First Day of School / Snow Day

Let's see where we are...

Wednesday evening, i picked up Guy and Gail at YVR, and we made the trip up the Sea-to-Sky to our new digs in Squamish.

Allison and James are fantastic hosts with two sweet kids (Malayna and Tyson), and dog Whiskey.

Thursday morning was a 4:30 start, to catch a bus to the Whistler Creekside venue for my training shift. The alpine venue is overwhelming, and there is loads to take in.

The weather has not been cooperating for the race on Saturday. Men's downhill is the big show as far non-Canada is concerned, so our first shift tomorrow is set to be a circus. Despite the snow and warm base temps, they are going to try and get a ladies' qualifying run and the mens' medal runs done, with eight heads of state in attendance.

One of my cooler duties will be to help the HETS-tech unload injured patients from the helicopter long-line. We'll only unload minor injuries, as the bad cases get helo'd directly to the athlete hospital.

I could go on and on about the cool set-up, but will save it for our first day of operations tomorrow.

The bass of Whistler was clear, mid mountain was socked in with fog, and it was puking snow in the alpine. The stage was set for my day off.

Ottawa-Matt and I left Squampton early to bus up and get first lines. We caught up with Ottawa-James at the top of the Whistler gondola.

We dropped into Harmony bowl, and skied some epic freshies down to Harmony Chair. The chair wasn't loading, so we got to see the avalanche crews blast a few hot-spots. Once they were done, it was a mad dash to ski up all the new snow. I'm guessing the avy crews missed a spot, because I triggered a small slide that went for about 150 feet.

Once Harmony was tracked out, we rolled over into Symphony Bowl, to repeat the process. The snow lasted longer here, as the howling winds and low visibility kept most of the gorbies away.

Two quick laps of the Peak Chair to close out the day, and my legs were done. For the first time in my life, I downloaded the gondola at mid station, because I just couldn't make it down.

My hosts are feeding me like royalty, and letting me soak in their hot tub. They've even set me up with luge tickets next week.

Speaking of luge, our guys were first on scene today. I haven't spoken to any of them yet, but would imagine that morale took a blow. I'm not allowed to talk about stuff that goes on anyway, so we'll just leave our thoughts and prayers with his family and teammates.

I have some cool pics and vids available, but not on this hand-held. Stay tuned, as I will either edit them in, or post them later.

Spec3 out. (that's my call-sign!)