Alta’s Wild Flowers in Full Bloom
Alta’s slopes are blooming! Credit: Judy Calhoun
Any one living in or visiting Salt Lake City can escape the heat and enjoy the remarkable wildflowers at Alta. Contributor Harriet Wllis reports that the Alta’s wildflowers are blooming like crazy right now. The meadows and slopes are like Persian carpets — covered with color!
This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (July 26)
“Not Our Job”: A Play In One Very Short Act
Scene: Curtain rises on an evening outdoor dinner party under a tent. Several guests are gathered around a table with a variety of appetizers: shrimp, cheese and crackers, fruit. Bottles of wine, beer, and booze are at another table. A couple of dozen guests are mingling and getting to know one another. Two characters, an Online Magazine Publisher (OMP) and A Volunteer Ski Patrolman (VSP), continue their discussion.
How many speeders can you spot? Credit: Jean-Yves Bruel
OMP: We’ve just completed our Spring Survey a couple of weeks ago. We asked an unusual question of our readers, What Pisses You Off The Most About Ski Resorts? Can you guess what the number one winner was?
VSP: Easy, speeding skiers.
OMP: Give that man a kewpie doll! Out-of-control, wild, dangerous skiers who ski with abandon and no sense of safety. How’d you guess?
VSP: We hear it all the time. People are always asking us to nail these air-heads, pull their tickets, and banish them from the mountain. (Note: This ski patrolman volunteers at a Very Big Vermont Resort.)
OMP: And?
VSP: We have to explain it’s not our job. We’re there to provide aid to injured skiers, keep the fences up, sweep the trails. You know, safety.
OMP: Really?
VSP: We’re not cops, and we are not trained to be enforcers. Besides, we’re understaffed. We need two guys at the top, a guy on the phone, and a spare on patrol. That’s all we’ve got.
OMP: So who’s supposed to…
VSP: The resorts Ambassadors. They are the people on the hill who can pull tickets, if they do. But often even they don’t. The management doesn’t want to alienate customers by pulling tickets.
OMP: Alienate customers? But what about the senior who goes out five times a year and who just spent $140 on a lift ticket and gets terrorized by schuss boomers, and no one does anything about it?
VSP: Yeah, that’s a problem. The day lift ticket guy probably isn’t coming back, especially if he’s new to the resort or the sport.
OMP: So, speeding, out of control skiers, the number one thing that seniors in our survey find that pisses them off about ski resorts, is an intractable problem?
VSP: I guess so.
OMP: (Walking away): I think I’ll have another couple of shrimp.
[Curtain]
[Editor Note: We know a lot of our readers are either active or former ski patrollers. Please let us know what you think of our play. We want to take it to Broadway, but before we do, we need to hear your opinion. Is VSP correct? What can a resort do to chill the hotshots? A complete report of Spring Survey results will be coming out in the Fall.]
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This Week
Looking for shells, early morning on the beach at the Hilton Barbados. Credit: Yvette Cardozo
In our ongoing Non-Snow activities series, Yvette Cardozo shows us that scuba diving in Barbados can be as refreshing as a run down a wide blue trail. Well, at least it’s cool. If you haven’t snorkled on a reef or scuba-dived in the Caribbean, you might want to revise your bucket list.
Moon Rocks, Davis, WV. Credit: Pat McCloskey
On to August, and summer sailing for us. Thanks so much for reading SeniorsSkiing.com. Tell your friends, and remember, there are more of us every day and we aren’t going away.
Short Swings!
“Too Darn Hot.” Cole Porter got it right with his enduring 1948 hit. What a summer!
Weather is getting more and more extreme. Hot. Cold. Wind. Flood. I like this church sign:
But I don’t like these pictures taken within a week of each other from near the top of Mont Blanc. Going from snow to lake in such a short time is a bad sign.
Credit: @bryanthealpinist
I don’t know if there’s much we can do about this any more except attempt to take action to slow the process down and figure out how to make the best of it.
Waiting for the flurries, I think abut that magical combination of gravity and snow and being waist-deep in light powder.
In the meanwhile, Irving Berlin also got it right with his saucy 1933 song, “Heat Wave.”
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Vail Resorts Acquires Mount Snow, Hunter, Wildcat, Roundtop, Others
Earlier this week, Vail Resorts announced it is acquiring Peak Resorts. The areas comprise many Eastern and Mid-Western signature resorts (Mount Snow, VT; Hunter Mountain, NY; Attitash, Wildcat, and Crotched, NH; Liberty, Roundtop, Whitetail, Jack Frost and Big Boulder, PA; Alpine Valley, Boston Mills, Brandywine, and Mad River Mountain, OH; Hidden Valley and Snow Creek, MO, and Paoli Peaks, IN). The areas will be accessible on the Epic and Military Epic passes.
Alta’s Enduring Butterfly
Contributor Harriet Wallis sent in these pictures of the butterfly shaped snow patch on Alta’s Mt. Superior. The color shot was taken recently. It matches up perfectly with the shot from 1873.
Credit: Robin Roberson
Delta Eliminates $150 Ski/Board Checking Fee
The new policy follows a similar announcement in May by American. Complete checked baggage fee detail, including the new sporting equipment fees: Delta.com
Killington Breaks Ground on New Lodge
Killington Resort, the largest ski and snowboard resort in Eastern North America , broke ground last week on its 58,000 sq. ft. K-1 Base Lodge. Slated to open for the 2020-21 winter season, it will be 21,000 sq. ft. larger than the previous structure.
Colorado Has Fewest Obese People. West Virginia Has Most.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 30.1% of US adults are obese as of 2017. The US obesity rate has doubled since 1990 when 15% of the population was classified as obese. The five least obese states are Colorado, D.C., Hawaii, California, and Utah. The five with the most obese are West Virginia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Alabama. Click here for complete list.
2010 Olympic Gold Medal Auctioned for $68,750
The Vancouver 2010 Olympic gold medal belonging to Belarusian freestyle skier Alexei Grishin sold at auction last week for $68,750 according to Boston-based RR Auction. The anonymous winning bidder is a collector from Belarus. The medal is among the heaviest in Olympic history. Each of the 615 medals created for the Vancouver Games features a hand-cropped section of the artwork that ensures that no two medals are the same.
Live Weather Reports Now Available from Mt. Everest
Researchers from National Geographic Society and Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan University recently installed weather stations on Mount Everest. The two highest are at 27,257’ and 26,066’. To access these high elevation conditions click here.
Good Conditions At South Africa’s Only Resort
At the time of this writing, Tiffindell Alpine Resort, South Africa’s only ski area, has almost 12”. All five lifts are operating and more snow is predicted for this week.
Guadalajara Gets 5’ Hail Dump
Credit: CNN
A freak early-July storm left 5’ of hail in the Mexican city of Guadalajara. It happened following several days of warm, dry weather.
Surfing On Skis?
Candide Thovex is the French extreme skier who seems set on doing every imaginable thing that can be done on skis. In this short video, appropriately named The Wave, he uses snow skis on artificially-generated surf.
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