Day 4 (part 2) and day 5 - Gone Skiing

After spending 2 hours back at Jeff's, which was a nice break, I headed back to Whislter for my 1pm load time, only to find that once again, my shift had been changed! We were told that the 1pm shift people would not be gojng out on to the track. The winch cats were still working all over the top section, to the course was on a 'hard close'. Our next shift was to start the next morning at 5am, which means you need to be there by 4:30am to have time to eat and get suited up to the hill.

Rather than heading home, we had lunch at the volunteer break tent and the a bunch of the gang decided tomgo for a ski. Dave (our crew chief), his son Cory, Conner, Lange, Alli and myself headed up from Creekside gondola and boarded the Red chair to the top. This was my first time in Whistler in 11 years, so I was pretty excited. There had been 20cm of new fluff the night before (hence all the changes to scheduling), so we were pretty excited to get up there. Conner elected as our leader. This guy is an absolute animal on skis as I found out a few momenets later when he led us on our warmup run down Rat Fink. This is marked as black (difficult), though it's not very steep. The thing that makes this run a bit tricky is the quick changes in
pitch near the top, followed by two nice sections of open tree skiing. After two falls, I did manage to catch up to the group on the run-out to the Emerald chair. After riding back up to the RoundHouse, we boared the Peak chair to the top. Once we all had arrived at the top, Conner asked if everyone was okay with steeps. My legs were already a bit sore from the trip down rat
fink, so I opted for an easier route down (Peak to Creek). After an awesome powder run, I rode the Red chair again. I ended up spenting about 2 hours on the hill that afternoon.

That night was the opening ceremonies, which I watched most of from the Weasel House. What a great show it was too. They have a big screen and two nice HD tv's in the tent. Part way through, I spotted Dave Irwin in the crowd (see pics). If you don't know who this guy is, he is an original member of the infamous Crazy Canuks. What a treat to be watching the opening of the
Olympics with a true skiing icon. It wanted to hit the Village to see the lighting of the final torch, so I jumped a bus from Creekside to Whistler village. There are screens and stages setup all over the village. The village was not too crowded, but still very much alive with the Olympic spirit. Since I was due back at 5am the next day, I headed back home for a short nap.

Rising at 3:15 am, I again boarded the bus from Pemby to Whister, to make sure I was on time. You see, you cant travel on the course without you crew chief, so you don't want to be left behind once the crew boards the creekside gondola. I made it on time, and had a nice breakfast. Across the table from me was Ms. Hudec, the mother of Jan Hudec. We had a nice chat about how
proud she was to be there as a volunteer while her some competed. Shortly after breakfast we were informed that the downhill has now been postponed until Monday. However, we still we going out onto the hill.

Our 'program' from the 'Weasel Section' down to Slalom Start was called a 'step program'. What this means is, you have to 'step' down the run, to compact the snow. This is not a 'side slip', but a 'step' It takes about 5 minutes to approx. 200 feet. This is a really pain staking job, as your legs get really tired doig it. We eventually arrived at our section after 2 hours of stepping which included stepping the first pitch of the slalom start. This is a very steep section, were the new snow had not bonded at all to the existing surface, so stepping this was really hard to do, without creating 'slofs' of snow.

Our next job was to cleanup and inventory our entire section. This took up about another 2 hours. After that we all went to the Olympic Rings just above the finish line, for a photo session. We also burried a 'loonie' under the snow We were dismissed by 1pm, where at that time, the 'hard core' group went skiing, while the rest of us (myself included) headed to the village to do some looking about. The village was very busy, now that the games have officially started. Another quick visit to the Weasel House, and then it was off to Pemby for a sleep. I jumped on the bus, which as packed full, and started talking to anouther volunteer who looked familier. Well, he turned out to be John from Skyloft. We chatted all the was home and shared videos from each of our venues using our camers.