Spring skiing surprises

Skiing in the spring is chock full of surprises. It can either be terrible or glorious in just 24 hours. For a few hours, today fell into the “glory” category.

A surprising 2 inches of powder snow had fallen the night, creating a micro-miracle and – as usual – contributed to making that day super special at my favorite Park City ski spots. Elusive, but priceless moments!

The “closing day” video...

What makes a good “last day” or closing day video? I'll soon find out as I'm on my way to shoot one for Deer Valley Resort, as today is their last day of the season.

Some skiing following other people, some overhead views from the chairlifts and a few sound bites from folks who are either sorry to see the season come to a close or are still enjoying sliding down the hill. We'll see!

Spring skiing limitations...

Sure spring is fun, but like many pleasure, that kind of fun is both elusive and fleeting. Even since spring arrived in Park City, that is on April 8, our “quality time” on snow has shrunk considerably and now, skiing is on ly good from opening time in the morning until about 11:30 am.

After that, time to call it a ski day and go home. Short but sweet and with good high speed lifts, logging some 20 to 25,000 vertical feet in that concentrated amount of time is quite possible. Limited stuff works well when highly concentrated!

Seeing the end of a long project...

We're almost done with the new house. We still have a few finishing things to be done that perfectly illustrate the law of diminishing returns, but with only one big chore left – landscaping – we're almost there and we should reach that point early summer. I can't wait!

Stopping ski chatter?

For years, and since the 60's, I've always held that ski chatter was a fact of (ski) life that could only be solved if you tuned your skis right or had the best possible pair of boards for hard snow. In more recent times, the advent of carving skis has shed a new light on this age-old question.

Chatter can be kept under control if you advance – let's say slide forward – your uphill ski in relation to the downhill one. This move was highly disapproved of in the mid-20th century French technique, but who cares today?

This forces you to shift your weight earlier and let go of the over-edging and lateral buttressing that creates the chatter in the first place. This requires more angulation, is more athletic but works perfectly. Try it!

Finally, spring is here!

Yesterday we went skiing, as usual, and for the first time this season, we didn't freeze our rear-end and other sensitive body—parts. The sun was up and someone finally turned up the thermostat!

As usual, we skied the whole morning, had a great deal of fun and discovered when all was said and done that slush still existed as a springtime commodity. I felt reassured; I had begun to worry!

Not particularly happy...

This picture of myself was taken against my will early November 1967. I was just enlisted in the French Air Force for a mandatory 16 month and obviously wasn't looking forward to being held against my will for so long.

Did I learn anything good during that incarceration of sorts? Perhaps a few skills like firing a gun and an automatic weapon during the first month of basic training, but after that I was just doing menial work like filling up fighter jets with jet-fuel and cleaning up parts and the like.

Yes, I learned something, but that was achieved on my own volition; it was English. I “killed” all that idle time by re-learning English following an evidently unsuccessful eight-year attempt at learning it in school!