Thierry Cardon, 1947 – 2011

Thierry taught skiing at the Avoriaz ski school in France, during the winter of 69/70. A certified ski instructor and mountain guide, he went on to pursue a career as a helicopter ski guide with Canadian Mountain Holidays and had become a legend in that very exclusive industry. I learned last night that he just passed away this January 11, in his home in Invermere, British Columbia. Diagnosed with a severe form of cancer one month ago, he had recently refused any further treatment, waiting with his wife Sylvie for, as he put it, “leaving for the biggest journey in his entire life.”

Even though I have only worked by his sides for one season, I have found memories of him and some of his closer friends were shocked in learning the news: Says Anselme Baud: “I knew him for such a long time from Avoriaz, then during two month spent together in South America where he shared his musical passion for guitar and charango; we're going to miss him a lot...” Another Canadian friend of his and like Anselme, a former Avoriaz ski instructor, Patrick Wahle remembers: “I've always felt a deep frienship for Thierry. We've done some mountaineering together and had done Chamonix-Zermatt in exceptional deep snow conditions; so sad to see him gone.”

Good journey wherever your guiding skills will now take you Thierry; for the moment we'll all miss you.

Round Valley in winter...

A few days ago, I was talking to an avid mountain biker who told me that winter was actually a great way to go riding on hard-pack trails, with the smooth snow making it in fact easier than the rough-and-tumble summer surface. He said he did quite a bit of riding in Round Valley our favorite mountain bike stumping ground in Park City, just on the edge of the neighborhood where we live.

So yesterday afternoon, as the weather was arctic cold and I didn't feel like going skiing, we went for a walk on the snow-packed trail that soon turned out to become a groomed ribbon branching in multiple paths that snaked in all directions on Round Valley's pristine and well contained valley floor. The walk was athletic as each step in the snow and particularly in the steep isn't nearly as efficient than on hard pavement and while providing us a wonderful and body-warming exercise, it made us discover another winter treasure that we had heard existed, but did not fully believe it could be so charming and fun!

Cleaning up politics

A couple of nights ago, we went out to see “Inside Job,” yet another documentary about the financial collapse of 2008. While we knew, through hearing the story over and over again, all the maddening details that led to this mess, we went home with the conviction that our current political system was the number one culprit. Let me clarify; right from the start of his presidency, Obama choose to surround himself with a bunch of “foxes” that he put in charge of the coop, like Summers, Geithner and of course the seemingly incompetent Bernanke that he re-appointed as the head of the Fed.

The reason for these appointments is the huge influence Wall Street has gained over politics by “buying” our politicians and our political system; today, they run the financial side of the economy as they please. This shines yet another light on how to improve our corrupt political system that is no longer serving the people but only at the orders of the major corporations and the entire financial system. Just like preserving our environment passes by curbing population growth, reaching public funding of our election process is our badly needed political priority. Unless this issue is ever resolved, we are we to lecturing Laurent Gbagbo to step down from his usurped position of power in Ivory Coast?

The fanatical society

This weekend, upon hearing that Gabrielle Giffords had been shot in Arizona, I immediately connected the dot between the fanatical rhetoric that has been tirelessly fan by the Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sarah Palin of the world and have become the mantra of those who support the extremist views of the Republican Party. This part of American society has to change its way, return to a more civilized dialog and to reality.

Perhaps, the fault is directly tied to those who are fueling the debate like Fox News among other partisan and extremist media and the corrective action that is needed is that Americans receive a national lesson in civility, are offered once and for all an unbiased debate on the advantage and disadvantages of making assault and other automatic weapon in as many hands as possible (with both sane and totally insane owners...) Perhaps, with all that we might one day rejoin the rank of civilized societies.

Watching good racers

Out of the half-dozen days I volunteer for the Park City racing department, my favorite one is being on duty the day the collegiate GS race takes place. This year I was a gate judge in the best portion of the race and was treated to the best event in alpine skiing all day long. The race course was set so it was very fast on both runs and with a hard man-made snow, chatter was part of the event and in the steep section it spoke volume about the athletes and their equipment.

Never in my life did I see so many pre-releases. The racers' bindings were either set far too loose or poorly adjusted, with most problems occurring with Look (yeah, the “27” version) and Marker. In steep sections like these, when chatter begins to form, it immediately works on destabilizing the racers and their disarray seems to amplify at each successive “rutty” turn. Same observation for the skis; Head and Fischer seemed to hold the best, but here again, the difference is a subtle combination between athlete's skills and ski tech expertise. A fun day!

Not in shape to ski... well!

Yesterday, while still nursing my cold, I decided to ski at Deer Valley Resort to prepare for a blog that I write for them about the GPS ski-measurement tool. My legs were weak and felt like low-density marshmallow. I skied as fast as I could, but with twice the care I normally place on my skiing, taking no absolutely no chance, and even with all that care I felt I skied terribly, like a clumsy, first-time out in the season, jet-lagged and oxygen-deprived tourist to Park City. This says a lot about skiing and the sport's zero-tolerance for not being feeling 100% in shape. I knew it, but I had simply had forgotten...

A different kind of cold

Around Christmas we spent quite a bit of time with Finn, our grand-son and we suspect that this little guy passed us his Croup (also known as laryngotracheobronchitis.) This respiratory infection that leads to swelling inside the throat, begins by severe throat aches at night that interfere with normal breathing and then evolves into a “barking” cough and hoarseness that also peak at night.

It's said to last well over one week. This condition generally affects children and is almost never seen in adults, but we got it pretty well which may say some very encouraging things about our real age!