minutes, including parking and walking to the bus stop. Buses would pick riders up every five minutes, but could be slowed by variable winter weather conditions. 

The option also requires widening the road the entire way up the canyon, building snow sheds to help control avalanches and requiring cars to pay a toll during busy time. 

On the other hand, the gondola provides the most consistent travel times — just under an hour from parking to reaching the top — and would leave the base station every two minutes. 

While it would have a greater visual impact on the mountains, it would be less invasive to the nearby watershed, wildlife, and climbing. 

Both options would cost roughly the same over a 30-year period, that is over $500 million. They would also come with additional measures like building two park-and-ride lots close by, to handle visitors coming by car. 

My preference would go to the gondola in spite of its visibility defacing the Canyon’s natural beauty.

 

A trip at the Olympic Park

The Utah Olympic Park was built for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and is located about 7 miles north of our Park City home. 

During the games it was used for the bobsleigh, skeleton, luge, ski jumping, and Nordic combined events. The State of Utah is doing all it can to generate activity and revenue with an infrastructure that, too often, becomes an expensive white elephant once the games are over. 

Just the total cost of the park came up at $75 million! 

It still serves a training center for Olympic and development level athletes, as well as a recreational facility for visitors. 

Other facilities in addition to the ski jumps and bobsled track located on site include the Joe Quinney Winter Sports Center that houses the Alf Engen Ski Museum and the Eccles Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum, a day lodge, a summer aerial training splash pool, ziplines, and a mountain coaster.

On July 31, we went to watch the 2022 U.S. Ski Jumping Championships on the 120-134m large hill, and enjoyed the limited time we spent there. 

Truth be known, I had never been to the Nordic jumps to watch athletes jump, and it was well worth driving over. It was fun to experience, and next year, if I’m still in good shape might compete too!

Revisiting the Church of Dirt

Last year, I explained in that blog what the “Church of Dirt” in Park City was and, on a couple of occasions, I had the opportunity of hiking by it this season.

It’s still “standing” as one could say, but is becoming increasingly popular and transact some serious wedding volume. 

During the entire Covid-19 pandemic, it kept on offering a popular alternative to indoor weddings when gatherings were limited and people were advised to keep six feet distance, but it’s done more than that; it’s becoming an affordable place to tie the knot in a place invaded by the rich and famous and where real-estate prices have become totally unreal. 

As in the past, there’s still no official way to book the location as everything’s run on the honor system. Couples write their name down in a planner and leave a rock or piece of wood claiming a date and time for their special day. 

Interviewed by le local radio station, Cassie Crook got married at the Church of Dirt and said she was drawn to the location because of the views. "It's really cool to like save money," she said. "That's the thing that was for us. We're like, 'man, if we could only get ski resort views for no ski resort price' ... because anywhere else, Deer Valley is probably around $12,000 just for the venue. So it's one of those things where it's like you to get the same views, but just without maybe some of the resorts amenities."

The radio mentioned that Deer Valley wedding venues range in cost, with the most affordable option starting at $6,000 for the just the ceremony at Cushings Cabin. So here you have it: Dirt-cheap wedding venue next to multi-million dollars home. 

Nothing capture as well the contrast and contradictions as well as the huge wealth gap that’s growing in good old Park City!

A first trip ‘round the world, part 37

One of the best ski hills, within the Blue Lift network was the one served by Bull Run, a south facing lift with good quality snow when there was enough of it, serving a large, funnel-shaped bowl with a vertical drop of about 787 ft with a variety of good and fun run like Wood, Funnel, Plug Hole, Sun Valley (my favorite) and the token Men’s and Women’s Downhill trails. 

Because it offered the greatest vertical drop among the Blue and Orange Lifts, it could accommodate Alpine FIS competition (both Slalom and Giant Slalom) and welcome a few European squads in quest of improving their FIS ranking while training during their summer break. 

Gérard recalls that he was involved with helping on the race course when these events happened in August. “The Slalom took place” he said, “but the GS was cancelled. It had rained and the base wasn’t there; the Austrian squad kept on training though…” 

When snow became harder after, a cold spell, skiing could be fun and fast there, particularly on Sun Valley! 

Gérard also fondly remember. a half-day spent training GS on Bull Run, with Malcolm Milne, the Australian downhill champion, just prior the 1972 Olympic season. Interestingly, In December 1969 at Val-d'Isère, Milne became the first Australian skier to win a World Cup event! 

Two months later, Milne won the bronze medal at the Val Gardena World Championships downhill… Not bad for an Aussie! 

Today, the original Dopplemayr T-bar that we rode back up in 1971 was replaced in 1984 by a fixed-grip, quad chair from the same supplier.

Is there smoke without fire?

Friday became a super smoky day as we finished our morning walk. First we were very concerned and thought that heavy smoke choking Park City was due to some local fire, but in fact, it came from fires burning hundreds of miles away in Oregon and Northern California.

In fact, a cold front making its way across the west brought with it smoke from these wildfires that spread into town and might stay with us this Saturday. 

According to IQAir, which tracks real-time air quality all over the globe, Salt Lake City had the worst air quality in the world Friday, beating Dubai in the UAE and Kabul, in Afghanistan. 

Another dubious record to remember if, in the meantime, we can stay alive and keep breathing by staying indoors until the air clears!

Review of Bill Gates’ book on climate

Just before his marital problems surfaced, Bill Gates had introduced his book “How to avoid a climate disaster” on the various American radio and TV talk shows. 

It probably would have been more successful had his troubled marriage not thrown a monkey-wrench into his work. Still, it sounded both intriguing and interesting, so I decided to read it. 

In it, Gates explains what’s happening with greenhouse gases and brushes up a pretty strong case for completely getting rid of them by 2050. 

Yet, like the rest of the so-call experts in the field, he totally ignores the real cause of all the ills that are causing pollution and global warming, namely the planet overpopulation. 

He’s a businessman who believes that quantity of people is what keep the economy afloat, regardless of what a more qualitative measurement could contribute positively. He also counts on governments to take the lead at implemented the policies he advocates. Good luck with that one too. 

In summary, some great information about the subject, some good intentions in terms of tackling the problem, but a systematic denial of what messes up the planet: Continuing to add too many polluting humans into its limited space!