The complete alpine skier

In watching the early winter races in Lake Louise and Beaver Creek, I was thinking, “where are the 'complete skiers' of yesteryear?” By complete, I meant men and women who could win slalom, giant slaloms and downhills just like Toni Sailer, Jean-Claude Killy or Annemarie Moser-Pröll.

These days, it has become much tougher to be such a “jack of all trades” because of the intense training demands With that in mind, you end up with two groups of skiers, on one hand, the “speed skiers” who do well at Downhill, Super-G and GS, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, the “technical skiers” who can handle both slalom and GS like Marcel Hirscher. Some even specialize into one single event (GS in that case) to focus their efforts, like Massimiliano Bardone, Davide Simoncelli and Cyprien Richard...

How cold can it get in Park City?

Always a hard question to answer. I remember that years ago, at the end of January 1989, we hit -39 F or something like this. Boy was it cold!

This week looks like it will be arctic too. Yesterday was -14 and today is – 11 with very little relief in sight. Then my wife asked me, how cold was it last winter? I've kept tab of weather and temperatures since 2006, so I look it up and said that it went down to -16 last January, and then began reciting the stats for the other years.

If I didn't write it down, how would I be able to tell. I have yet to find a repository of temperature history on the net...

Acting timely and perfectly

Of the three ski resorts that Park City counts, two like to open early with limited lifts, runs and scarce snow while the other one – that stands as the standard for quality in the largest ski town of Utah – prefers to open up a little later, but do it right, with enough lifts and plenty of snow.

The resort is Deer Valley of course and its struggling rival that rush doing too little, too early remains Park City and Canyons...

Staying unshakable

Life is a constant alternative of good and bad feelings, ups and downs, pat in the backs and slap in the face and those of us who survive that treatment without flinching are the ones that generally can go the distance and feel the best about themselves. Talk about being unshakable; what a wonderful gift!

Cherishing setbacks...

Sometimes, when events don't go the way we would like them to go, we need to turn them around by looking into them as challenges that will serve as yardsticks to our ability to cope.

Whether situations are created by our own mistakes, miscalculations or are simply bad luck, we can find a formidable source of strength in facing them head-on, measuring ourselves directly to them and looking at them as a blessing in disguise, a way of challenging ourselves.

I've been a long believer in that kind of approach, which doesn't mean that I have applied it all the time and under all circumstances, but now, in the midst of my construction hurdles, I will endeavor to take them as such, and turn each one of them into a source of strength and self-satisfaction!

Is Canyons “Epic” yet?

Yesterday was cloudy and dreary, so I set my sights to ski Canyons for the fist time this season. I wanted to see if the Epic transformation that is part and parcel of Vail Resorts' culture, had begun to positively affect the place.

In reality, little had changed, except that the employees, still dressed in their vintage “The Canyons” outfits, that were shooting at me to read my pass with their digital guns. One might see this as unfriendly, but I guess, it's technology.

As for the snow conditions, they were as limited as ever, as more man-made snow had not made its appearance yet. Sure, Vail has to pay a hefty, $25 million annual rent, so you can't have everything at once, but I feel confident that in the absence of a serious “plan B”, plan A remains the annexation of Park City Mountain Resort in the very near future. This, would really be “Epic!”

Training for tree-skiing?

Tree-skiing is not natural; it demands plenty of guts and even more training. You might also add that good training for skiing trees requires plenty of trees, of course, a great attitude an some snow on the ground. Well, this is still early in the season, so instead of plenty of powder, there are tons of skiers on few ski runs.

Which brings us back to our subject matter: You can use all of these skiers and pretend they're tree. Like you would in the forest, you'll tree not to hit them, but to make our training session worthwhile, these pretend-trees on the slope are also... moving! Rarely does this happen with aspen or spruce trees unless it's early morning and you had too much to drink the night before.

With God's help, who's playing the ski-traffic controller, you'll get to the bottom avoiding collisions and will become a little bit more better trained for tackling real trees. With more of this routine, you'll be able to see the forest from the trees and zoom through the aspen groves!