Picto Diary - 24 to 31 March 2023 - Freddie Chills

Above: Snow Park base. Deer Valley, UT 26 March 2023. 57 11 510. Image of Snow Park taken from Navigator ski run. Light ❄️ and flat light. Stockli Montero AX ski has replaced my five-year-old Stockli AX's says talkative OZ woman of a certain age on Silver Strike chair. She sported a pair received just yesterday from Powder 7 in Colorado (see Comments for image). Hour and a half (!) coffee break at my office in Empire Lodge. Talking books and current events with Daggett and Jack. Talk tone mostly depressing. YTD ❄️ fall: 535 inches (35 inches above Alta annual average; 285 inches above DV annual average).

Above: Red Cloud Lift. Deer Valley. 27 March 2023
58 11 521 Snow area under Red Cloud Lift is so deep that area under the moving chairs needs to be roped off lest skiers run into the skis of lift riders. DV settled base is 147 inches (over 12 feet). Peeler perfect today. Two-inch powderoy. Another long coffee break in my Empire Lodge office with Daggett and Jack. Book recommendation: "The Billion Dollar Whale" by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope.

Above: Dew Drop ski run. Deer Valley. 28 March 2023. 59 11 532. 'Cake skis Dew Drop. Another long discussion break at my office in Empire Lodge. 'Cake, Daggett, Jack and Bishop.

Above: Yellow House and Woodside Avenue. Park City, UT. 28 March 2023.

Above: Residence beside Silver Strike Lift, Deer Valley, UT. 29 March 2023. 60 14 546. Finding laborers to remove snow from your roof is difficult. If you contract for a roof snow removal job, it is expensive. A friend told me that his friend (so its secondhand info) who lives in Glenwild, paid $4 thousand to have snow removed from his roof. The heavy weight of snow on a roof can cause structural damage or roof leaks. It's been an unbelievable snow year. DV is reporting 525 inches ytd snowfall, already 175 inches above DV annual average snowfall and twenty-five inches above Alta annual average snowfall. Alta is now reporting 760 inches of snowfall, an all-time record with one month of accumulation to go. People living or doing business near waterways are starting to worry about Spring floods. I skied and coffee breaked (sic) with The Actuary today. I'm blessed to have ski companions like The Actuary who ski better than I do, who are also willing to ski with me. At break in my office (West room of Empire Lodge) we meet a sixty-five something man. He was a production guy for Chevron, now retired, who worked all over the world, including Siberia. Originally from New Hampshire, where he was a ski racer, he retired in Park City to be near the snow. A common story heard around here. I completed my 60th ski day today, well down from the 75 last year at this time. My peak ski performance since retirement in Park City was 142 ski days and 2.6 million vertical feet circa 2009. That year, I skied every marked run and every lift line at Park City. As a general rule, up until last year, I'd usually ski at least one hundred days and one million plus vertical feet per year. I'm happy with what I'm doing. I got the Antarctica trip in in January and enjoy regular stays in Ivins where TIMDT, who doesn't ski any more, has more options AND more Oxygen. Ski conditions today: Above freezing temps. Overcast. Windy at high elevations. Snow generally good, but started to see softness in snow at lower elevations.

Above: Roof over great room. Iron Canyon. Park City, UT. 29 March 2023. The dish that receives my internet signal is at right in the upper image. The lower image shows the roof snow berm which blocks the signal. I've had the snow removed twice, at some cost, from that area, but it just keeps snowing. I've decided just to wait out the thaw. I can use my phone hotspot to get online. While, streaming videos are out for now, I can watch satellite TV and movies from my Kaleidescape hard drive collection, both dependent on my home Wi-Fi but not on external internet feed. We're in Ivins frequently where we have full internet service. A friend told me to have the dish remounted on the roof beam just above where it is now. Lazy me... too much trouble. Let the snow melt!

Above: My office view, Empire Lodge, Deer Valley, UT. 30 March 2023. 61 10 556. 10:30 AM. Snow never stops falling. Six inches overnight snowfall at DV. Alta now at 779 inches YTD. Selfie back pat for skiing first grooming Peeler today...steep, six inches swished around powder. Wore me out, though. Foggy. Lunch at Snow Park with KPCW Broadcasters Club. Sat with Sara and Mark. Checked in with Renai.

Above: Iron Canyon, Park City, UT. 30 March 2023. Freddie chills.

Above: Park City Gun Club, Park City, UT. 30 March 2023. Brass.

Above: TIMDT, Iron Canyon, Park City, UT. 30 March 2023. Driveway.

Above: Ruths Chris Steakhouse. Park City, UT. 30 March 2023. Poolside dining.

Above: Alta snowfall. 31 March 2023. 811 inches, YTD. Alta has not recorded plus 800 inches of snowfall since opening to skiers in 1939 and there is still two to three weeks remaining to record additional snowfall. Alta's average snowfall over the last fifty years is 550 inches per year.

Hi Steve:

Photo in Big Dog T-shirt is from Bangkok last week, is Big Dog #1 carrying the Big Dog flag in front of a new 1250 GS, that he did not purchase. BTW, in Thailand a majority of the Thais are still masking, thus my mask, respecting their culture as I am a guest there, not wanting to be seen as an (The) Ugly American (1950s book and later movie starring Brando in Old Siam).

Watching your Park City ski slope drama unfold as I traveled the globe this last week, all I can suggest to the defense as jailhouse lawyer in good standing of high stakes USA judicial drama is the defense should have her try on the ski glove wearing a latex glove underneath: "If the ski glove don't fit, you must acquit!"

I think the standard of SOGDI (Some other guy did it) wonk work - too many eyes saw the collision.

Funny, seeing Park City in the news in a printed newspaper in downtown Bangkok newspaper display, the newspaper being a rag from GB.

Best,

Dr. G,
Chang Mai, Thailand

I'm going to recommend that Deer Valley change the name of the "Bandana" ski run to "Gwyneth."

"Old" Highway 91, of course, was the main road betw/ SLC and San Diego when my sister first moved there in the late 60s.  And, of course, the Joshua trees were the splendid highlight.  I once bought a Joshua and some cholla cacti for my SLC landscaping, which succeeded in popping my son's regulation basketball and wounding neighbor kids.  Every now and again since the freeway, I've strayed off seeking Joshuas in that area.  My dad drove semis up there!  
Diana,
Mayfield, UT
It's a mesmerizing tree. The largest concentration I've seen is north of Kingman, AZ on a dirt road headed towards the Hualapai skywalk over the Grand Canyon. I'm still fascinated that Utah has its own little corner of Joshuas. Here's an image of one in our Ivins backyard. Last summer we picked it up at a nursery in Beaverdam, AZ.