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It’s pretty amazing that there are a few ski hills within a 90 minute drive of the ten million residents of Los Angeles County. Then again, they aren’t good ski resorts and are barely in business. I have no idea how they get employees to show up on the rare days when they are open. But they exist, and when some optimist buys one and announces big plans, it makes the news, even if the selling price is that of a 6 bedroom house in Pasadena.
For example, Mt. Waterman Ski Resort was recently offered for sale at $2,275,000, which is not actually a lot for half a square mile of Southern California.
From the New York Times news section:
One Ski Resort’s Long-Shot Bet to Survive Low Snowfall and Devastating Wildfires
The closest ski hill to Los Angeles recently sold to an investment group with big plans. But can those ideas work amid catastrophic climate threats that continue to plague the mountain?
Mt. Waterman is a ski hill only 37 miles northeast of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena via Angeles Crest Highway. It peaks out at 8,000 feet with a healthy 1,000 feet of vertical drop, not much by the standards of Park City’s 3,226′ or Telluride’s 4,400′, but not bad by, say, the standards of the biggest hill within several hours of Chicago (300′).
My parents used to go skiing at Mt. Waterman before I was born. But Southern California skiing has tended to move east from the San Gabriel Mountains to the more inland San Bernardino Mountains, where winter temperatures are slightly less mild, the slopes are not quite as steep (Mt. Waterman is 60% advanced runs), there are multiple access roads, and water for snowmaking is readily available from Big Bear Lake.
Hence, Mt. Waterman often is open only a few weekends per year. For example, two winters ago, it didn’t open for lack of snow through the end of February 2023, at which point 8 to 10 feet of snow fell in the most epic dump in decades. March 1, 2023 was the greatest bluebird day in SoCal of my lifetime. And the weather stayed remarkably cold late into the spring.
Sounds great for business, huh? Well, actually, no. Angeles Crest Highway was completely snowed in and didn’t re-open until October. So, Mt. Waterman never opened that winter.
What these articles usually don’t mention is the single most dramatic incident in the history of Mt. Waterman. In 1999, a guy who’d been a friend of mine in high school, along with his brother, another high school friend, and some scions of the family who’d acquired the land in the 19th Century, bought Mt. Waterman.
They then had bad luck with weather for years, but finally in January 2005, an El Nino year dropped huge amounts of snow on Mt. Waterman. The afternoon before it was to re-open, my old friend went for one last run to check everything out. Conditions were perfect.
Then he slipped and hit a tree like Sonny Bono.
He died on the spot.
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Oh sad!
Quite a non sequitur, but I remember a half to one inch of snow in Pacoima (now Arleta?) about ’50 or ’51. Or was it ’53?
OT – Longtime istevo commenter The Alarmist links to a very illuminating article talking about Candace Owens’ recent interview with USS Liberty survivor Phil Tourney, and its connection with the myth of heterosexual HIV/AIDS via one Mathilde Krim. Krim was in LBJ’s inner inner circle, suspected to be his lover, and a rabid Zionist/Irgun member,
https://www.unz.com/aanglin/candace-owens-wins-antisemite-of-the-year-award-given-out-annually-by-twitter-account/#comment-6904685
Oh sad!
I remember about a half to one inch of snow in Pacoima (now Arleta?) sometime from 1950 to 1953.
Christchurch, on South Island NZ, is a place from which you can ski in the Southern Alps in the morning and swim in the Pacific in the afternoon.
https://www.newzealand.com/uk/skiing-in-christchurch-canterbury/
What sort of loony would want to bathe in the Pacific in winter? Maybe someone who was used to swimming in the North Sea in the British summer? So bracing, dear; so invigorating!
Interesting to read that about SoCal skiing, especially the bit about the highway being closed all summer by snow, and sorry about your friend.
Imagine being Michael LeMoyne Kennedy (son of RFK, nephew of JFK, cousin of JFK Jr, brother of RFK Jr) and you’re still only the second most famous American to die skiing into a tree.
‘Ski-Poling’ has a whole different meaning in the San Fernando Valley jizz business.
So Cal? Stick to riding dirt bikes in the desert instead of skiing and you’ll always have the perfect weather for it…
I don’t recall ever meeting anybody who would want to surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon in SoCal. They are a long drive apart and both are pretty exhausting. And, as you say, it’s pretty cold surfing until July, which is why you get a certain amount of snow at a low latitude.
You could both surf and ski on a weekend if you had a good wetsuit.
And you were 19.
With all that money, how come he didn’t get his teeth fixed?
It would seem that the ski slopes in Southern California would be very dangerous. The danger coming from other skiers. Because the people frequenting the slopes wouldn’t have much experience, and the ones who did, the small group of avid skiers in So. Cal., would probably just take weekend or week-long jaunts to Park City or Jackson Hole.
Sad, but better than the so-called “tree well” death, in which the skier skis into “unconsolidated” snow, and dies slowly of suffocation. Also known as a “snow immersion suffocation.”
Sad, but at my age, this meant the friend did not return from Vietnam.
Seems like a worthwhile lark if that kind of money is something you can afford to put out and not get much of a return on – I would think the non-ski season activities could possibly attract enough people to bump along. The price is quite cheap all things considered.
Here in the Rust Belt, once in awhile I see golf courses for sale and often they are shockingly cheap, as in less than the $2M+ price for this ski area. Obviously the cost of irrigation, mowing and other maintenance must be pretty high so there isn’t a great return on of these. I know a guy who is part of a group that bought one and judging by his lifestyle I don’t think he’s getting much in the way of an annual distribution from it.
Thanks Mike. Celia Farber is great. I’d go even further (well, as far as RFK, Jr): AIDS itself is a fiction; it really was GRIDS. AZT was turned into AIDS. No AZT, no more AIDS. HIV is a nothing burger, too. Live not by lies!!!
I’ll say. Is this really a half square mile inholding? Not just perma-lease from Angeles NF?
You should have passed the hat, Steve–taken a page from Brimelow. This could have been the site of the Human Biodiversity Reseach Institute. (Comparing West and East African skiing ability, etc. etc.) I’m sure with your eye you could even figure out how to carve out–bench, to bench to bench–a loop of short golf holes. If you’ve got some chair lifts, who needs carts!
Seems like with the dystopia unfolding below, some rich guy wouldn’t mind an up-in-the-sky retreat/bugout. Need to capture snowmelt in a cistern but otherwise seems nice. Maybe fire makes this unpalatable?
~~
Sorry to hear about your HS friend.
I’d sure like to do another twenty. But if I woke up dead tomorrow, the kids would be sad … before calling the lawyer about the will. But 20 years back with my kids still at home would have been a disaster. Hope his family have come through it and his kids turned out well.
Steve, over the years you’ve mentioned your passion for golf and also for some skiing. Don’t suppose you’ve ever done some surfing? That would make the perfect Trifecta of solitary sports (golf, surfing, and skiing) complete.
Have you ever done much surfing back in your younger years? If so, where at?
Especially as SoCal’s coast, I would assume with all the pop cultural references and songs (e.g. Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, etc) would have no lack of abundance of ideal places to surf along the coast.
Surfing and skiing are both au fond just standing up. Hardly “exhausting”.
Land on a small mountain or even a hill is always cheaper pari passu than land on the flat because duh.
Burl or Michael J.?
Winter solstice is chilly and murky;
Cheer up, with a Christmas that’s quirky!
Not holly-jolly, like Ives;
When the season arrives,
Have a Christmas like Fox, herky-jerky.
Hilarious that the champion of the Men of Unz WN antisemite crowd is a black woman.
You really need to go for a more grand unification theory. You need to connect the USS Liberty to the not just the “myth” of AIDs but to Covid, the vaccine “hoax”, seed oils, the gubmint seizing your weapons, immigration, inflation and the fact that the Joos are turning the milk in your fridge sour before the sell-by date – what is that all about?
I can’t tell if you’re trolling or serious. Well played…
As the writer of the Steve Sailer quiz, I’ll field this one. No, Steve never really surfed. He may have tried a few times on a lark but it’s too difficult. Where did he try to surf? The ocean.
you attempting to agree & amplify this proposition into oblivion means we know the connection is not only real, but fabulous
Seeing as how the Cascades are ass deep in world class resorts from Tahoe to Mt Bachelor to Crystal Mountain, isn’t it the height of silliness to try a barely operable LA area resort?
Golf and skiing are both seriously expensive high equipment cost/high learning curve events. At least both have high secondary value in the connections you can make; still, ski LA seems inherently ridiculous to me.
O/T
In my continuing series of old people who have recently died, please add The Amazing Kreskin (89.10) to the list, as he passed on Tuesday
Some years ago I swam in the sea at Los Angeles in February and it was fine (and I’m British, though not exceptionally hardy). It was a memorable occasion because less than 24 hours before I had swum on the other side of the Pacific, in Auckland, New Zealand.
Skiing isn’t solitary, it’s just not a team game. It’s very social in my experience.
In college I surfed Santa Barbara, including San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands, all the time. Very inconsistent except for winter when a big storm was pumping in the northwest swells. Just after a storm was best. The water was cold, average 57 degrees or so, but a 5/3 wetsuit with booties handled that no problemo. SLO water was colder but worth the drive for more consistent waves. You should drive up the coast some winter and see all the surfers. Cold water is no obstacle.
but better than the so-called “tree well” death,
Also arguably better off than my high school classmate who at age 16 skied into a chairlift tower at high speed. He didn’t die, but he suffered severe brain damage and has lived the rest of his life with an IQ around 60.
🎶 Grand mal; got run over by a reindeer. 🎶
I remember snow in the Valley (Reseda/Tarzana) when I was 6 or 7. That would have been ’56-’57.
Is that in lakh and crore? It needs another comma: $2,27,50,000. In rupees, ₹1,93,13,97,613.33. Or ₹19,31,39,761.33 if there’s an extra digit in there. (But you might sucker an Indic CEO into paying $22 mil for a moribund ski “resort”.)
Heck, we owe our entire place system to India, via some stray Arabs and Fibonacci.
Unless these guys have another use in mind, they got rolled. The best LA area skiing is Snow Summit,
if you like slush. As Steve noted, this place is 2 hours away. For an additonal 2 hours you can hit Mammoth, where there is real snow (and some local entertainment in season).
In my recollection, November was the best month for swimming or surfing in the Pacific in LA.
It is a common boast that in the eastern end of the French Riveria (Nice and east) you can swim at the beach in the morning and ski the Alps in the afternoon (or vice versa).
The Med may be pretty cold in deep winter but might be okay in late fall or early spring.
Or swim in a wetsuit. You can see the Alps from parts of that coast.
I’ll report back when my yacht is finished with its refit in Monaco.
Someone needs to ‘splain this to me.
From an East Coaster’s uninformed perspective, Southern California is warm and sunny all the year round. What accounts for the cold water in mid-summer?
On the East Coast, we of course have the Gulf Stream which shoots abundant water warmed up in the shallow Gulf through the Florida straits and up the coast, spinning off warm eddies.
Is there something similar on the West Coast that doesn’t get going until later in the summer?
Apparently Millennials aren’t skiing much and Zoomers even less. And with prices far outpacing inflation even X’ers like me are reluctant to return to the slopes. I still recall $20 left tickets, which is a fraction of current prices even after adjusting for inflation. Plus there’s the crowds. It used to be the Whitest thing you could do, but now (West Coast) Hindus everywhere.
It’s good, I like it!
It’s not Christmassy, but try this one.
On a dark desert highway
Steering wheel in my mitts
Warm smell of deodorant
Rising up from my pits
The Pacific Ocean even as far south as the SoCal coast is chilly year-round. The prevailing current flows from north to south.
Don’t know about LA but the ocean off San Diego, 70 miles south, is pretty cold year round. The SEALs train there and every once in awhile some of them get hypothermia.
When doing both surfing and snow skiing one’s body has to fight off the cold. I’ve been in the water off of California, with and without a wetsuit, and I’ve been skiing. You work up a big appetite – lots of calories are burned.
Also, you’re a dick.
Regarding the southern California skiing, I’ve got 2 words: fake snow. (man-made). I mean, LA’s already got fake news, fake people, fake boobs. Why not fake snow?
For Alec Leamas, allegedly working from home, ;-}, it’s the Pacific Current, coming from the north, rather than the Gulf Stream coming from the south. Water is way colder – maybe 15F colder – than water at the same latitudes of the east coast of the US.
I read from iSteve that these particular ski areas have a lot of the steep stuff. My advice in general, though, is to ski the BLUE (squares?). You can satisfy the need for speed with enough width to keep away from the trees.
They might, if they are baseball fans, and are thinking in terms of having their own, custom, slash line. In which case, they already have a third item in mind. As Southern Californians, it might be any number of things. For example, surf/ski/traffic school.
What did the tree say to Sonny Bono?
“I got you babe”
I’ll add this comment about my prior post here (yeah, kinda bad form but…)
After posting that, I recall a conversation my wife and I had with a Bulgarian waiter at the East Glacier Park Lodge a few years ago. They often hire foreign students for summer jobs like that.
During our conversation about “what’s Bulgaria like?” he mentioned that there is a coastal Black Sea city close to Greece. He was quite proud of his country and said that from there (city name not recalled) he said you could get sun on the beach in the morning and ski up in the mountains in the afternoon.
I haven’t researched the map but found that surprising.
In another unrelated part of that conversation, I managed to bring up the historical fact that Bulgaria was an aligned Axis nation during WWII, and I inquired “why?”
He said that Hitler had promised to return parts of Greece that it had “stolen” sometime in the past.
Greece was invaded by Germany, but Bulgaria was not (via friendly strongman ruler).
Didn’t know Bulgaria had ski-able mountains. I did recall that Bulgaria and Greece are historic enemies. Bulgaria didn’t get “their” land back either. Just Stalin pulling strings…
“Ski Bulgaria! Get a tan while you’re there, too!”
My oldest sister, ten years older, stayed behind in Huntington Beach and skied at Mammoth.
My father grew up in Modesto, captained the ski team at Modesto Junior College (until Pearl Harbor, when he joined the Navy and they sent him to Cornell…)
On the front range of Colorado, my neighborhood, there were a few places that Steve just reminded me of.
(Steve is a good baiter.)
There was a small ski hill next to I-70 by Genesee up the hill from Denver. It never seemed to have enough snow. It was actually along the way — below my hometown.
Up the canyon from Boulder, which became my town, there is a place called Eldora. It’s at the top of Boulder Canyon, and yes, you can ski there, but why would you want to?
Then there is Loveland, where I-70 enters the Eisenhower Tunnel and crosses the Continental Divide. Oh, I skied there many times, but it sucks in my opinion. Just drive over the pass to A-Basin, where I learned how to ski at age 12, and enjoy good snow and real skiing.
You’re going full Corvinus. Never go full Corvinus.
But are you laughing?
I remember when Mr. Sailer moved his HBD tree fort to TUR a decade ago. Noticing was edgy, but just around the edges — Big Sick, Finance, Tech, War, and Gov had nothing to worry about. Jack D for years was one of his coolest kids, someone who was never Whimmed because he reliably added bigoted remarks about almost anyone to help stoke & soothe the white guys.
Times have changed. Now, Jack waits around to snarl “black woman” when someone posts something that’s actually dissident under a second tier post about skiing in LA.
“I don’t recall ever meeting anybody who would want to surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon in SoCal”
It’s called the California double.
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Skiing Alone, the new book by Robert D. Putnam, details the iSteve content generator that is the “where else in the world can you surf AND ski in the same day?” nonsense trope endlessly repeated about the superiority of Southern California, and all the modern day problems therein. Mexicans and the other diverse actual residents of SoCal (are there any white people even left?) never ski let alone surf, so who the hell is left to do the surf and ski thing in one day except for Keanu Reeves in the upcoming Netflix production of Point Break 12: We’re Officially Out of Ideas.
available now, operators are standing by. all orders in the next 24 hours ship with a free copy of Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard. damn, we still have a bunch of these things sitting around in the back room somewhere from that 80s Dianetics revival.
Thanks for reminding us that you are a merchant of disinformation.
Thanks, and Agree.
That would be pretty cool.
Anyone have a good, but unauthorized summary of the Abundant Life shooting, with info on the shooter?
Wikipedia and the MSM are keeping mum so far. It’s obvious that the police know since they identified her as a student.
Bunch of random stuff on the net that she was trans or just female. Unclear, what. Like to get the straight scoop and don’t trust the idiots on the net. But then there’s no good stories out. Maybe Daily Mail or something like that, that will break the embargo.
The name I’ve read (again from low credibility people on Twitter) is Natalie (“Samantha”) Lynn Rupnow.
“still, ski LA seems inherently ridiculous to me.”
Mammoth and Big Bear aren’t really serious “ski” projects (well, Mammoth can be, but….) It’s really more of a quickie “ski resort” holiday — you mostly hole up with your gang or your sweetie, haunt the bars and the hot tubs, and relish the idea of being nice and toasty warm while it’s snowy and frosty outside. Maybe you ski a little, just to see. It’s not so much a ski trip as a quick refreshing visit to the Opposite of LA.
“For an additional 2 hours you can hit Mammoth, where there is real snow (and some local entertainment in season).”
I seem to recall that karaoke at nights in Mammoth could be quite engaging, because you’ve got all these vacationing professional backup singers and Roxy/Whiskey wannabe stars from down below who can actually *really* sing.
Indeed, that’s how we do it, by keeping it pretty cool rather than cold.
I live near the north end of San Francisco bay on the ninth hole of an 18 hole golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus (Hiddenbrooke). It was listed at only a couple $million when it was sold a couple years ago. I have to figure that that was exclusive of carried-over debt, and I wonder if your ski resort’s price was the same.
I chuckled…we’ll done
This is the best I was able to find, read various posts:
https://twitter.com/Slatzism/with_replies
Whole thing has way more the feel of reality than a LARPer. More detail. No tease. And references pictures of shooter as child and infant. (Facebook of father is still up.) So I’m inclined to trust Slatzism.
TLDR:
*15yo female (not trans, always female).
*Manifesto shared (unreadable rant, confusing).
*Gun was stolen from father.
*Had an online e-bf from Germany.
*Lots of electronic trail of fascination with school shooting nihilism.
*No info yet from classmates or teachers on her personality. E-bf said she was sweet.
“Hilarious that the champion of the Men of Unz WN antisemite crowd is a black woman.
LOL you’re not laughing, you’re seething. The only relevance Owens has to the story is that Tourney dropped Krim’s name during the interview, which Owens didn’t pick up on. It’s the link to the Celia Farber article that’s noteworthy. Here, I’ll link to it again because you definitely missed it:
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/jaw-dropping-candace-owens-interview
I know I know, Tourney is a vicious antisemite because he has the audacity to have actually been there and not been shot to pieces like good little goys are supposed to when Israel is trying to blame Arabs for their hi-jinks.
The rest of your comment is classic point and sputter.
I asked Perplexity about the purported LBJ quote and it replied, “There is no credible evidence that Lyndon B. Johnson said “I don’t care about a few dead sailors” in relation to the USS Liberty incident. This quote appears to be unsubstantiated and likely fabricated1. The claim has been circulating recently, particularly in connection with Candace Owens’ statements, but no reliable source or documentation has been provided to verify its authenticity[12].?”
Have you got any?
Of course Sonny Bono is more famous than Michael LeMoyne Kennedy.
Clint Walker, too, though the ski pole into his heart didn’t kill him.
I don’t think the Kennedy is even close to #2. Nobody’s ever heard of him.
I can recall many, many trips to Mammoth Mountain during school days at UCLA in the early 80s. My friends and I would do an entire 3 day weekend (Fri Sat Sun) for about $150 each. Lodging, gas, lift tickets and food/beer were incredibly cheap. Even rentals of top line gear were reasonable. Now the prices are absurd. You’re lucky if you spend$150 on gas to get there and back.
The LA Times published a story recently about how illegal aliens should show Trump how much they contribute to Mammoth by walking out of work for a couple of days. Back in the 80s, there were few if any illegal aliens in Mammoth. Most of the labor was provided by ski bums who spent every off hour on the slopes. It’s just absolutely sad how a handful of yahoo “Progressives”, with their relentless anti-white agenda, have destroyed pretty much everything that was fun when I was a kid.
Imagine being Michael LeMoyne Kennedy (son of RFK, nephew of JFK, cousin of JFK Jr, brother of RFK Jr) and you’re still only the second most famous American to die skiing into a tree.
Natasha Richardson (a naturalized US citizen) would be the third most famous, though I’m not sure if she actually hit a tree. Her mishap seemed minor at the time. Number four? Heisman Trophy winner Doak Walker is the most likely candidate. If you extend the list to non-Americans Prince Friso of the Netherlands would be included, as would Justin Trudeau’s younger brother Michel.
Of course the holder of the dubious title of the most famous person gravely injured while skiing is unquestionably Michael Schumacher.
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Not everyone wants to pay for “world class resorts”. When I tried golf the version of kick-the-can I was willing to pay for was Golden Gate Park (cost in single digits/round).
I dropped a pole off the lift on my last run of the trip in ’91 and later that day discovered what turned out to be melanoma on my thigh. I took both as a sign to quit. I do regret I never learned how to turn on deep, fresh powder without falling on my face.
And why play golf at Griffith Park muny when Pebble Beach is only 350 miles away?
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Every so often Corvy hits a solid one almost to the fence.
Keep it up…
A little off-topic, but remember Disney’s plans for a ski resort in Sequoia National Park-adjacent Mineral King, 200 miles from L.A.? While that plan was still alive there was a mad rush by backpackers to make one last trip to it. I remember spending several days hiking and camping there in high school and it was really a wonderful place. Fortunately it still is because Disney never managed to get their project off the ground.
https://yesterland.com/mineralking.html
While a good number of people (famous and not so famous) are killed or seriously injured skiing, hitting a tree seems to be relatively rare as a reason for their deaths or serious injuries.
Natasha Richardson fell down taking beginner skiing lessons, complained of a headache later and died. No tree involved.
Doak Walker hit a change in terrain and flew 20 to 30 feet in the air and tumbled 75 feet further down the mountain. He was paralyzed from the neck down and died eight months later. No tree involved.
Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau got caught up in an avalanche. No tree involved.
Michael Trudeau got caught up in an avalanche. No tree involved.
Michael Schumacher fell down and hit his (helmeted) head on a rock. No tree involved.
And to think, if you had Jimmy Carter in a Death Pool for 2024, it’s looking like that one might not come to fruition.
JFC, Owens to you is a n——. Always has been, always will be. It’s out of convenience for you to come to her defense. And she’s not a dissident, she’s a grifter.
There is no myth of heterosexual HIV/AIDS. In 2022, people reporting heterosexual contact accounted for 22% (7,000) of the 31,800 estimated new HIV infections.
Men reporting heterosexual contact accounted for 7% (2,100) of estimated new HIV infections.
Women reporting heterosexual contact accounted for 15% (4,900) of estimated new HIV infections.
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Mrs. Hamilton apparently likes to do both in one day.
I’d guess the low price has something to do with the fact that as you’re driving in, it’s not unusual to see Black! hippopotami on their diabetes-maintenance strolls.
Skiing is social, AFTER the skiing and later that night in the lodge, restaurant, etc.
But actually on the slopes? Very solitary. After the lift, there simply isn’t enough time to socialize while going downhill. Compared to actual one on one sports like say, football, baseball etc.
Or unless one wants to throw in cross country skiing, which actually takes a lot more of a cardio workout long term and is very healthy in and of itself.
Didn’t know Bulgaria had ski-able mountains.
Other unlikely countries with ski areas include Greece, Lebanon, Lesotho and Morocco.
Friend of mine is half-Mex, half-Rican. His father was from Modesto and in WW II was a captain in Navy Supply. In the late ’70s my friend’s cousin, a real looker living around Norfolk, wanted to break up with a local detective she’d been dating. The guy says, “break up with me and I’ll make your life so miserable you’ll wish you were dead.” She goes to the Chief, who appears to be the stereotypical Southern redneck. He goes, “say your name’s Dominguez? I knew a Dominguez in Supply during the war.” She says yeah that’s my uncle. Chief says, “what was his first name?” Albert. Chief goes, “yeah, Albert, he was a good man. Okay I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s just absolutely sad how a handful of yahoo “Progressives”, with their relentless anti-white agenda, have destroyed pretty much everything that was fun when I was a kid.”
You mean, like….. America?
What part of what he said was disinformation, you stupid lying a**hole?
8000 feet a few hundred miles north (at Squaw Valley say) is plenty high for good snow over and a long skiing season.
On the other hand, India has hardly any skiing despite mountains over 25,000 feet high.
“I don’t recall ever meeting anybody who would want to surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon in SoCal”
These gals are what us So. California surfers and skiers used to call “slags.” I’m amazed they still exist! They were plentiful in Huntington Beach back in my day, but I just don’t see them much there now when I visit over there. I thought they were effectively extinct.
Slags are good-looking enough, when you’re drunk, to have sex with, but otherwise carry no other qualities that would make a dude commit to them, except the losers, so they got passed around a lot. They hang in a male-dominated surfer/skier crowd, aren’t atheletes, intellects, wits. But they’ll sometimes try. Usually too lazy. They love pot. They’re like the designated “little sisters” in an aggressive fraternity.
Again, I thought them type gals were long gone. Nice to see they’re still around, if only barely.
San Gorgonio would have been the one place in Southern California with decent skiing due to its immense height of 11,500 feet topping out almost 3,000 feet higher than any existing SoCal ski run. But it was made a federal wilderness in 1965.
There was a place for skiing called “Holiday Hill”.
I think it’s called “Mountain High” now.
https://www.mthigh.com/site
Pretty close to Los Angeles.
What is a “bluebird” day?
“hitting a tree seems to be relatively rare as a reason for their deaths or serious injuries. …Michael Trudeau got caught up in an avalanche. No tree involved.”
What about George of the Jungle?
I’ve done a fair amount of body-surfing when I was a teen and some boogie-boarding as a grown-up, as recently as two years ago at age 63, but I lacked the agility to be a true surfboard surfer.
But I definitely respect surfers and skiers.
Right. The Pacific, even at Santa Monica, is cold. Around Labor Day it’s tolerable.
Jimmy Buffett famously called attention to changes in latitude, changes in attitude. But I feel like he should have figured out a clever way to alert the world to the interplay of altitude, latitude, and attitude.
Well said.
Surfers are pretty hard core.
It’s a great sport, so they find a little physical discomfort, like a leaking wetsuit, to be of no matter.
I had a hard time telling apart the Amazing Criswell and the Amazing Kreskin. The former is featured in “Ed Wood,” one of my favorite movies.
I rented a surfboard at Waikiki with my cousin in 1969 but no surfable waves came along. I also rented a surfboard at the north shore of Kauai in 1981 and swam out to the break a half mile off shore, but the waves seemed too huge to risk.
I did a fair amount of body-surfing in the 1970s-1980s, and boogie-boarding in the 2000s. The last time I tried boogie-boarding was two years ago in September 2022 after getting my eyesight cleared by my cataract surgeon at UCLA. I drove to Santa Monica and paddled out to the break. But it was, weirdly for late summer, drizzling, and absolutely nobody else was out swimming at noon. The waves were in the 6′ range, and I chickened out.
Oh, well …
I may have one more time in me.
San Gorgonio also notable in the air crash death of Dean Martin’s son California Air National Guard pilot Dean Paul Martin in March 1987.
Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, has a ski mountain that empties out right into downtown.
I’m kind of a fan of Bulgaria.
The director of “Black Panther” went to Lesotho shortly before making that hit Marvel movie. A large fraction of it is set above the snow line in Wakanda. I’m guessing he hypothesized that Lesotho is far enough south in latitude and high enough in altitude to select for high intelligence.
You also pass a lot of wreckage of a WWII crash on the eastern Dry Lake trail.
It’s a big mountain.
Mine was much earlier. We moved to the Antelope Valley in late 1953, early 1954. Were in Hawaii Winter of 1952. I am pretty sure it was before our Hawaiian sojourn. I was five most of 1951.
A “bluebird day” is a skier’s term for a cold clear day after a big winter snowstorm when the atmosphere is exceptionally transparent and the snow-covered mountains are particularly visible.
March 1, 2023 was ridiculously beautiful (but also extraordinarily cold) from the San Fernando Valley. I took my dog to the dog party at the local park and shivered but adulated in the view.
Used to boogie board in NJ but the waves suck there.
Top 5 life experience for me was spending a week in Bali boogie boarding in proper waves.
You should definitely try again Steve.
Right. It used to be “Holiday Hill” and is now Mountain High.
It currently has 12-16 inches of artificial snow. It’s in the northeast corner of the San Gabriels, 79 miles from Los Angeles City Hall, compared to 46 miles for Mt. Waterman, 87 miles to Snow Valley, and 100 miles to Snow Summit, the latter two in the Big Bear Lake Area in the San Bernardinos.
Seven grand an acre does sound like a steal.
I know people who pay that a year to keep their acre manicured.
Because you can shoot a round of golf in the morning, skiing almost always involves at least an overnight trip. So some travel, some more travel, makes little difference.
Fundamentally, skiing is a very artificial activity for some one who doesn’t live in a mountainous or alpine area, rather like some one from Nebraska taking up deep sea diving. Apparently there is enough demand for those artificial constructs known as ski resorts, but I wonder how many are profitable.
Golf, at least in Texas, is wildly popular. Small towns will have a 9 hole course, our local area (300,000 population) has at leat 3 private and 2 public courses, maybe more, yet I will hear locals boast about a round at Pebble Beach or courses in Scotland.
A /pol/ thread on the matter, for those interested. Slatzism may not be good to trust. Lots of crazies in this deal, it appears.
https://archive.is/r2STd
Turn off their phones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_LeMoyne_Kennedy#Death
Last country the US declared war on.
No one who knows anything about Lebanon should be surprised. More surprising, and absent from your list: Israel. The top of the runs is only 6800 feet so, meh. But there’s hope because with the chaos in Syria, the Israeli army has grabbed a 9000 foot peak nearby. The latitude there is about the same as at the San Gabriel Mountains.
Lesotho has the highest lowest elevation (4,593 feet) of any country in the world.
“Tahoe” is a lake, not a resort. However there are several good ski resorts in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe, but they are all in the Sierra Nevada, not the Cascades.
“Watch out for that tree!”:
Video Link
They engage in a sport where drowning is the SECOND leading cause of death, shark attacks being first.
This guy spent 5 years surfing alone because he couldn’t talk his friends into going out with him.
https://www.eos.surf/videos/jeff-clark-riding-giants
Just getting out there to catch a wave can be draining.
https://www.eos.surf/videos/caught-inside-riding-giants
Where you have to work even harder just to catch said wave.
https://www.eos.surf/videos/riding-giants-mavs-takeoff
Don’t screw up!
https://www.eos.surf/videos/wipeout-riding-giants
Pass the test, and a new one awaits. Laird Hamilton and his buddies developed a new technique, tow-in surfing, to handle the size and speed of the big waves. The biggest waves require a team approach.
The final exam lies just offshore in Portugal.
I highly recommend Stacy Peralta’s big wave documentary, Riding Giants. Peralta was one of the original Z Boys, the seminal skateboard crew.
If I am not mistaken, Mount Waterman is the site – or at any rate near the site – where a Hughes Airwest DC-9 crashed after a midair collision with the military jet from MCAS El Toro in 1971. The steep sides of the mountain made recovery of the victims extremely difficult, and I’ve heard that pieces of the jet are still there.
“Slags are good-looking enough, when you’re drunk, to have sex with, but otherwise carry no other qualities that would make a dude commit to them, except the losers, so they got passed around a lot”
I get the vague impression here that you’re trying way too hard to be cool. But that’s the beauty of (deranged)anonys on this fine opinion webzine.
Saw this and was thinking are you even allowed to say ‘Squaw Valley” anymore?
Looked it up and sure ‘nough Squaw Valley geographically is now Olympic Valley and the resort “Palisades Tahoe”.
There are basically four types of skiers.
1. those who like to ski, to move through space (adrenaline, speed,a touch of danger,..).
2. snobs
3. yohoho ruddy faced city dwellers who are there for socialized drinking & singing
4. Norwegians & other Scandinavians (skiing is a way of life)
There you are.
Great story!
Sometimes I feel like thanking the Japanese for attacking Pearl Harbor, because if they hadn’t, my father never would have been an ensign in Jacksonville, where he met my mother in 1946.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade-Sierra_province#Sierra_Nevada_Mountain_Range
Et tu Steve? This is a misuse of “adulated”, ‘exulted’ would be better.
How about ululated?
Why did you put “exulted” in single quotation marks?
It technically works but it’s avoidably clumsy and confusing.
Thesaurus Nazi
Colorado is the equivalent among states. Her lowest point is a short disance from Kansas and Nebraska’s highest.
As I recall, JFK jr publicly criticized his cousins’ recklessness–and 6 months later, insisted on flying in weather requiring instruments he wasn’t trained for.
Maybe he was thinking of “ululated.”
And he needs to cool it with the antisemitic words like “merchant”.
You’re a thousand miles* away, but up in the north side of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, there is a wreck of a B-17 at the end of the Tubal Cain Mine trail. It’s an easy hike, and it’s not even in the Nat’l Park itself – just Nat’l Forest – east of the park The crash happened 7 years after WWII, some kind of training flight in which they went CFIT. (Off on their navigation and in the clouds.)
Unfortunately, there is nothing left there that could be a real nice souvenir. All the instruments, flight controls, etc. are gone. The tires are in bad shape, but the chrome on the landing gear struts looks good as new!
The good news is that members (don’t know if all) of the crew were saved.
If you’re ever up there… first, drive up to Hurricane Ridge (out of Port Angeles) on a nice day – 6,000 ft up, before you do any hiking.
.
* ~1,200 miles from Los Angeles to Port Angeles.
My father liked Bulgaria too. When I introduced him to my wife from Romania, he noted the proximity to Bulgaria, and he said, “There are some good-looking people there.”
OT — Steve, have you seen the nominally-Catholic-targeted film Conclave? If you reviewed it I’m sorry, I didn’t fip that.
Warning: This is going exactly where you think this is going. Here is one movie believing Catholics and cinema enthusiasts who prefer Robert Bresson to Human Centipede should have spoiled for them before deciding to pay for tickets. I might end up seeing it because it sounds comically of its time. Far from an attempt to pander to Catholics, it seems they tried to be Hollywood’s idea of all things for all people.
So I was justin a 4chan thread, and an anon said this move sucks, it’s woke as anything, they say not to respond to Muslim terrorism, and the candidate they pick to be Pope in the end is a tranny. And I think, even in the current year, no way, not in a movie that’s targeting your one aunt who regularly prays the rosary, this is 4channish humor and not a summary of the plot. Check wiki. Plus conservatives and homophobia are bad. The radio commercial, which has been playing nonstop, sounds rigidly over-serious with a respectful minimum of actual action. Are there actually Catholics in Kabul? That might be the wildest bit.
He hit a lodgepole pine. So “needles and pins” would have been equally appropriate.
Apparently under the Metric System he was “Sonny Bone”:
There is also plane wreckage in the Grand Canyon as a result of a mid-air collision that occurred in 1956, when a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 struck a Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation.
All 128 on board both airplanes perished, making it the first commercial airline incident to exceed one hundred fatalities. The airplanes had departed LAX minutes apart from each other and headed for Chicago and Kansas City, respectively. The collision took place in uncontrolled airspace, where it was the pilots’ responsibility to maintain separation. {Paraphrasing from the wiki}. This crash led to the creation of the FAA.
Most of the wreckage has been removed over the years (the wreck sites were very remote) but people still find bits and pieces of wreckage now and then.
You’re half right – I’m seething at Owens who is just another race hustler but laughing at you guys for your choice of champion. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
Even if no one present had his IPhone out to record LBJ saying it, his actions said it pretty plainly. No reaction, no retaliation.
You truly are hilarious, taking your get off my lawn and yeller at clouds show to new heights. Don’t worry, the glue factory is only a matter of time. You’ll like it there. Very peaceful.
Hey Steve, I’d sure appreciate a list of your 5-10 best–drives, sights, hikes–in the San Gabriel/Bernadino range.
I’ve enjoyed looking at them whenever in Southern California, but only in them once. Several years back with some grad school friends, whose daughter was in CalTech at the time, picked her up and we did the Mount Wilson visit/tour (then the campus in the evening). About 20 back during the kids’ spring break, visited Joshua Tree. But I’ve never been anywhere in between … but it looks interesting on a map and of course spectacular from town, especially on a winter day.
Thinking about driving out that way next summer and would enjoy taking a day or two tooling around the area.
Transsexual and intersex are completely different things. The Left tries to muddy the definitions in order to push the “nonbinary” sexuality nonsense.
Being intersex is a congenital defect. Transsexuality is a mental illness. Don’t fall for the Leftist false framework.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, there used to be jokes about Bulgarian shoes – an exemplar of a shoddy Soviet centrally-planned product no one ostensibly wanted – being one of the reasons for the fall of the Soviet empire.
The joke is on us, because Western fashion houses and manufacturers now make coats and shoes in… Bulgaria.
You ascribe too much (“biodiversity”) knowledge to film directors. Script writers (being the brainiest people in the movie business), maybe, but directors? No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Coogler
I see no evidence that he’d understand the concept of selection.
OT — With the apparent rapid drawing down of our imperial holdings on Okinawa, it is appropriate to post a recipe for “taco cheese & rice.” (NB: This is a one-pot meal and not a side dish.)
https://www.food.com/recipe/mickeys-okinawa-taco-rice-and-cheese-trc-517370
Most likely he merely misspelled “ululated”.
He was possibly very excited, while shivering.
The B-17’s landing gear was not chrome plated. It’s aluminum alloy.
So, you don’t say what constituted “misinformation”. As indeed, you never do. Your posts are nothing but stinking piles of bulls**t. Again – another baseless assertion by the lying swine known as “Corvinus”. Perhaps your screen handle should be “Porcinus”.
Seeing as Owens critiques her fellow blacks (BLM and such), I don’t see how she’s a race hustler. She’s actually an anti-race hustler and criticizes pathologies of sacralized groups such as her fellow blacks as well as Jews.
And, of course, she’s a Catholic convert*, so doubly “antisemite,” amirite?
*As is her husband, British aristocrat and former head of Turning Point UK, George Farmer.
I mean, anybody who looks like that is clearly an antisemitic Nazi!
Wierdly appropriate response to a comment now in moderation.
There is no joke. Only terror. Don’t discount the quality-control motivational fear factor:
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
Or just being an asshole. Enjoying making other people bow to your weirdo fetish.
Basically, there are no “transgenders”. There are weirdos who dress like weirdos because our society encourages them. And even weirder weirdos who mutilate themselves. But there is zero ability to change your sex.
A good program for dealing with all these people would be … expulsion.
Nice try, Jack. Sort of like linking the Holocaust to the tooth fairy or something. That work?
Anybody who opposes Israel is an antisemitic Nazi.
Try it in Marin County. I once did two strokes at McClures Beach, but generally, I just settled for watching my toes turn blue.
Down at Santa Cruz, it is possible to swim. Not fun, but doable.
Yes or no: Did Israel attack the USS Liberty?
Nebraska’s?
Colorado’s low point is presumably where the Arkansas runs across the state line into Kansas.
That’s believably close to the Kansas high point. Looked it up, it is indeed right near the border about halfway between I70 and US40. (We overnighted in Goodland on the way back down here in October. Maybe we’ll stop sometime and check out “Mt. Sunflower”. Doubt I’m going to get up Mt. Elbert … though it is just a hard hike and plausibly still within my declining capability. Last comparable I did was St. Helens and that was a dozen years back and 6000 feet lower.) Anyway I’d eyeball Mt. Sunflower at 50 miles or so north of the Arkansas.
But Nebraska’s high point is going to be up next to Wyoming, so maybe 300 miles and a 5 hour drive? I don’t think that’s “short distance” even by US Western state terms. You’re supposed to be the master of this sort of trivia here, let’s get back up to level.
You’ve clearly done some driving in the area!
It’s kinda interesting how Iowa is pretty flat until you hit the Nebraska border area and then it starts getting a bit hilly and then when you hit Wyoming and you get that, oh snap, it’s still kinda flat, but weirdly feels like “I am closer to the sky!” Then you hit Montana and it’s miles and miles of forested, elevation, alternating with stripped elevation…. until you hit Idaho/western Washington/Oregon where it turns Alpine forests (then as descent begins, arid hills and then rain forests and then the ocean!).
The diversity of this country’s landscape is really amazing. And that’s just from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest, forget about from Maine to Florida or Illinois to Texas or New Mexico.
I’ve done all these drives (and sometimes hikes, e.g. along Appalachia) multiple times and hope my kids will get to do it as much as I have. Everyone should get to know his country this way. A car and the US interstate highway system is freedom!
For many years one of the most difficult state highpoints to visit was Rhode Island’s Jerimoth Hill at the height of 812 feet. The summit trail crossed private land, and the owner had a serious attitude problem and blocked all access. Thankfully the Grim Reaper paid him a cordial visit and his heirs opened up the trail.
Sybil Fawlty: Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were telling me about California. You can swim in the morning, and then in the afternoon, you can drive up into the mountains and ski.
Basil Fawlty: Must be rather tiring
(from “Fawlty Towers” 1979)
There is another kind of transcontinental journey that is quite educational too. I once took a train ride from San Diego to Boston, and it was like a colonoscopy through America’s rust belt. You have to have a strong mind to see what shows up on the window.
Seething double, Jack?
A real race hustle has always been here, and it seems pretty stale these days.
If you want to visit a plane crash site closer to home, you could hike up the Verdugos. In 1945, an American Airlines DC-3 completing a cross-country flight from New York City on an instrument approach to runway 8 at what was then Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank was unable to make visual contact with the runway (dense fog) and executed a missed approach. The standard procedure for this was to immediately make a climbing right turn to 3,500 feet. Turning right sends you over the Valley with lots of room.
But for some reason the pilot, well experienced, with many flights into and out of Burbank, turned left. That put the plane on a collision course with the Verdugo Mountains about two miles away. The plane hit 300 feet below the top of the McClure Canyon ridge at full climb power. All 21 passengers and the pilot, co-pilot and stewardess were killed.
The actress Donna Reed boarded the plane in El Paso, getting the last available seat, but was bumped for a serviceman going home on leave. Good luck in bad for her, bad luck in good for him.
The wreckage is still there. Not many people know about it. It’s not on a trail. Wear rattlesnake-proof boots. Winter is a good time to do the hike, since there is no shade.
“until you hit Idaho/western Washington/Oregon where it turns Alpine forests (then as descent begins, arid hills and then rain forests and then the ocean!).
The diversity of this country’s landscape is really amazing.”
True. And that is exactly why we must pave it all over and fill up every single square inch of it with low-income housing for masses upon masses of unnecessary new Latinos, Nigerians and Hindoos, so no matter what our crimes are, we’ll never ever get holocausted, ever again. I mean it’s a sure thing — nobody’s gonna hate us for doing that, right? Right?
How many deaths is the Arbor Day Foundation responsible for? Trees are murderous things.
When my speed addict sister visited and wanted to ride my ATV, I told her “Here’s your safety briefing: Don’t hit a tree. Don’t hit a tree. Don’t hit a tree”. [She hit a tree, but at low speed].
Skiiing, Driving, Snowmobiling, Nap-of-the-earth flying – trees have a high Pk.
But a lot of Texans fly to Colorado to ski. Heck, a lot of rich Mexicans fly to Colorado to ski. That appears to be how covid got introduced to Mexico.
I don’t see how. The material is shiny as the day is long. Polished aluminum doesn’t keep that look.
Take a hike.
That’s not an insult. Take a hike up there, and you’ll see. (Maybe there’s something we’re miscommunicating on – I’m talking about the oleo struts.)
“So, you don’t say what constituted “misinformation””
I did, in comment 73, yeller at clouds.
We could said then Alex Jones was right.
And Corvinus has become his white knight.
Yeah but us oldtimers still call it Squaw.
At the time I proposed “Trans-Squaw Valley” as a compromise between wokeness and tradition, but who ever listens to me?
It’s a tough-but-doable day hike though. I did it a bunch of times when I was getting ready to climb Mount Whitney.
And a lot of Texans just drive to Enchanted Forest/Angel Fire etc. It is still a 7 hour drive, or 5 and a half for Texans.
I don’t ski anymore–my knees only want to do about an hour, so it’s not worth the hassle.
But I guess of your four types, I’m your #1 type. Except that doesn’t really capture what I like about it. I’m not a speed freak or danger freak. I like going fast and getting some adrenaline–a few times in a in few spots.
But skiing its more about the skiing feeling, sort of “floating” along through the snow and then particularly doing it in a beautiful alpine setting, hills and peaks and firs laden with snow. Skiing for me actually loses its appeal to me in those stark barren high bowls and is best a bit below the tree line, with medium sized firs around but relatively open, parklike, granting me scenic vistas as I float down the mountain.
(That’s sort of my preferred hiking terrain as well. The most beautiful spots are sub-alpine, with scattered trees, exposed granite cupping some lakes and tarns. Find a nice rock, pull off the pack, pull out lunch … take in the view.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Tahoe
“Lake Tahoe (/ˈtɑːhoʊ/; Washo: Dáʔaw) is a freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the Western United States, straddling the border between California and Nevada”.
My reasoning was that adulated is an actual quote while exulted is not. No idea if that’s technically correct.
I prefer to think of myself as a thesaurus Falangist.
“Ululated ” has gotten much more support than I would have suspected, but shouldn’t that have been ululated ‘at the view’ rather than “in the view”?
To be clear for the others, Criswell the character is featured in Ed Wood (the movie), as the actual Criswell appeared in Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. In Ed Wood (the movie) Criswell is portrayed by Jeffrey Jones, most famous for playing
Tell you what…I’ll be in Mammoth first week of February, Mon-Fri. I’ll be the old fukr in a blue Decent single suit and a brown leather cowboy hat, riding Mantras. We’ll hit Huevos Grande, then I’ll buy you a beer and you can ‘splain to me how that’s not “serious.”
Cheers.
40 years ago when I lived in SoCal his would have been a pretty normal conversation, with most people nodding along (except for the gals in question of course). How we’re allowed to phrase things has of course changed but the underlying thought probably not so much…
Squaw was an Indian word meaning…woman. Nothing derogatory about it, until certain folks figured out they could get advantage by ginning up outrage….
“skiing its more about the skiing feeling, sort of “floating” along through the snow and then particularly doing it in a beautiful alpine setting, hills and peaks and firs laden with snow.”
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
TS Eliot, The Waste Land
The RFH stuff has been shot down several times. The e-bf from Germany denies it. And none of the online traces show it. Yet, you get the same lame, low-content posts pushing it over and over like Groundhog Day (very TLF/Pizzagate-y). In contrast Slatzism has all kinds of long text and content and documents and a history doing journalism. It’s night and day, if you are a critical thinker and can evaluate quality of content.
Michael Schumacher fell down and hit his (helmeted) head on a rock. No tree involved.
An odd feature of the Michael Schumacher case is the near-fanatical efforts of his wife Corinna to keep all information on his condition secret. Other than medical personnel, the only people allowed to see him are immediate family members and two or three old friends who are sworn to silence. Just recently a former security guard and his accomplices were charged with trying to blackmail the family by threatening to release pictures and videos unless paid 15 million Euros. Corinna wants the upcoming trial to be kept secret so no information leaks out.
Texans typically drive, even if reasonably well off (which you have to be to take a family for a ski vacation to a destination resort). Maybe not if you are the CEO of an oil company. But if you’re just a senior executive? You drive.
I was a ski instructor at a big name resort in CO. We would talk about “the Texans” all the time. It was basically three groups of customers
1. CO (locals, Denver etc. with a mix of day/weekend trippers, week trippers, and people with cabins…but all with cheap season passes, literal price discrimination business case). They had some options in terms of skiing at less busy times, when snow was better, etc.
2. Texans: almost ALL of whom drove and then stayed a week. They were going to ski no matter what. Pretty heavily biased to peak times (Xmas holidays and “spring break”, essentially March).
3. People who flew and stayed a week (from Chicago, East Coast, etc. but NOT from other parts of the West.) Similar behavior pattern to the Texans but a different accent and attitude somehow. Just basically difference of Rice and Northwestern.
Note that there’s really not a lot of great fly-in options. Vail has a small airfield used by the rich (and I think up to 737es can land there). Summit County lacks a destination airfield, despite Breckinridge having the “Airport Road” area (it was never built). So, the people from group [3] are all flying into Denver, which has the baggage claim to handle skis and all and either renting a car, or taking the ski shuttle for a 3 hour + drive. The Texans all just drove anyways. Yes, from Dallas or even Houston.
True dat. My first trip across the pond was to Edinburgh for a conference. We stayed in some newer student housing, but I was still kind of shocked by how cramped everything was. Still remember flying home, getting back in my car and blowing down the road at 70 mph windows down radio on thinking damn it’s good to be back in the USA!
And yes our country is beautiful. To paraphrase Churchill, “to be born an American is to have won the lottery of life.”
I think covid got introduced to the USA by people like Tom Hanks who went skiing in the mountains near northern Italy in early 2020. There was a big covid out break in Italy after many Chinese workers there returned after going home for New Year.
The character wasn’t a tranny, but intersex, as in the novel the film is based on.
From Wiki:
The film itself is excellent. Give good actors dramatic situations and lots of words to speak, and I’m in.
Criswell was never that big and wasn’t a sarcastic comedy act (in his very short book, Criswell Predicts, he illustrates a bourgeois piety of his time in predicting that an alpha black named Sanders [like the fried chicken mogul] will go all Lean On Me on The Coloreds, whip them into shape, and establish a separatist state which will become lauded for its work ethic and motality), and his career wasn’t that long; wasn’t Kreskin a regular on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show?
And the pilot was not a woman but a man. Repeat: a man.
Obviously, men are too incompetent to fly airplanes.
Only women should be allowed to do that.
A lot of rich Mexicans own houses in Vail.
“I don’t see how she’s a race hustler. She’s actually an anti-race hustler and criticizes pathologies of sacralized groups such as her fellow blacks as well as Jews.”
Maybe you’ll start NOTICING here.
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-candace-owens-run-liberal-blog-before-becoming-conservative-1573008
In 2007, she was involved in a high school race incident. Her family eventually got a financial settlement. She wrote in 2016 about how this experience scarred her…BEFORE her popularity soared on social media denying that hate crimes play an insignificant role in our society.
*As is her husband, British aristocrat and former head of Turning Point UK, George Farmer.”
Race mixing is an affront to the return of Western Civilization, or so I’ve been informed.
Oy, that double negative gets you every time. Sad!
Yes or no, did the US bomb the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade? Did the US shoot down Iran Air Flight 655 and kill 290 innocent civilians? In the Iraq War, did the US Marines kill 10 US Marines in a friendly fire incident?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/03/29/iraq-friendly-fire-blamed-on-marine/faf63995-b5d2-461f-b537-60bc08b2e62b/
Obviously these things all happened but that is only the beginning of the inquiry, not the end. Were these tragic accidents or deliberate? It seems like the answer depends on whether you are pre-disposed to believe the worst about the US or Israel. Most people who are objective regard all of these incidents as tragic accidents that happened in the fog of war. If Americans sometimes make mistakes and fire on our own troops, how is it not possible that Israel also made a mistake that day? All human enterprises are infected with error and war more than most.
“Yes or no, did the US bomb the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade?”
Yes and no “fog of war”.
“Did the US shoot down Iran Air Flight 655 and kill 290 innocent civilians?”
Yes and no “fog of war”.
Yes or no: Did Israel attack the USS Liberty?
Your seething about Owens because she is effectively disseminating information about the Liberty.
Those incidents were all single strikes, not sustained attacks lasting over the course of several hours.
Not “trying” anything. Just a dude who hung with surfers a LOT back in the day, including getting up at 5:30 am to be on the waves by 6:30 am on a weekday, thereby missing first period in my high school class, too often. I just share that detail to underline the fact that you can’t even imagine my way of life as a teen in Huntington Beach, so are unqualified to even determine if I’m a bullshitter or not.
Besides, why the hell would I bother to lie about that obscure subject, on a relatively obscure comments section, anonymously for status points I’d never get because I’m anonymous? You’re assuming that my reasoning is crazy, like you!
You make ZERO fucking sense, dude! 👌
Illinois’s is also on private land, the point itself, not just the trail thereto. It’s not open all the time, but they’ve made it relatively easy to visit. It’s just outside Galena, in the state’s tiny portion of the “Driftless”.
Iowa’s is also on private land, which we’ve visited. I would think these folks would donate the actual spot and its route of access to the local government, if only to avoid liability issues. Wisconsin’s state high point is the only one of the 50 in a county park; but the easiest (by far!) of the world’s 45/90° points to reach is in a private cornfield not far away in Poniatowski [sic]. They’ve even built a display you can visit. Midwestern hospitality!
I’ve read that New York’s Mount Marcy is not a particularly difficult climb, even for beginners. But it starts at least fifteen miles from he nearest vehicular access, so you’re going to be tired before you even begin. The only higher ones in the east, in N.H, N.C., and Tennessee, have paved roads to the top. Cheats! One even as a rail line going up.
Well, there it is.
Right. We rarely have the extremes of anything, but we offer a little taste of everything. A geographical salad bar. A giant terrarium.
Bah. Ike’s Interstates are Potemkin America. This is the way to see the USA:
Or do you live on one of these, and are diverting us away from your spread? The “blue” refers to the road atlas, not anything political– it’s from 1982. Every state has its rustic roads, but as far as I know, only in one are they official:
For a different kind of freedom– e.g., to tipple and sleep it off– I’d recommend Amtrak, with all its faults. A regular time capsule, especially in the small mountain cities.
The first cases in my neighborhood were brought back by well-to-do skiers who had vacationed in Italy’s spectacular Dolomites.
These days, Criswell is mostly remembered for his magnificent cameo in Plan 9 from Outer Space, the greatest film in history, in which he utters such golden chestnuts as “My friends: you are interested in the future, because THAT IS WHERE YOU AND I SHALL LIVE!” and, “Future events like these will affect YOU, in the future.”
And you know what? Dammit but he was right.
You sound like the type of fella who can be serious about anything that he puts his hand to, so I don’t doubt it. Me, however, I’m just a rather lazy hobbyist… back when I was still capable of doing it, I did my skiing in Aspen and my just-hanging-out in Mammoth and Big Bear. (Maybe with some wisdom, should have done it all the other way round, but whaddaya gonna do.) Which is a way of saying I wasn’t serious about skiing at all, just serious about different things.
I’ll gladly have a beer with you though, except I can’t drink mine… recovery is one of those few things that I actually am serious about.
Bulgaria had three good things apart from skiing, now alas only 2.
Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon was a fantastic value red, student and poor person standby all through the 1980s. Then communism fell, the vineyards returned to their original owners and the quality went down the tubes – a rare example of an efficient and productive nationalised industry.
Bulgarian currency – 100 stotinkis to the lev ! Who’s never wanted to say “Comrade, can you spare a couple of stotinkis?”
This lot and Nadka Karajova, beautiful voices
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Myst%C3%A8re_des_Voix_Bulgares
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadka_Karadjova
This actually made the UK charts
You have to paddle out half a mile on the north shore to surf? That’s insanity. Who needs the hassle.
I was surprised how cold the Pacific was when I visited LA. What a shame with all those beautiful beaches that the water is not enjoyable. Probably why beach volleyball is so popular.
Apparently in your world there are never any mistakes, especially not by people you hate.
There were two attacks over a period of about 90 minutes.
The problem with Bulgarian Communist shoes was not the Bulgarian part but the Communist part. The same E. German factory that made the Trabant, widely considered as a joke of an automobile, now makes perfectly respectable VWs and Audis.
The beauty of capitalism is that under the correct leadership (that is motivated by enlightened self interest and regulated by market mechanisms) you can take a ragtag band of uneducated (Bulgarian or any other) peasants and put them on an assembly line (backed by a large investment in CAPITAL goods) and have them produce products that are better (and much cheaper) than the finest craftsmen could make by hand.
The Communists had the peasants and they had (some) capital (mostly stolen) but what they lacked was the enlightened self interest and a market mechanism for allocating capital and the demand for products. Bulgarian Communist shoe factories went broke about a minute after the fall of Communism because no one wanted to buy their products once they had a choice to buy better ones and no bank would lend them money because their return on capital was negative.
I think we have some pretty extreme (and amazing) stuff. The Grand Canyon, the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls, the Giant Sequoias, Death Valley, Hoover Dam, etc. People come from all over the planet to see these things which are in many cases the most extreme examples of these things on earth.
Of course capitalism can also be ruthless. A very recent example, about a hour ago the discount retail chain Big Lots announced that a last-ditch private equity acquisition had failed, and barring a miracle it would be liquidating.
Hey, Reg, I read that book, as recommended by a Geography Professor way back. He did a better, longer (13,000 miles) and more realistic trek than Travels with Charlie‘s Steinbeck who is said to have stayed in hotel rooms and got his wife to come out and meet him for stays. William LH Moon stayed in his Econoline van, I think with a dog too, IIRC.
I’ve been across this land 17 times from various A to B points, not counting shorter (1,000 mile) trips. Most two-lane roads east of the Mississippi require one to slow down every 10-20 miles for towns, so, not so good. Once out West one can be close to the land (the drawback with the I’s), yet still go fast on the 2-lane highways. In Nevada’s “Basin & Range” country, I could see a glint off a windshield from a few miles away, giving me plenty of time to slow down to 85 or 90, in case it was a cop.
I took a (Rand-McNally) light-gray highway as a shortcut in New Mexico and there were rocks sticking up enough to beat all hell out of my sports car, breaking the hatchback latch.
Okay, the trees. But Big Muddy has to answer to the Nile and the Amazon, Death Valley to the Dead Sea, Niagara to Victoria, Angel, and Iguaçu.
Dams aren’t “landscape”, Twinkie’s standard, and Hoover isn’t tops on any of these five criteria:
https://smartwatermagazine.com/q-a/which-largest-dam-world
Mauna Kea beats Everest on one definition, Denali on another. But Chimborazo beats them all on distance from the core.
Our deserts, mountain ranges, and jungles are second-best at most.However, if you want to do multiple bucket list items on a single visa, the US can’t be beat.
One list on which we rank quite low is sizable islands. Hawaii, our largest, ranks #75 in the world. Long Island has more residents than all our others combined.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_by_area
https://www.worldatlas.com/islands/10-largest-us-islands.html
I was sitting on a Big Lots futon mattress when I read that. The frame, though, was shipped from an indiemanufacturor in Quebec. And, no, it’s not wood, but metal. Maybe with asbestos.
“Is there something similar on the West Coast that doesn’t get going until later in the summer?”
Southern California’s waters are kept cool by a cold deep water current that comes down from the Aleutians or originally from the Bering Sea. The Northwest coast of North America get a warm surface current that comes from the area of Japan called the Kuroshio Current, this keeps the coastal areas warm in the winter relative to their latitude. The cool, rainy winter climate prevails from Crescent City California to the Alaska Panhandle, a distance of over 1000 miles.
Thanks dude!
Btw, Gidget was a classic slag.
Almost cute, slightly boyish, tries too hard, can surf a little if you help her, always around, takes a lot of crap, give her some beers, and she’ll let you dry hump her in the back of your van.
As long as she wasn’t obnoxious, we’d let her hang out.
Her aim to please made her popular, and unpopular at the same time.
It’s no coincidence they hired Sally Field to play that shit.
I think I took that shortcut, too, in 2008, driving south from Durango CO and cutting east toward Los Alamos. I wasn’t sure I’d make it in a 2WD pickup. When I’d about had enough, there was a slick, bumpy, blind curve with a big drop to the side and no guardrail, just trees.
Capitalism is good BECAUSE it is ruthless. Big Lots was not using its capital efficiently (which the market signals by whether you are making a positive return on it or not) and its assets and store locations will be redeployed by more productive users.
In Communism all sorts of zombie companies stuck around for decades making products that no one in their right mind would have wanted because there was no real bankruptcy mechanism (nor a pricing mechanism or many other mechanisms).
Luckily, Communism also provided a partial solution to its own problem by creating perpetual shortages of consumer goods (most of the productive capacity was devoted to military production and consumer products were an afterthought) so your poorly run factory could still sell all the crappy goods it produced despite their fundamental crappiness. The Trabant was one of the worst cars ever made but there was a 13 year waiting list to buy one in E. Germany.
Big Lots was one hell of a confused store. Any store that size that sells furniture and milk and eggs under the same roof doesn’t know what the hell it is in business for.
Here is a tour of state low points. Other pairs of neighboring low and high points are Wyoming/South Dakota and New Mexico/Texas. Perhaps West Virginia with her eastern neighbors.
Within states, Delaware’s high point is only four miles from her low point, which is sea level. In Florida, the high point is even lower, but ca. 45 miles from the sea. Of course, California’s mere 85 miles between Mt Whitney and Death Valley takes the prize for the US, but is challenged by Eritrea’s short hop between Emba Soira and the Red Sea, half as tall, but ca.25 miles.
Relatively flat Poland, Iceland, Finland, and Estonia all manage to host the Worldloppet.
Big Lots was one hell of a confused store. Any store that size that sells furniture and milk and eggs under the same roof doesn’t know what the hell it is in business for.
Big Lots did much better when it was an off-price retailer with a wide variety of items. Ollie’s, Five Below, and TJ Maxx (with more of an emphasis on clothing) follow that strategy and are thriving. Some time ago, however, Big Lots began to focus mostly on selling inexpensive furniture on store credit and cut back their assortment of other stuff. This was a boneheaded decision and the worst of two worlds: (1) people interested in discount merchandise were frustrated by the shrinking assortment at Big Lots and went elsewhere; and (2) people interested in inexpensive furniture wouldn’t often think of Big Lots as a place to find it.
One list on which we rank quite low is sizable islands. Hawaii, our largest, ranks #75 in the world. Long Island has more residents than all our others combined.
I consider Oahu to be the country’s most populous island. Or Puerto Rico, if you go beyond the 50 states. Long Island and Manhattan don’t count because I do not consider an island connected to the mainland by bridges and tunnels to be a true island. And in Manhattan’s case there is the issue of Marble Hill to complicate matters.
Devon Island, #27 in the world by area, is uninhabited. Ellesmere Island, #10 by area, has fewer than 150 inhabitants.
“Apparently in your world there are never any mistakes, especially not by people you hate. ”
Yes or no: Did Israel attack the USS Liberty?
“Fog of War” is a good cover for attacking a communications ship. You folks are such Harvey Weinsteins.
Unfortunately that’s probably not what he’s most famous for.
https://people.com/beetlejuice-jeffrey-jones-charles-deetz-not-in-sequel-8707300
Capitalism is good BECAUSE it is ruthless.
==
No, Mr. Potter. Private enterprise is the optimal means for providing goods and services because producers have customers to please and competitors with a shot at pleasing them as well. The incentives work toward exploring productive process and product lines which will generate revenue for the enterprise. The competition is ordinarily passably decorous. That allows for the interim presence of produces with revenue insufficient to meet voluntarily assumed obligations. When they cannot, the clean up is a court-supervised process of re-organization or liquidation. That’s not ‘ruthless’, but a recognition that the alternative (permanent subsidies for poor performers financed via tax collection) is a socially injurious alternative.
Indeed, as Tennyson might have put it “Tho’ Market, a healthy pink in tooth and claw.”
Bite your tongue:
I’ve lived on both Oahu and Long Island… and on Governors, Chichagof, Zealand, and Great Britain. I know my islands!
少废话:
Malaysia-Singapore Causeway: Bridging borders 100 years on
>yeller at clouds.
Moar like, “yeller at clowns”
>Jeffrey Jones, most famous for playing
with children’s wieners
“Capitalism is good BECAUSE it is ruthless.”
How about rent-seeking? Is that, too, good because it is ruthless?
What about slave-dealing? Insider trading? What about ethnic cartels? Racketeering? Drug-dealing? Lawfare? Racist supremacism? All good, because ruthless?
Asking an expert, for a friend.
>yeller at clouds
Moar like “yeller at clowns”
The air attack consisted of multiple passes in which the jets fired machineguns and rockets and dropped napalm. The sea attack consisted of them firing torpedos and making another approach to shoot up life-rafts. Then there were the helicopters with marines, whose intent was not clear but by that time could reasonably be concluded by the crew to be hostile. They hove off when it became apparent that the Liberty had gotten a distress signal out to the 6th fleet.
So – like I said – sustained attacks over several hours.
Carry that water harder, Art. You may yet earn yourself an “Atta Goy!”
http://www.mountainyahoos.com/SkiResorts/Dubai.html