Picto Diary 23 to 28 February 2025 - Brian Head!

Above: Montage Hotel, Deer Valley, 22 February 2025.

This image is out of date sequence since I received it after sending the last picto-diary which ended 22 February 2025.

Image, over at Montage Hotel, is beyond my "office" window at Empire Lodge. It was captured yesterday by BerNiece, Daggett's wife. Sadly, I wasn't in my office yesterday and didn't see the performance firsthand. DV skiing is really going upscale. Frankly, the idea of a disco dancer on the ski slope was beyond my comprehension. But here we go go! Also, in sight of my office is Deer Valley's Chute 11 Yurt, where you can get a plate of caviar for $400, a crab salad tower for $325, a grilled cheese sandwich for $125.00, and a flute of Veuve Clicquot for $100. Outside of Chute 11 Cabaret Voltaire industrial techno blares from a a dozen speakers situated around the yurt. So, in the same general area, both Deer Valley and Montage compete for the "money is no object ski set." Let the good times roll! PS. A few days ago, I asked an employee of Chute Eleven if the business was doing OK. I received a strong affirmative answer. The employee said that reservations were required for apres ski at 3:00 PM and that they were always booked out. Deer Valley seems, slowly, to be entering Aspen territory.

Above: Deer Valley, UT. 23 February 2025
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Daughter FeeBee and Carterette. Tennis buddies, moms AND ski buddies. Both, and later two other similarly designated friends, invited the old geezer to ski with them for a few runs, including Mountaineer and Jordanelle. Then, I hauled a.. over to my office for break. These moms are borderline empty nesters. Boy, am I old!

Above: Willow Creek Dog Park. Summit County, UT. 23 February 2025.
Freddie and friend face off.

Above: Empire Lodge, Deer Valley, UT. 24 February 2025
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Bishop's office.
BerNiece, 'Cake, Westwood, Daggett.
Warm. Sticky snow down low.

Above: Deer Valley, UT. Lady of the Lake ski run. 25 February 2025.
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'Cake and Westwood pose.

Above: Deer Valley, UT. Snow Park Lodge parking lot. 25 February.
Ooo wah, ooo wah, ooo wah, ditty.
Tell me 'bout the skiing around van city.
Massachusetts tag on van at right kind of unusual around here.

Above: Sprinter, Fillmore, UT. 25 February 2025.
Van life on way to Ivins.

Above: Brian Head Ski Resort, Iron County, UT. 27 February 2025.
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Tushar Mountains 50 miles in the distance. Location of Eagle Point ski resort.
SKI TO BE FREE, FREE!!! That is to say that 75 and overs ski free at Brian Head.

Brian Head Ski Resort. Changed to my ski gear in the Sprinter. Skied ten runs. Over 75 of age skis for free at Brian Head. So today? Ski to be free, free! Groomed soft snow overnight. Early AM freeze made for very hard groomed snow. I had the perfect ski for the conditions: Stockli SC's. On the Navajo lift, mom and 6-year-old daughter engaged me in conversation. Mom: "where are you from?" Me: "Park City, UT." Mom: "Oh, I'd love to ski there but we can't afford it." Me: "Where are you from?" Mom: "My husband, I and our two kids live in Orlando, FL. Yesterday, we flew to Las Vegas, rented a car and drove up to the St. George Costco where we loaded up on a week's provisions for our VRBO condo here in Brian Head. Six-year-old: "Do you have a dog?" Me: "Yes, a 150-pound Newfoundland named Freddie." Mom: "Wow, I only weigh 118 pounds." Six-year-old girl: "I have two rabbits." At his LSDM talk last week, we learned from former Deer Valley GM, Bob Wheaton, that Ma and Pa resorts play an important role in the ski industry. Now, Brian Head is a notch (but not much) above Ma and Pa but the point is made by looking and this mom and her family. They couldn't afford Park City, but Brian Head is a great option for them to have a wonderful, but not so expensive, ski vacation.

Above: Mount Timpanogas, Utah County, Utah. 27 February 2025
Image looks North, from University Avenue, NB, Provo, UT.

Daily Blog - Sprinter from Ivins to Park City.

From Ivins (where we have a second residence) to Park City, 350 miles, in the Sprinter. Owing to great weather, a long to-do list for the house, friends in town, and lower elevation, TIMDT decided to stay in Ivins for the week. I had obligations in Park City, including ski guests coming in Saturday. Following is an accounting of my day in the Sprinter:

7:00 AM - LSDM Zoom presentation from Don Rogers, publisher of The Park Record, Park City, UT. Lotta red ink at the Park Record - sounds like WaPo..., but owners Tatiana and Matthew Prince are committed to turning it around. According to Don Rogers, the Princes allow him editorial freedom and leeway to execute a turn-around strategy.

8:30 AM - Commentary Podcast. Jeff Bezos redirection of WaPo editorial page to free market and personal freedom editorial position is earth shaking. WaPo long termers like David Meranis, who pooh pooed their boss for the decision, should instead have shown him gratitude for paying their salaries with red ink.

10:00 AM - Brian Head Ski Resort. Changed to my ski gear in the Sprinter. Skied ten runs. Over 75 of age skis for free at Brian Head. So today? Ski to be free free! Groomed soft snow overnight. Early AM freeze made for very hard groomed snow. I had the perfect ski for the conditions: Stockli SC's. On the Navajo lift, mom and 6-year-old daughter engaged me in conversation. Mom: "where are you from?" Me: "Park City, UT." Mom: "Oh, I'd love to ski there but we can't afford it." Me: "Where are you from?" Mom: "My husband, I and our two kids live in Orlando, FL. Yesterday, we flew to Las Vegas, rented a car and drove up to the St. George Costco where we loaded up on a week's provisions for our VRBO condo here in Brian Head. Six-year-old: "Do you have a dog?" Me: "Yes, a 150-pound Newfoundland named Freddie." Mom: "Wow, I only weigh 118 pounds." Six-year-old girl: "I have two rabbits." At his LSDM talk last week, we learned from former Deer Valley GM, Bob Wheaton, that Ma and Pa resorts play an important role in the ski industry. Now, Brian Head is a notch (but not much) above Ma and Pa but the point is made by looking and this mom and her family. They couldn't afford Park City, but Brian Head is a great option for them to have a wonderful, but not so expensive, ski vacation.

12:00 noon. Megyn Kelley podcast. Guest Buck Sexton, current podcaster and former CIA. Per Sexton, abuse of fed servers with sex talk which led to Tulsi Gabbard firing over one hundred abusers, is far more widespread in the federal government than just the one hundred fired employees. During the last twenty years, woke employees have infiltrated all government institutions to take control of HR. Per Sexton, government employee attitudes, political affiliations etc. mirror the climate of US universities today.

1:30 PM. Steve's Steakhouse, Richfield, UT. 8 oz ground steak with onions, mushrooms and veggies. Green beans are cooked through just like my mom used to do.

2:30 PM. Glenn Greenwald Podcast. Guest, Russian Analyst, Aleksandr Dugin. Greenwald bills Dugin as "what Steve Bannon is to Donald Trump, Aleksandr Dugin is to Vladimir Putin." Good discussion for anyone prepared to go beyond the cartoon caricature Russia as understood by most Americans today. Paraphrasing Dugin: "We had good relations with the West until about 2012 when Obama and the globalists began to forcefully push their nihilist agenda on us. Russia's values are patriotic, family oriented, and religious. The globalist agenda is destructive towards those values."

3:30 PM. "The Brother's Karamazov," by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Part I, Book 3, chapters 6,7,8. Via Audible. Setting: Post dinner session with cognac. Butler Grigory tells wealthy, unscrupulous landowner boss, Fyodor Pavlovich about a Russian soldier stationed somewhere far away at the border who was captured by Asians and, being forced by them on pain of agonizing and immediate death to renounce Christianity and convert to Islam. The soldier would not agree to change his faith, and endured torture, was flayed alive, and "died glorifying and praising Christ - a report of which deed was printed in the newspaper received that day." Suddenly, unexpectedly, Smerdyakov, the cook, speaks up. Smerdyakov, twenty-four, is the illicit offspring of Fyodor Pavlovich and a "touched' village orphan long deceased. He has been raised by Grigory and his wife and lives on Fyodor Pavlovich's estate. Quoted from the novel: "Regarding this sir," Smerdyakov suddenly spoke loudly and unexpectedly, "that if the deed of this laudable soldier was so great, sir, there would also have been no sin, in my opinion, if on such an occasion he had even renounced Christ's name and his own baptism in order thereby to save his life for good dees with which to atone in the course of the years for his faintheartedness." Note: Russian culture was rich with Orthodox Christian religious imagery and experience prior to the Bolsheviks, who did everything they could, over their 80-year reign, to strip religion out of the Russian experience. Dostoevsky, one of the world's greatest novelists, captured religion's impact on pre–Bolshevik Russia in his novels. Post Bolshevik Russia, today, touts revival of its religious heritage as an essential component of its cultural integrity.

5:30 PM. Starbucks. Provo, UT. Gluten free Kate bar and coffee. The stop was more for "seeing a man about a dog" than for the coffee.

6:30 PM. Arrive home in Park City. Eat left over mashed potatoes and meat loaf. Review correspondence. Read a few pages of "Flashman in the Great Game," in preparation for a book club coming up on 10 March 2025.

8:30 PM. Bed.

Above: Magnet ski run. Deer Valley, UT. 28 February 2025.
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Image: It was such a sunny day, and Magnet had been groomed overnight. I had no excuse not to ski it. The top of Magnet is the steepest slope I'll ski all year.

On the Lady Morgan Lift just prior to skiing Magnet, two Gen Z moms wearing tasteful gear. Mom #1: "Oh, I'm so happy. I was able to persuade my former nanny to dump her good for nothing boyfriend so she come back to work for me."

In addition to Magnet, I also skied Orion after coffee break. The upper half was groomed, the lower half was not. I had a chance to divert to a groomed option but decided to take the tougher route. The lower half of Orion was in two sections. Upper section: Deep, soft, bumps. Lower section: Mostly shaded, frozen flats. Think ice rink. I guess I just wanted to see if I could still do it... which I did, OK. By the way, the sun facing upper section of Orion wasn't perfect. Lotta pushed around soft ridges in the snow. I managed some extended tight turn descents on the steep, narrow, double blue upper face. I felt pretty good about my entire Orion descent!

Addendum:

Motorcycle Ender. On page xiv, (Introduction) of my book ADVENTURE MOTORCYCLIST: FRAZIER SHRUGGED, (a free read of the first 20 pages on Amazon, first published in 2020), I wrote:

"From the age of 14 I've loved motorcycles. I have taken them apart, raced them, voided a marriage to keep them, restored them, and bought/sold/ridden more than a couple hundred. To borrow an idea from Elon Musk, who wants to die on Mars, "but not from impact," I want to die on a motorcycle-but not from impact, either."

Regards, as always,

Dr. G, now 1/2 the world away from you, enjoying 90 F weather today riding a motorcycle around the outer areas of Chiang Mai on errands, so maybe 100 kilometers, in the world's often named #1 or #2 "killing motorcyclist's roadway systems," 20 + or minus per day. The other # 1 and # 2 is Nigeria - which I've avoided for several reasons.

Dr. G,
You have every right to identify with Ender. Starting at a very young age you became among the world's best (and a definite contender for "the best") at world adventure motorcycling. You are uncontestably the best at writing about it. Hope to see you/ride with you this summer.

Above: Don and Carolyn in Cairo! February 2025.