Jill and I returned to the Olympics to experience Vancouver again, and then to ski Blackcomb and see the Men’s Bobsleigh and Men’s Slalom events. We again drove to the Scotts Road Park and Ride and took the Sky train to the Waterfront to view the Olympic Cauldron then to Canada Hockey Place. Getting a ticket to the Gold Medal Woman’s Hockey game was prohibitive so we joined the crowds near the arena. We watched the Woman’s Hockey game between Canada and USA in the Quebec Provincial Pavilion near Canada Hockey Place. It was a unique experience with wonderful cheese and blueberry brulee. The Pavilion was heated and they provided chairs for us senior citizens along with free scarves from Quebec. It was a fun place to share a National sporting event. After the event, we drove to Squamish and spent the night near the waterfront in the campervan. We avoided the permit requirement on the road between Squamish and Whistler by getting on the road before 6am. We had a parking permit for Lot 11 north of Whistler where they provided a free shuttle to Blackcomb. We used our Stevens Pass midweek passes to get a free Edge Card and the reduced Edge Card rates for our lift tickets.
It was snowing big, wet flakes at the base and it kept snowing harder as we ascended. It was the most unusual experience on the mountain – it was almost deserted even though it was a powder day above the Excalibur gondola. The upper lifts eventually opened, although visibility in the high alpine was limited. OK, what does ‘deserted’ on Blackcomb really mean? We concentrated on the area from the top of the Crystal chair to the top of Excalibur. We rarely shared a trail with anyone and were usually skiing 1-2” of new on the groomers until we stopped around 1pm. It was so unusual to stop while skiing and have to wait for a couple minutes before someone else came by. We took a brief break in the Glacier Lodge about 11:30 and there were about 20 people around. We watched the US hockey team blitz Finland on the TV screens during our short stay.
We eventually skied down to Base II and locked up the skis. Then I walked down the stairs to the ticket booth and bought a couple of tickets for the 4-man Bobsleigh event for $30 each. We walked over to the Sliding Center and watched the first 2 runs of the event. Getting through Security was interesting – they required us to remove our ski boots and send them through the XRay machine, then we were wanded and could finally put our ski boots back on. It was exciting because with the General Admission tickets we were able to roam around the whole area. We had a great view of the 50-50 part of the run and eventually stood about 6 feet from the track near the finish line. We watched the blur of sleds cross the timing line, ascend the run and apply their brakes. We also had a few sleds slid by tipped over on their sides. Fortunately, no one was injured during our visit. The cow bells, flags, painted bodies, and cheering fans made our skiing day at Blackcomb memorable, in addition to enjoying the deserted powder on the upper mountain.
After the event, we drove to Pemberton and had dinner at The Pony Bar and Café, and joined all of the Canadians in cheering the Canadian Hockey team in their semi-final victory against Slovakia. We spent a quiet evening in the camper in Pemberton with rain falling all night. We returned to Whistler and shuttled to Creekside for the Men’s Slalom event. It was 33 degrees with wet flakes falling during the event, but our small umbrellas made our visit pleasant. After the event, we returned to Whistler for a few Olympic trinkets. “Telemack” was staying in the village with some friends and I’m certain he’ll post a photo of himself in the Canadian Bobsleigh that was just out side his lodging.
The genuine friendliness of everyone we encountered was memorable and priceless.
Thanks Canada !
