Stay for the Corn

There is a reason that a lot of slopes at ski resorts in the Northern Hemisphere are north facing. During winters in the northern hemisphere, the sun is in the southern sky, so the angle of inclination of the sun is lower in general, and particularly lower for N-facing slopes. These N-facing slopes receive less heat from the sun, and hence the snow pack lasts longer and remains fresher.

A lot of folks living up in the Sierra Nevada recall that the reason they moved up to the sierras was their love for snow and their passion for skiing, but they invariably concede that they have stayed on in the high alpine because of summer. "Come for the winter, stay for the summer" is their refrain. When it comes to skiing in Tahoe, there is a similar sentiment -- come for those epic dumps, but stay for the joy of spring skiing. To me, my favorite ski month is not December (usually hit-and-miss), not January or February (when the resorts are crowded), but it is actually March and early April. If you time it right, corn or spring snow is some of the most delicious you can experience. 

As spring arrives and sun's angle of inclination increases, temperatures rises and the top layer of snow melts. But during the night, temperatures up in the mountains are below freezing, so the top layer refreezes forming a hard icy surface. So to enjoy spring conditions, we need to patiently wait for the sun to do it's magic and adopt a simple rule: "Follow the sun".

Ideally, you start on E-facing slopes in the morning (snow softens on E-facing slopes first as the sun rises), move to S-facing ones mid-morning (as the day warms up, sun in the southern sky has shined longer on the S-facing slopes thus softening it up) and then move onto N- and W-facing ones as they soften up by lunchtime (sun shines on the western slopes in the afternoon, and N-facing slopes soften up in the afternoon heat).

Understanding the slope aspect and effects of the sun is important in order to have a good day on the snow because believe it or not most resort days are non-powder ones.

"sticks-and-stones" School

When Jim Harbaugh was hired out of Stanford to be the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 2011, people drew parallels to the time when Bill Walsh, the legendary 49ers coach, was hired out of Stanford. Niner nation was convinced that Harbaugh will bring back the famed West Coast offense system into the 49ers playbook.

In a Traditional offense, the focus is on establishing a run game first, draw in the defense and possibly open up passing lanes downfield. In contrast,The 49ers' West Coast offense -- as developed by former San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh -- relies on short passes that stretch the defense horizontally using a quick, horizontal passing attack which then sets up the running game. The legendary 49ers QB Joe Montana mentioned that in the Bill Walsh system he was never forced to throw down the field unless he liked it. He said the emphasis was to give the ball to the play makers and let them make big plays.

But Jim Harbaugh is not a West Coast practitioner. Looking at how the 49ers have played under Harbaugh, it is clear that the emphasis is on a strong defense and a powerful running game. The great Jerry Rice called for the diapers to be taken off Alex Smith so that he can play more freely, perhaps throw passes more frequently, but that does not look like it will happen. The reason is: 49ers under Harbaugh play old school football.

Harbaugh said this after winning the NFL Coach of the year in 2011: "I consider myself from the Woody Hayes coaching tree, Bo Schembechler is also part of that tree. Woody has the biggest tree in coaching". In this Woody Hayes/Schembechler coaching style the emphasis is on a fundamentally sound ground game and a physical and strong defense. 

Reading about Harbaugh's life, Bo's influence on him is clear. Harbaugh was around Bo when Jack, Jim Harbaugh's dad, worked as a defensive coach under Bo Schembechler. It continued when Schembechler picked Harbaugh to be Michigan's QB and the duo went onto win many bowl games. It seems like it was here that Jim picked up on Bo's coaching style which traditionally featured strong defense, dominating offensive lines, and a power-running attack. In the words of one commentator, Schembechler coached a "remorseless and punishing" brand of football. Bo's mentor in turn was Woody Hayes who has been described to profess the conservative style of predominantly running the ball at the opponent. Woody, they said, believed that the pass should be used as an element of surprise.

In an increasingly QB driven pass happy league, the 49ers, a proud and regal franchise, are bringing back an old style of playing football. Looks like other teams are going nuts trying to make sense of all this.

P.S - I actually wonder but don't know enough about football yet to determine if Harbaugh is creating a hybrid approach. San Francisco seems to utilize complex formations and personnel packages which is probably west coast style. Mind going crazy now.

Under the Covers

Tahoe's Kirkwood ski resort has always been this laid back rustic bare bones ski area, not affected by the commercialization and mall culture plaguing other resorts such as Heavenly and Northstar. So, Vail resorts' recent acquisition of Kirkwood surprised many. "Kirkwood sold it's soul to the devil!", they thundered. "Save the independent ski areas in tahoe!", they implored.

Were they really independent? Here is a sneak peek of the Tahoe ski industry.

KSL Capital Partners owns Squaw as well as Alpine Meadows and now are the majority stake holder of this combined resort area. JMA ventures owned Alpine and now are minority stake holders. JMA also owns Homewood.

Boothcreek resorts own Sierra-at-tahoe resort, which some claim to be the last independent ski resort in tahoe area. Boothcreek actually used to own Northstar-at-tahoe but sold it off to Vail in 2010. Vail had made an entry into tahoe area by acquiring Heavenly in 2002.

Why mention all this? George Gillett, a businessman and entrepreneur, was the former owner of Vail. He also went on to co-found Boothcreek and is their CEO & chairman. Michael Shannon and Larry Lichliter worked with Gillett, as CEO and COO, respectively, of Vail . Shannon and Lichliter went onto co-found KSL Recreation (Kravis, Shannon, Lichliter) which ultimately became KSL Capital Partners. So these 3 business holdings put together and the closely connected individuals behind them own five of the most popular resorts in the Tahoe area and are now influencing the direction of the Tahoe ski industry.

Ski industry is now operated as a business and for profit. Profits should never be construed as a bad thing, it will guide their investments. This might be in contrast to the tradition and style of the original Tahoe ski pioneers such as Alex Cushing (founded squaw), Warren Hellman (was part owner of Sugarbowl), Dave McCoy (founded Mammoth), Dick Reuter (co-founded Kirkwood), and Bud Klein (founded Kirkwood). Never a dull moment reading about how McCoy built mammoth or how Reuter single-handedly lumber jacked his way around Kirkwood clearing ski runs. They were mountain men in the truest sense.

But, it is no secret that lift ticket sales alone were never profitable for the ski industry. The business reality makes a compelling case for these mergers -- helps to save costs, consolidate operations -- and explains their inclination towards real estate development at these resorts. Their focus now is on projecting these resorts as a winter vacation destination for urban families.With this approach, some say that skiing, as a sport, has perhaps been relegated to the background but I am not buying that argument. The charm of the mountain and snow is still their primary product, and they need to build a successful business around it. Their success is important for the sport of skiing.

Concept of "Mother" Earth

Note: Only some of these thoughts are mine, a few thoughts were based on discussions with others this past week, a few others are extracts swiped from articles, quotes on the internet, as well as from books.

Is Mars tectonically dormant? That is the question.

Seems like there is enough evidence that "Life" on earth was largely shaped by the planet's geological activity. This is what I refer to as the concept of "Mother" Earth -- As a mother shapes the life of her child, so as our planet's geological activity shaped life as we know it. On one end of spectrum, life has probably evolved and thrived on this planet due it's tectonic activity, and on the other end, our religion, customs & traditions have been shaped by this activity as well.

We know that life requires three main ingredients: a solvent (water), structure (carbon compounds) and energy. Life needs access to these key ingredients -- hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulphur. These elements support the basic chemistry of life as we know it. They must be regulated and replenished. Nature's method of achieving this on the Earth appears to be plate tectonics.

Major factor for Life is the recycling of carbon, which is needed to stabilize the temperature here on Earth (contrast with Venus's runaway greenhouse effect). Plate tectonics is known to regulate the carbon cycle on this planet: Carbon is washed out of the atmosphere and digested by bacteria in the soil and pushed deep into the interior of the planet from where it can be outcast through volcanic activity. Tectonics is probably "that" crucial phenomenon that helps release gases from the core and determines how much of an atmosphere a planet has. Our planet's tectonic activity has also helped in creating the magnetic field that shields us from harmful radiation.

On the other end of the spectrum, how about the planet's geological activity shaping human life? Didn't the integrated religion of Vaishnavism* arise after the cataclysmic events in 11,000 BP**? Didn't the atheistic beliefs of Buddhism and Jainism arise during the great drought of 3800 BP that lasted for nearly three centuries (when people effectively lost faith in God)?.

Our living planet is continually shaping it's destiny.

How about Mars? Some say that Mars - unlike Earth - is too small and has too cold an interior to host plate tectonic processes. Some other analysis suggested that Mars's tectonic activities are excruciatingly slow, with major tectonic shifts occurring about every million years or so. Researchers suspect that Mars is subject to a different kind of plate tectonics — one that may be the result of the planet just having two plates, as contrasted with Earth's seven.

Actually, there is another interesting element to this story. Many within the planetary science community believe that to have plate tectonics, the near-surface rock must be weakened. The molecule most effective at doing this is H2O -- water. So worlds with plate tectonics are likely to have water as well, which means they feature two ingredients theoretically necessary for life. Beautiful! Isn't it?

*Vaishnavism = precursor to Hindusim as we know it in the modern era
**BP = Before Present

Roots

On a recent trip to Bangalore, I sat with my parents and opened up Google maps to identify and locate the villages they were born and bought up in.

My Dad's home is in the village of Mylanahalli. We found the unmarked village of my dad, and as is our vaunt, marked all the land he owns. I tried to be as detailed as possible with the land, and made sure all the little juts and extensions are marked as well.


View Mylanahalli in a larger map


Locating my mom's house in the village of Akkur Hosahalli was relatively easier as there are plenty of marked landmarks around that area. The hospital shown in the map was actually built on land given away by my grandfather's family and is right next to the house. I have spent many summer vacations in this house and the village, and have so many memories of this place.


View Akkur Hosahalli in a larger map

Memorable Wins #Indian-Cricket

1. Worldcup 1983 @England
# kapil's devils upstage the world

2. Worldcup 2011 @India
# favourites, home crowd, under pressure

3. India-Australia, 2nd test@Eden Gardens, 2000/01
# laxman 281, dravid, eden gardens, epic

4. Perth Test after sydney-gate 2008 @Australia
# acrimony after sydney-gate and redemption at perth

5. World Series 1985 @Australia
# shastri, audi, one of the all time great one day teams

6. World/Tri Series 2008 @Australia
# winning the world-series against aus in aus

7. Natwest series win@Lords, 2002
# ganguly, shirtless, enuff said

8. T20 WC win@South Africa, 2007
# dhoni's magic begins

9. India in WI 1971 (1-0 test series)

# first away series victory, enter gavaskar and the spin quartet

10. India in Eng 1971 (1-0 test series)
# chandra, solkar, india not a one-hit wonder

Squaw and Alpine

The map above outlines Squaw and Alpine ski resorts in Lake Tahoe, California.
(photo courtesy:http://www.powdork.com/2011/squalppinwolf-born-to-be-wild/) squaw=blue, whitewolf=purple (privately owned resort), alpine=red, possible-additional-terrain=yellow.

The merger of squaw and alpine could mean that we have one of North America's largest resort right here in Tahoe, with around 6,400 acres of skiable terrrain when combined. (For reference: heavenly = 4,800 acres, kirkwood = 2,300 acres, whistler blackcomb = 8,171 acres, vail = 5,289 acres). My colleague, an avid squaw fan, told me once that squaw has lots of accessible terrain that it can expand into.

Possible Expansions & White Wolf: A third neighbor to the two is the much smaller White Wolf (private) resort with about 400 acres of skiable terrain. Its owner, Troy Caldwell, told the San Francisco Chronicle this in March 2008: "If my dream were totally brought to fruition, White Wolf Mountain would become an inter-connect between Alpine and Squaw. A skier could ski from the Squaw side all the way to the Alpine Meadows ski area."

Future: Squaw did host the 1960 Olympics that some say transformed Lake Tahoe area. There are already rumours around the 2022 Winter Olympics bid and the host is not picked until 2015. There is some worry on how all this affects lift ticket and pass prices and whether Tahoe is on it's way to be the ski-vacation alternative to the fancier colorado resorts. We have already seen some consolidation in Tahoe with Vail (owns Heavenly) buying North Star resort last season. It will be interesting to see how all these consolidations affect Tahoe area economy.

Under the Covers: KSL Capital Partners owns Squaw (which they bought from the Cushing family) and now majority stake holder in the merger, JMA ventures owned Alpine and now are minority stake holders. JMA also owns Homewood. JMA recently teamed up with 49ers to buy Great America theme park. Not sure if they will be involved in the new 49ers stadium.