bch2014

Just installed. Last night was sweaty.

Yes-UTSA has done a very nice job building their program quickly. Obviously Larry Coker got the program off the ground quickly, but they had a blip with Frank Wilson. Credit to them, they realized their mistakes and brought in TX HS FB legend Jeff Traylor, who made his name at Gilmer in NE Texas before going to be an assistant at UT and Arkansas. Texas State has had a much harder time getting traction-which is funny to me as San Marcos definitely has more of a "college town" vibe (to go along with nice football facilities) than the northwest side of San Antonio where UTSA is located. Meanwhile, my alma mater (Rice) has all the money and history in the world but none of the will to win, which is disappointing as an alum.

All of the C-USA teams who appeared in post-season play are moving to the American next year (FAU, UNT, UAB, Rice, and Charlotte). UTSA is also moving but they’re awful at basketball (but quite good at football). Of course, the AAC is losing Houston and a couple other teams, but it should still be good at the top next year with FAU and Memphis leading the way.

One of my good friends is in his 5th season working at the Alta Lodge. Between a combination of getting “Canyon Fever” and getting older (perhaps related), he decided to move down valley this season. He’s said it’s been a total PITA, and he’s slept 20 days on the floor of the lodge since he can’t get back down the canyon/has to be at work in the morning and can’t afford an avalanche control delay.

I agree with you that there is food price inflation. But we’ve also had nominal wage growth since 2019. So you can’t just say “food prices are up, end of story.” Is food probably 200-300bps more as a % of income than it was in 2019, yes, I’m with you. But it’s still way below the supposed “glory days” of the American middle class.

Food as a percentage of income, even after the inflation of the past three years, is far lower than in the past. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=100002#:~:text=Average share of income spent,had shrunk to 9.5 percent.

Firms have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to engage in profit-maximizing behavior. If the consumer is not particularly price-elastic, then the firm should raise prices to increase revenue. Firms are not engaging in any kind of collusion, they're simply taking signals from the market. Trust me, pricing hikes backfire all the time... Right now, my company has far greater pricing power in the US than we do in the EU, for example. Is that because the American consumer is healthier, the EU consumer smarter, or something else? Who knows (well, we have theories). Nonetheless, our pricing strategy is planned accordingly.

So essentially turning it into two trails?

I don't know how Westway is open. It's more saplings than trees at this point.

You're not missing much.. Here in Hoboken it's white rain.

Palisades base is at 6300ft and Alpine Meadows at 6900. Still should be a ton of snow though!

A good part of the snow in that map in NNE is from the Thursday system.

Up at Tremblant this weekend. A toasty -15°F this morning.

I got quite bad frostbite on 2/5/22 skiing at Jay (and I generally dress quite warmly/am acclimated to cold conditions)... That was merely a 10/-9 day at EFK. Would hate to be there on Friday/Saturday.

Yeah, it's got some nice pitch. Was generally impressed by the operation.

Was able to get out and ski Montage for four hours this morning. Conditions and coverage were far better than I expected given the warm weather we’ve had here in the mid-Atlantic. They also have some interesting trails-pretty steep on the lower mountain (albeit only about 500 vertical, the top 500 vertical is low intermediate). Unfortunately won’t be able to ski for nearly a month as I’ll be in Miami for two weekends and then Austin. I’ll definitely try to ski the weekend of 2/17 if possible and then I’m heading to Tremblant the last weekend of the month. Hard to believe it almost February and I only have 8 days in.

Cranmore reporting 6” LOL.

The Cranmore massif doesn't tend to wring out snow in the same way as the Wasatch. I'd expect the same on the mountain as what falls in town.

That shows temperatures at or below 0c until Wednesday?

No they're not. Paris is raining and in the 40's. The Alps are about to get dumped on. https://opensnow.com/location/frchamonix

I was in the Austrian alps over Christmas. Generally speaking, a decent snowpack (100-120cm) above about 17-1800M, but way below average underneath that. For example, at the skiing at the top of St. Anton and Zurs (2000-2600m) was pretty good, but the runs back to the villages were manmade snow. In downtown St. Anton, which sits at ~1250m, there was no snow at all.

Yeah, it’s huge. From the Northwest Side (Warth Schrocken) to the Southeast side (St. Anton) would take about half a day to ski.

I’ve been in Lech/Zurs/St Anton for the last four days. Conditions haven’t been great. Rain/snow line has covered around 2000M and the snowpack below about 1400M is obliterated (St. Anton town has essentially no snow-Lech and Zurs a bit better). Anyway, snow levels dropped last night and delivered about 25cm above 1500M. Off-piste Skiing at the higher elevations where there is about 80-100Cm of base is quite good. Huge relief as the first few days weren’t great (scenery and atmosphere were great, the skiing not so much). And yes-I was in the same spot as the Zurs avalanche that buried ten people about 30 minutes before. Extremely lucky.

I was out in Hackettstown today for work and there was still some snow here and there (though that's barely south of I-80). Was weird going from Hoboken where we barely saw flakes.

I have skied probably 9 or 10 days total. It is a great place to ski, but not ideal for a storm day. It is very much open bowl skiing and that area of the Wasatch is prone to fog.