Ski Magazine's ranking joke

Ski Magazine's 2018 resort issue keeps on sinking and getting stuck into slushy and absurd reporting, unless it's a matter of payola, pure and simple.

While Park City's Deer Valley got back its number one position, Park City Mountain slid down to number 16, after places like Whitefish, Crested Butte and Breckenridge! Give me a break...

The moribund magazine (that's my opinion) must be on its last rope to publish absurdities like that scoreboard, unless it has finally embraced, full-tilt, the fake-news trend.

Seriously, as Park City residents, our hearts are torn between the two resorts when it come to their respective advantages and drawback and after much consideration as a family, we finally picked Park City Mountain for this coming winter.

Ski Magazine might consider that I probably know nothing about skiing...

Leaving Geneva...

If you get to Geneva airport late in the afternoon and are intent to head towards the nearby French ski resorts, be prepared and don't count on some smart road signage to get you quickly on your way.

Most likely than not, your GPS will route you smack into the center of town where you'll be and stay stuck for a very long while, especially on a week day. Of course, the Swiss are not going to promote the French ski resorts with helpful signage!

There is a better way by circumnavigating the crowded, tiny metropolis through the French “autoroute” system, but you need to know where you are going and do your homework before hand.

But who ever said that driving in Europe was user-friendly?

Watering fake plants at Paris airport

It seems to happen all the time, we always managed to get caught with water in our carry on luggage, especially in Europe, where security is senseless as one is forced to clear security even while in transit for another flight...

Add to this a sleepless night across the Atlantic and you have a recipe for frayed behavior. Rather than give up the nice bottle that contained the undesirable liquid, I told my wife to drain it in one of the many green plant containers that lined up the perimeter.

When he saw her acting on my order, one of the security officers screamed at her “Don't do this! Those are fake plants!”

The importance of air service to skiing

Destination ski resorts live and die by the availability or the absence of good air service and abundant passenger seats. The larger the passenger traffic at an airport, combined with its closeness to a resort will have a huge impact on business.

Over the past 40 years, the average ski vacation stay in the USA has shrunk from the traditional full-week, down to 3 to 4 days, making a short transit time between the airport and the resort extremely critical.

Historically, Denver and its large airport has pretty much build up the Colorado ski industry.

Today, thanks to its Delta Hub and its closeness to most of its best ski resorts, Salt Lake City is becoming a force to be reckoned with; a new airport terminal, under construction, should further enhance Utah ski industry's posture.

Europe is quite similar with Geneva and Easyjet becoming huge assets to skiers coming to the French Alps and nearby Swiss ski resorts...

Big September snow!

Last weekend was so snowy that it really felt like real winter.

Snow flakes were enormous, and soon, the white stuff began to seriously accumulate, breaking branches on trees that were still covered with leaves and creating a true winter landscape.

Some skiers even got out to take an early slide. I didn't feel like them at all.

For me, winter is always far too early until November 20 comes around. Call me a late bloomer!

Park City and the Hyperloop...

Earlier, this month, I envied Colorado and Vail's good fortune to have been picked for one of the next Hyperloop roads and passed my thought on to our local politicians.

Diane Foster, Park City Municipal manager, said she and Jack Thomas our mayor have had contacts with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies three years ago, and had been told that we were too close to Salt Lake City, represented too small a population and on such a short segment, the Hyperloop couldn't reach its maximum speed before it'd need to slow down.

In addition, she had said that climbing the steep grade of Parley’s Canyon would also be a huge challenge. Since, I'm not one who takes no for an answer, I'd like to turn these arguments on their heads.

Here is how I see things. Before we run we need to walk and just like the present one-third of a mile track in Nevada, we could lobby hard to be chosen to develop a test track between Salt Lake, Park City and Heber to verify basic stuff like loading/unloading, acceleration and deceleration.

As importantly, it could test mountain climbs that soon would be required to climb the Colorado Front Range, clear both the Eisenhower tunnel and Vail Pass that are both extremely challenging, in advance of implementing the system planned for that region.

Summit and Wasatch county account for 70,000 people, vs. 80,000 for Eagle and Summit, Colorado! Even if the Hyperloop can't reach its top speed when it gets to Park City, who cares, as long as the transit time between the airport and Park City drops from 40 to less than 5 minutes!

As we all know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and there's always an other side to any argument.  If it makes any good sense though, any sensible and potentially good idea should be seriously considered.

The Vietnam War

Last week, we began to watch “The Vietnam War” a 18 hour PBS documentary about this tragic conflict.

What we've learned so far, is that the French set up the stage for a terrible colonial war that ended up in costing the lives of about 3.4 million people and that the Americans, once engaged at picking up the pieces let by my countrymen, ended up digging an even deeper hole for themselves.

All along, it also showed that we've learned nothing when we witness the same scenario still playing out in Afghanistan and Iraq.