Everglades

It’s good to be skiing powder again

We received a good overnight snowfall, and while it was a bit heavy clearing it off the car, the skiing up top was pretty good. Variable is the term for the day. At times you were skiing through white-out over 50% powder and 50% wind scoured terrain, the top of 7th Heaven comes to mind. There, we hit up the Everglades first, but found it was a bit tricky predicting whether that lump in front of you was deep pow or a big, hard mogul. So on our next run down, we just followed the main piste (Hugh’s Heaven) and it was a great choice.

Mike

Nicole

Prime Rib on the Horstman Glacier was a complete white out, but decent snow so I managed to link a couple of un-graceful turns. Fraggle Rock to Cancerman was worth the effort, and I noticed someone is trying to re-name Cancerman with a double black sign called ‘Pete’s Paradise’ or something like that.

Around lunchtime, the sun came out and it was so bright it was hurting my eyes! So, the visibility was definitely better in the afternoon

Overall, a great day, with fantastic snow in places. To finish, here is a video of Mike and Nicole skiing in Spankys. Unfortunately the first video of Mike was blurry above the choke point.

Update: I forgot to congratulate Canadian Erik Guay who has just won the Overall World Cup Super G title. After a strong Olympic showing (two 5ths and a 16th), Erik continued to ski well – winning the last 2 Super G’s of the season (Kvitfjell, Norway and Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany) to take the overall points lead. In between winning the Super G’s, he also posted the third best time in the Downhill (Garmisch).

Big Thumbs Up

Glacier chair

Another good day! It is snowing, and relatively cold up top with the off-piste conditions starting to get nice. Still a little bumpy, but nothing fixes a bumpy mountain like fresh snow Speaking of which, we are expecting a good dump over the next few days (20-40cm’s), and with a freezing level basically hovering near the valley – Yeah March!

The majority of today was cloudy with light flurries, and the light was quite flat at times. Overall though, the visibility was still decent, and we even had some brilliant patches of clear sky – as seen in the first 2 photos. The new snow has groomed into the runs nicely, 7th Heaven was good and empty, but my pick for the day was Crystal zone. I did a few runs through there and enjoyed every one.

Davies Dervish

Do I have to keep mentioning how empty the mountains are? (although this run is often empty, who really likes 35+ degree mogul runs…..oh yeah Alexandre Bilodeau does )

Also, while dropping by the Rendezvous for a bite to eat today, we had a bit of a laugh at how you have to walk down to get onto the patio. Check out this photo from today, then compare to one I took back in December 2003. You can see how the main access stairs are fully snowed in, and how the balcony handrail along the front is the snowline. Yup, we got a lot of snow in the alpine this year – not so much on the lower elevations, but who cares

Rendezvous

Rendezvous lodge on Blackcomb Mountain

Lastly, here is a short video of Mike and Steve enjoying a leisurely run on 7th Heaven’s Cloud Nine. Snowing lightly, no one around, visibility was pretty good, actually fun skiing.

The temperatures have dropped enough to make snow – picture taken at top of Blackcomb gondola, but they were making snow in the valley too.

Snow Gun

Up top received some new snow yesterday, but I heard it was ‘dust on crust’ in most places. Today I went up, and while the new snow is nice, it is not quite enough to hide the hard packed base underneath. Luckily the forecast is looking pretty good for more snow in the alpine as the weekend approaches.

Overall the skiing was decent with pretty good visibility, especially considering it looked a bit miserable from the valley. While the morning was bright sunshine, some clouds rolled in around 10am and the sky turned dark. Personally, I had no troubles with the light during my few runs on Blackcomb. However, as I type this (2pm), it is starting to flurry in the valley, so it might be a bit harder to see now. 4 seasons in one day! except cold the whole time

Pakalolo

The coverage in the alpine is still amazing, and is pretty much as good as I have seen it. The following photo is of the big rock below ‘The Bite’, which is easily seen while riding Glacier chair – while I have seen this rock buried more, this photo is taken after a few weeks of no significant snowfall, with warm temps with sunshine.

Big Rock

We may have had warm weather for the Olympics, but with it turning cold again, we should end up with perfect race conditions for the Paralympics which are due to start this weekend. With the dropping temperatures, the snow that has previously softened / melted re-freezes and makes for a solid, hard packed surface. This is more like the weather we were expecting last month.

Lastly, a nice view of the top of Excelerator chair.

Top of Excelerator Chairlift

Update: I forgot to mention the transportation issue. They have opened parking lots 1,2,3 and 6 but there is still plenty of parking that is closed. So if you plan on driving, make sure to get here early as those spots fill up fast. The mountains are empty, but the lots are full! I wish they could keep the bus schedule we had during the Olympics, it was great having them run so often.

Views from Blackcomb

Today is the first day I have skied for a long time, and while I have heard lots of reports from friends I didn’t know quite what to expect. On their advice I took up my carving skis and had a blast. The snow up top is quite hard packed, but the groomed runs are super smooth and generally soft enough to get a good edge in. Combine that with cloudless skies, no lift lines and mild temperatures and it was a really fun day.

Whistler Valley from Blackcomb

Here is a nice shot of the lack of lift lines for Jersey Cream and Glacier Express chairs.

JC Flats

The lower mountain was a bit slushy and starting to show a few bare patches, but the alpine has plenty of snow. The coverage up top is awesome with plenty of the normally exposed rocks covered up. Check out the top of 7th Heaven chairlift, an area that is normally quite rocky, but not at the moment

Top of 7th Heaven Chairlift

Another region that is normally very rocky is Moonscape, but it is also filled in. This picture doesn’t really show it that well, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Overlooking Moonscape

sorry, no photos but…..

As there had been no snow overnight and the freezing level had dropped to the valley overnight all of yesterday’s slush from mid mountain down had frozen solid and made for some extreme side-slipping techniques! Above the mid point of the Solar Coaster, however, where the snow hadn’t melted and refrozen the conditions on the groomers was very good:

The Jersey Cream area was all good and we went through the race course a few times (I beat Rob every time – just!). 7th Heaven was in great shape on the groomers but the off piste looked pretty hard and lumpy. We were using race skis so didn’t venture off piste all day. My friend Richard skied Rock n Roll and reported that it too was in awesome shape.

Still nice and sunny and the lower third of the mountain had softened up by the time we skied out. Overall pretty good if you’re into groomers.

Showcase T Bar

Thanks to Sarah for today’s report. Can’t wait until I can start doing some again :

The official line on overnight / 24 hour snow was 3cms but in places it felt like much more but you had to stay high – the glacier around the Showcase and Horstman t-bars on Blackcomb were in great shape with powder on top of smooth but a little crunchy layer underneath. We also skied the Couloir Extreme which had deep powder in places but with a very firm, chunky layer below. You had to be careful. The groomers most everywhere were in great shape but better to stick to the ones that got sun – we skied Rock n Roll a couple of times and it was great, but you could see (and hear) that runs in the shade were harder and more icy.

Showcase T Bar

It was warm and sunny, so we had drinks on the sun-drenched deck at Glacier Lodge and were inspired to end the day on the patio at Merlins. Skiing there we found the lower mountain to be soft and slushy but with a firm base: “hero snow” – easy to carve and hold your edge.

Overall: variable to good.

3 Gold medals and a Bronze to take Canada to a whopping total of 13 Gold , 7 Silver and 5 Bronze. Sounds like a lot of records were broken (Edit: or equaled) today, with ‘most Gold by Canada in a single day’ and ‘most Gold by a host nation’ amongst them

With any luck, we will soon be saying Canada holds the record for the ‘most Gold by any country EVER‘ – to do so, we just need one more for a total of 14.

So congratulations to Denny Morrison, Lucas Makowsky and Mathieu Giroux in the long-track speed skating. Jasey-Jay Anderson in the Snowboard Parallel Slalom, and the curling team – John Morris, Marc Kennedy, Benjamin Hebert and Adam Enright skipped by Kevin Martin. I was lucky enough to be at the Sliding Center to help cheer on Lydon Rush and the boys ( Chris Bihan, David Bissett and Lascelles Brown ) capture the Bronze in the 4 man bobsleigh.

Whew, what a day indeed Do I sound greedy by saying I wish Pierre Lueders had have found a way to join Lyndon on the Bobsleigh podium?

One thing I can say is, it has been a LOT of fun being here. I have ended up just leaving the camera at home, to just go ‘be there’. What a great atmosphere! With friendly international competition during the day and awesome entertainment at night.

This report is a few days late, but congratulations to Jon Montgomery for winning the first Canadian medal of the games in Whistler. To put the icing on the cake, it was GOLD!!!!

Whistler Sliding Center Pole

I was lucky enough to be there, and had a fantastic night. The atmosphere was electric, with the sliding center being an exciting venue to be a spectator. As the final competitor (Martins Dukurs from Latvia) was coming down, his time at the splits was always just faster than Jon’s, but you could see the gap was closing. It wasn’t until Martins actually crossed the finish line that Jon’s time became the best, and Jon became the Olympic Champion!

Jon not only has a gold medal, but is probably the favorite to win ‘The best way to accept your medal’ award. At both the flower and medal ceremonies, he inspired even more cheering by jumping onto the podium in a way that clearly showed how excited and proud he was.

Skeleton

Unfortunately, Mellissa Hollingsworth, the current World Champion for Womens Skeleton (I think), made one small mistake on her final run which cost her a lot of time. She was having a very fast run, and was threatening to take the Gold, but she lost too much time and dropped back to 5th. It was a heart-wrenching moment, as Mellisa was a crowd favorite. Afterwards, she was very emotional, and seemed upset about letting Canada down. If by any chance she was to read this, all I can say is that she is far from letting the country down – Canada is very proud of her, and is thankful for all the hard work and effort on her part (and her coaches and support) – She gave us a reason to cheer!

Mellisa Hollingsworth

Here is a pic showing the final turn, and my friends holding up their ‘More Cowbell’ sign – it is becoming the most well known sign at the Whistler venues and they constantly get swamped with photo requests.

More Cowbell

I hate to spoil such a special post, but I have a bit of a rant ….

I want to say how sick I am of the mainstream media. All they seem to focus on is the bad (guess that is what drives the ratings for them). The weather has not been perfect, fair enough, but the games have gone on, and I don’t hear too many of the athletes or the spectators complaining about the lovely, warm, sunny days. It was unfortunate about some spectators at Cypress events having their tickets canceled, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Next, the media is starting to give Canadian athletes a hard time about not ‘Owning the Podium’. ‘Own the Podium‘ is a funding program for Canadian athletes set up to help them do well at these games. Before the games, the media was hyping it up claiming Canada would top the medal tally, and since they haven’t met those (extremely high) expectations, the media is focusing on this as a ‘fail’. Let’s be fair to these athletes – while not claiming medals, many Canadians are putting in ‘personal bests’ and ‘best ever results’ for Canadians in their event. If the media can’t be happy with that, than are they really Canadian?

Programs like ‘Own the Podium’ take time to see real results. You just can’t expect to win Gold by throwing money at the event. It takes time and training, and a lot of hard work from the athlete and support staff. If Canada stick to its guns, and continues to fund these sports as they have for the last few years, Canada will grow into a very strong Winter Olympic country.

/end rant

Update: Current medal count as of midday Friday 26th February -

Gold 8 – Silver 6 – Bronze 3 = Total 17

Canada is tied for the most amount of Gold medals with USA and Germany at 8!!! Hopefully a few more to come in Mens Hockey and Curling. We also have some other medal chances still to come.

Overall, I think Canada is doing VERY well.

Also, Australia is having its best ever Winter Olympic Games, with 2 Gold and a Silver (previous best was 2 medals)

Yesterday Lindsey Vonn from the USA won the Womens Downhill ahead of fellow American Julia Mancuso and Elisabeth Goergl from Austria.

Lindsey Vonn

Another amazing day, lots of sunshine and excitement in the air. I was hoping that the day would later come to become known as ‘Britt Janyk Day’ – but despite racing a great race, her 6th best time left her off the podium

Britt Janyk

Last night, I went to the medal ceremony, arriving too late to see Vonn get her Gold (I wasn’t the only one due to big lines and security checkpoint time) but watched the rest, including Maelle Rickers Gold (which took place in Vancouver). There was a huge cheer from the crowd for her I did see the medals being awarded to the Mens and Womens Cross Country Sprint Classic podium finishers. I have loved the Olympics all my life, and to see some athletes receive their medals is something special indeed. Years of dedication coming down to (usually) a single day or single run must be a hell of a lot of pressure.

Cross Country Sprint Classic

Whistler Cauldron

Nicole and Lucy

It had been delayed 2 days due to warm weather leaving the course a little too soft. Unlike Cypress we don’t have any issues with lack of snow, if anything we have too much

In the end, the event took place on a beautiful, mostly sunny day. The temperatures were still a little too warm for everyone’s liking, which led to the early racers having a slight advantage of skiing on harder packed snow. Canadian Erik Guay posted our best result, coming in 5th only 0.33 seconds slower than the winner, Didier Defago from Switzerland who finished the course in 1 minute and 54.31 seconds.

Final results: Gold – Didier Defago (Switzerland), Silver – Aksel Lund Svindal (Norway) and Bronze – Bode Miller (US)

Mens Downhill Medalists

Whistler’s hometown heroes Manny Osborne-Paradis (17th) and Robbie Dixon (DNF) gave it their all, but came up a little short. Manny was on time to challenge for the Gold until he made a small mistake near the bottom at Coach’s Corner, which cost him a little speed just before a flat section. Robbie came out of the gate like a raging bull, attacking every gate. Unfortunately one of the gates fought back, knocking him off his stride. He hung on and recovered, but it probably put him off his line and he caught an edge landing the next air which resulted in a fall. The dream wasn’t to be, but it was damn exciting watching them.

Jan Hudec (25th) was the only other Canadian, he skied well, and if he was given an earlier starting position, could have challenged for a medal.

Two Aussies also competed, good on you boys!!!! Craig Branch was only 2.88 seconds behind the winner, with Jono Brauer 3.77 slower. 3 seconds over basically 2 minutes is nothing, very impressive skiing. I am not sure who this is, but its one of them

Aussie Downhill Racer

The Aussie also had a surprise waiting for him as he flew over the last roll before the finish line. A course slipper had fallen over and was struggling to get off the course. Luckily they were not very close to the race line, but still, a little scary.

Slipper