A first trip ‘round the world, part 22

In the early Sunday morning hours, before sunrise, it felt just unbelievably cold. We were simply desperate and began to worry.

No lift in sight and even though the thin week-end traffic, was picking up some, no one would stop. 

Finally at about 10 am, a small VW minibus, after slowing down and hesitating, stopped ahead of us. We ran towards it as fast as we could. Inside, the driver was the sole occupant headed up to Sydney, and moving all of his possessions. 

Space was so tight that we had to lay on top of a mattress inside the small vehicle with just enough head-room to move around. It was all but comfortable, but we finally had a lift all the way to Adelaide, distant more than 1,340 miles away! 

JP had also spent the night alone, on the side of the road, but as the afternoon came, he began to realize that he might never make the ship when he’d get to Adelaide, if he ever made it all the way there. 

So he walked to the bus station and with whatever money he still had in his pockets, managed to purchase a ticket to get to Adelaide, with the regular scheduled coach service.

Matt Alvarez, 1935-2021

I have known Matt Alvarez during my ski business days, and especially when him and his wife Helen were still running the Timberhaus ski shop in Vail, Colorado, after closing their Park City location. 

Later on, we use to see each others on occasions, like the Arts Festival, the Fourth of July, and the Farmer’s Market. For a few seasons, we used to ski with him; Matt was a consummate story teller and we had lots of fun in his company. 

Born in September of 1935, Matt passed away on July 1st, at the age of 85. Originally from Oak Creek, Colorado, close to Steamboat, on the way to Vail, he graduated from the University of Utah with a mechanical engineering degree and worked for companies like Hercules and Morton Thiokol during the Space Race. 

In 1965, Matt and his family moved to Park City and opened the Timberhaus ski shop in Old Town Park City. They also opened stores in Snowbird and Vail. He was also the founder, in the late 1960s, of the Park City Ski Team. 

Altogether, Matt and Helen lived 40 years in Old Town Park City, before retiring in Oakley, a short drive away. We’ll miss our friend Matt an awful lot!

A first trip ‘round the world, part, part 21

During the previous evening, JP and I had vaguely envision hitchhiking on land from Perth to Adelaide, while leaving our personal belongings and the team’s ski equipment on the ship. 

We figured that with the continuing strike, the ship wouldn't leave Adelaide, our next stop, till July 16, and looking at some map we found on board, we thought that we might rejoin the Galileo-Galilei on time and board it well before it would depart for Melbourne, our final destination. 

While it never came to our mind that leaving all of our gear onboard and chancing a trip hitchhiking was not really a responsible thing to do, we also underestimated our land itinerary. We would travel the one section of Australia's Highway 1, that cuts across the famous Nullarbor Plain from Western Australia into South Australia. 

In 1971, this road wasn’t fully paved either and among other peculiarities, it included the longest straight stretch of highway in the world, namely 91.1 miles without any single bend or turn between Caiguna and Balladonia. In total, we were looking at covering 2,046 miles in less than six days. 

We had no clue if that was possible, if we could get enough rides to take us there, but we thought that by traveling as two separate parties, JP and Gisele, me and Helen, we should have no problem getting rides. We went to collect our per-diem allowance (AUS$15 per day) to have a few more dollars handy and were now ready to hit the road. 

At the last minute, however, JP’s girlfriend, had a change of heart and decided to stay on the ship instead of taking a chance hitchhiking. Mine stuck with me. We immediately walked out to the port area, and thirty minutes later, we got a ride on a big Australian truck that was headed east on Route 94. 

 

Everything was going as planned, our driver was a happy-go-lucky chap and about 7 hours later he dropped us at Coolgardie, a small, old mining ghost town, some 360 miles from Perth. It was about 6 pm and night was falling fast in that early winter season. 

Quite rapidly it became cold and we didn’t have enough warm clothing with us to stay comfortable. This was typical desert climate, with cool nights that turned even colder during winter. Traffic quickly slowed down to a trickle and no vehicle was picking us up. 

We grew quite worried. Hours passed as the air became more frigid and to make a long story short, we sad alongside the highway all night long. 

By himself, Jean-Pierre was able to get to Norseman, another small town, about 100 miles farther from where we were, in several rides, but at night, just like us, his luck ran out..

A first trip ‘round the world, part, part 20

When we finally arrived to Freemantle, Perth’s harbor, on that Friday, July 9, we had made it to Australia, but as the crow flies, we were still 1700 miles away, but now just 8 days away from Mt. Buller! 

I remember seeing folks recreating on the Swan River and the place looked really enticing and fun. In 1971, Perth was a bit smaller than Durban with a population of 700,000. Today there are more than 2 million people living in that city! 

At that point, we really were tired. Tired of the ship, of its food, its lame entertainment and eager to move and start doing something after that long, partly unexpected and unscheduled vacation. 

We got through immigration, got our visa to Australia stamped and were eager to walk on the pier to discover that country that we had heard a lot about, but were still fully ignorant of. 

After struggling to learn English for so many years at school, teaching skiing for two full season and spending more than a month on the ship speaking it most of the time, my command of the language was now much better and, at least for me, was no longer a concern. 

Now, all of sudden, I could no longer wait to get there, step into my skis and teach. I know, there was time during the Durban to Freemantle leg that JP and I, half-seriously, talked about selling the skis that were entrusted to us in order to generate some badly needed pocket money, but things were getting much better as hope was now within reach!

Kip Pitou, 1940-2021

The man who successively had almost been my mentor before becoming - at times - my tormentor, just passed away today. 

He was the brother of Penny Pitou, the winner of two silver medals at the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley. 

Kip began as a ski instructor (pictured here at age 23) at his sister’s ski school, at what is now Gunstock ski area, in New Hampshire. 

Shortly thereafter, he began working for Beconta in New York City, which happened to distribute Look ski bindings. 

When I joined that company in France, he suggested that I move over to work at its new US subsidiary and I jumped on the opportunity. 

Later on, when I still was with Lange ski boots, and had moved to Utah he had suggested that I take over Koflach ski and mountaineering boot national distribution, which I single-highhandedly and successfully did. 

Following these, I had other opportunities to working with Kip while he was in Utah, that didn't quite meet my expectations, but so are relationships and so is life. 

Rest in peace, Kip.

Still anti-vaccination?

At the Park City cemetery, there are the Stanley family tombstones that tell a long and painful story about the prevalence of infant mortality in the late 19th century. 

Annie and Berten Stanley had three kids that died at the ages of 8, 6 and a few months, all of ailments that could have been protected by a simple shot. 

Can you even begin to imagine the heartbreak, pains and suffering of that couple upon helplessly losing three of their kids? 

If you are anti-vaccination today, what would you have said to these people? Just imagine all this and think for a few minute.

I assume that the Stanleys would have loved to be able to protect their kids against what eventually killed them, but there was no vaccine then. 

Conspiracy theories may sound good, cool or intriguing, but at the end, they are as idiotic as they are heartless...

Richard Branson’s two key questions

I fell on that intriguing proposition, early one morning, as I was turning on my desktop computer. It was allegedly something the famous British entrepreneur Richard Branson held as a principle, and the most important pair of questions everyone should ask themselves, especially is one isn’t so sure about what to do with their own life. 

This is someone that happens to many of us, including yours truly. This pair of questions is deceivingly simple: 

1. What do I love? 

Love involves passion and passion is the ideal fuel to achieve anything. In my case, my passion was skiing and I built my life and my livelihood around it. Today, I’m happy to testify that it worked wonderfully well and brought me, not just material success, but an unending source of joy. 

2. What do I dislike? 

This other question might seem counter-intuitive, but is in part filled with opportunities. This is how great inventions have seen the light of day, as antidotes to irritating, or seemingly insurmountable problems and challenges. 

It is also an important indicator of the lifestyle or a bunch other things we don’t like and want to stay away from. It could have to do with the place we live, the housing we prefer or the very type of work we perform or the leisure we choose. 

Of course the above directions have to be tried and tested first, in order to make sure we aren’t getting into something we’re bound to regret later. As the article was saying in conclusion: “The 80,000 hours one’s will spend working in their career are way, way too many to waste...”