A revised view of the winter season

Just a few extra observations: 

I have lived through three snow droughts during my short life and my 72 seasons of skiing: First in 1963-1964 in France, then in the West during the 1976-1977 season while I was still living in New York and finally this 2025-2026 winter season. What’s my take-away? 

For one thing, a winter with little or no snow is totally demoralizing. It makes you feel things like: “Will a normal winter ever return?” It casts doubt on the future of skiing and closes the door to a positive outlook. Sure, we feel the exact opposite of folks in New England, in Europe or Hokkaidō that enjoyed a wonderful snow season, but we’re woefully unable to feel their glee… 

Of course, in the context of what goes on in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine, these considerations are trivial... 

At the same time we all know that everything is cyclical and good, average and we try to remind ourselves that bad situations come and go, just like good and mediocre ones, so there ‘s hope that better ones will eventually return, but we’ll have to keep in mind that great, normal and worse are hooked on the same cycle. 

Finally, there’s no way we can remove the sobering element, the “elephant in the room” that climate change is. This horrible trend not only isn’t going away, but is likely going to deepen, make greatness less likely, normalcy not so good, while exceptional years will become rarer and terrible circumstances start trending as the norm. 

Did I forget anything?