2010 Olympics Day two: Smitten By Whistler-Blackcomb

“Dude, wake up.” “What?” I felt like I was coming out of a coma. “It’s snowing. Get your shit, we’re skiing now, and no one’s gonna be on the mountain.”

I didn’t want a whole lot of prodding. He could’ve stopped at “snowing” and I would’ve been in. Whistler-Blackcomb Resort is one particular of these areas that you just want to ski just before you die. Period. So, in accurate Whistler ski-bum style, my buddy and I dropped any sort of quasi-plans we had and headed to the lift. Right after a week with out snow, the white gold was extra than an excuse to get out of bed.

Louis, acting as my mountain guide (he, too, has a beard — albeit a weak one), has been skiing right here given that he was six, and he began outlining the day’s runs as if from a mental shopping list. He recited some stats a buddy had passed on to him: yesterday the mountain saw the lowest number of lift ticket sales in the last 30 years. Apparently folks are afraid of the Olympic hoopla. I confident didn’t thoughts.

I hadn’t known how precious this was until we started our assault on two boards. This spot is immense. With 8,171 skiable acres, 200+  runs (that is an precise number straight from their internet site), I feel poor for the people that didn’t have the insider’s guide that I had with me. He would explain where we had been, the landmarks about us for a reference, and give me the names of runs. Positive of myself, I would chime in, anything like, “so that signifies Whistler Mountain is more than this way,” just to be completely shot down and his lecture started over.

I like to assume I’m fairly vital about subjects I think I know a lot about, but I was smitten by this spot. With all of the criteria on my ski-area mental checklist accounted for — terrain, snow, acreage, atmosphere, bunnies, accessibility, food — I would happily give the 1st gold medal of the Games to this resort. Very good contact Olympics, now if you just put your pride in a cupboard and move the Cypress Resort events up to Whistler, we all could breath a tiny much easier (it is at present 45 degrees and raining at Cypress — not true conducive to snow sports).

One of the highlights of the afternoon, aside from the pulled pork wrap at lunch, was scouting out the Men’s Downhill course on the Whistler Creekside area of the mountain. As we have been skiing in the general area (and underneath it!), we found a couple of public viewing platforms along the side of the runs. So, my journalistic prowess took more than, and I schemed a way to catch some of the Men’s action to complement my ticket to the Ladies the incredibly subsequent day — I would go skiing (elementary, Watson).

To all of you that will be catching the event this weekend, I saw an imposing section of course. The skiers will be creating a sharp ideal hand turn more than a roller at major speed (you will know this when you see it — the giant cameras of some well known stations have been currently set up). This sends their carving edges into the atmosphere and without the need of the ski-to-earth technique that is somewhat crucial to success in the sport, there will be some severe action. That is precisely where I’ll be. (Consider 100 km/hr yard sales coming to a halt at my feet!) Granted my fool-proof strategy works out.

Before any of that, although, I’m off to Vancouver to take a spin around some of the city, and Olympic, hotspots.