Sharapova

The once and future U.S. Open champ fights off a spirited Brit, and the Wimbledon champ Kvitova gets washed out of her quarter. All in a days work.

Adventure on Indian Mountain

Nestled in the base of the southernmost Taconic Mountain is the Indian Mountain School, and the home base for the challenge course construction/inspection/facilitation empire, Indian Mountain Adventure, founded and directed by IMA president Steve Werntz.
The climbing tower pictured above is the rock of his high elements: a sturdy construction with plenty of redundant safety elements, like guy wires extending from all three telephone poles that are the foundation of the tower.

Unfortunately, a construction backhoe violated the 14 foot standard and ruptured the guy wire, wreaking havoc on the seemingly impenetrable climbing tower (see top plank on photo). Werntz and trusty sidekick (yours truly) spent the beautiful pre-Irene Friday morning scrambling up the tower and sawing and prying lumber, but were unable to budge the damaged upper platform.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon and Werntz is hoisting the platform with his truck via rope and pulley, with yours truly trying to surf the platform like a fool while clipped into upper belay cables. No broken bones, (sheer luck), but the platform only went about a third of the way down. Quitting time rolled around and I abandoned the job with a beautiful case of lip salad (thanks to an errant twist of the lineman's tool which flew into my mush) but no satisfaction because the job was as much of a mess as my face: a 200 pound triangular platform wedged into the inner walls, 15 feet above the ground. Sorry, but I wasn't going to hang under it with a chainsaw when I needed to be dashing home for dinner with my lads.

I found out later from the founder that his dutiful brother gave one of those ropes a yank while the fearless leader had the other rope coiled on his arm. Gravity won out, as the platform crashed down within feet of dutiful bro. Super Steve got yanked like a ragdoll, landing with a skid on his nose. Werntz has cancelled a month's worth of work as a body double for Jamie Farr due to his crash landing. But it could have been worse: the platform came down on schedule, and no paperwork was submitted to insurance bureaucrats. Gotta love happy endings for the aptly name Indian Mountain ADVENTURE.

Cup final say

If you were a hockey kid in Wood River Valley, you'll never forget Lord Stanley's Vist

I guess it was all about camaraderie and purpose. Two of the legends of Sun Valley suns hockey, Cub and Hunts, members of the so-called Mount Rushmore according to the creative Kurt Wenzell, succeeded in generating huge buzz and decent dollars for the life and health of high end amateur hockey in the Wood River Valley. It is difficult to quantify what was accomplished at this writing, but I suspect years from now that August 21 and 22, 2011 will be the genesis of a Suns renaissance. If a new skating rink is constructed in the next few years, it will be no coincidence.

Hunts and Cub, 50-something hockey loving lifers, opposite sides of the same coin, shared in all chores in this immaculate production that resulted in, yes by all estimates, 10,000 photos of Lord Stanley. All the cool cats, plenty of rich nerds dining outside the Duchin room. and most important, EVERY hockey kid got their moment (or two) with Lord Stanley. In the 14 miles from working class Bellevue to the Sun Valley Resort, not one place was missed, and some were found. And in the wake of the silver 1966 convertible Mustang was a flowing river of smiles and good will, none wider than contemporaries of Cub n Hunts, the setting Suns that had convened for a national hockey championship tournament 5 months prior. To reunite again solidified a camaraderie forged by hockey with a magical 24-hour Cup date. It was the ultimate Flomax commercial, baby-boomer bliss, our own beer commercial, only better.

Keep an eye out for hockey prospects coming out of the Wood River Valley over the next decade, the ripples from this visit by Lord Stanley will surely resonate.

Hawk lands in Canada...OOPS!

Joyous reunion of setting suns

Stanley rolls onto SV ice

Grumpy gets the ultimate Schooner