A few decades ago, the ski season always hit a painful pause in January. Everybody had their businesses staffed up for the Christmas holidays, and was ready to go. But the skiers disappeared no matter how good the conditions were.  That was back when people were expected to show up at office s for work, and kids were supposed to attend school on a regular basis. It also was cold and stormy in January, and vacationers weren’t sure they needed a full Utah blizzard for their vacation. So it died for a few weeks. Sundance landed where it does on the calendar because it filled in that trough, at least for the hotels, restaurants and retail folks. The resorts were on their own.  The festival, modest as it was in the early days, kept the town alive and open for business, if not fat and happy, until the ski traffic picked up again in February.  Things changed over time. The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was enacted, creating  three-day weekend that became a very popular time to ski. Everybody is “working from home” a good portion of the time now, so a three-day weekend stretches to a week of skiing in January that somehow doesn’t cost vacation time.  Parallel to that, the film festival grew and grew, ultimately becoming the Kardashian-spangled circus that it was pre-Covid. Both the ski season and the film festival were maxing out the town on their own, and the combination was crushing. Post-Covid, Sundance scaled back to a kind of drive-by weekend, and skier traffic has filled in. Its value as a marketplace for films seemed to shrink as streaming supplanted going to a theater. The move to a bigger setting with less expensive hotel options seemed inevitable. In this snowless winter, the skier traffic is way down. How bad is it? I chose getting the tires rotated over skiing the other day. It was the right move.    There is almost no traffic backup on S.R. 248 in the mornings. Parking lots are not full at 10. Or ever.  Occupancy for this holiday weekend is rumored to be way down. The resorts are making the most of what they have, really working miracles, but they haven’t got much to work with.    It’s kind of a nice Hollywood ending that Sundance, in its final year in Park City, will once again be a significant economic lifeline in an otherwise challenging year. The Sundance crowd may keep some local businesses alive.  Without snow, the skiing is pretty sad. It’s difficult to groom without digging into the dirt. It’s good to get out and enjoy a sunny day, clear air and spectacular views. The two storms that came through made a big difference for a short time. I enjoyed a couple of legitimate powder days on newly opened terrain.  It wore out quickly, the rocks reappeared, and we’re back to temperatures that are borderline for making snow at night. They are plenty warm for melting snow in the afternoon sun. There’s nothing anybody can do about it.  A cold, two-week storm cycle could turn it all around. The long-range forecast shows a better than even chance of precipitation by the time Sundance gets underway. Year in and year out, Sundance usually opened with a major snow storm. I doubt Sundance actually caused the storm, but part of enjoying the festival was watching Los Angelenos in rented cars sliding sideways down Main Street, and would-be starlets trudging through the slushy streets in open-toed high-heels.  The outside chance that there was causation rather than coincidence with a major storm was reason enough to keep Sundance around. It would be a much appreciated parting gesture if Sundance could usher in a world-class blizzard for their final performance. The best reason to keep skiing in these conditions is to avoid the news. The New York Times interviewed President Trump following the snatching of the Venezuelan president. The whole escapade seems constitutionally flawed despite being flawlessly executed. The reality of the war power resting in Congress got ignored.  The Times asked him if there were any limits on his global powers. They reported that Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” Gulp. The personal morality of Donald Trump seems like a rather slender reed to hang the stability of the world on. Snatching a crooked leader out of Venezuela is one thing.  Saber rattling at Cuba, Mexico and others is disturbing. Stealing Greenland from a NATO ally is a different level. And intervening in Iran’s domestic mess ratchets things up yet again.  Remember he has the nukes at his bedside, right next to his social media feed. Whatever happened to Congress?  The policies of a president used to be implemented through (sometimes) carefully considered legislation rather than social media posts at 3 a.m.  Companies used to make their own investment decisions, and television networks used to run their own programming without the White House’s intervention.  This isn’t the way it’s supposed to work. Imagine the response if any other country started randomly blowing up ships, grabbing heads of state in the dark of night, or seizing oil tankers in international waters.   How is this OK? How far does it go before Congress actually does its job? Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. The post More Dogs on Main: Bring on the Sundance blizzard appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less