I left Whistler on another gorgeous, bright winter morning. Unfortunately, obligations exist. So I headed down to Vancouver in hopes of filling my mom’s order for several pairs of those cheesy mittens and curling tickets. I spun through a mall but, alas, no mittens.

I spun through the Vancouver Olympic Center’s box office and, realizing I was in Canada still, no tickets (who doesn’t want to experience the world of curling first hand?). I decided, tail between my legs, to get started on my drive home. It must have been somewhere in the midst of Eastern Washington’s barren fields of nothingness that I thought to share some of the knowledge I gained in my ten days in Vancouver and Whistler.

1. Any and every event, regardless of how lame or amazing you may think it is, will blow any of your preconceived notions out of the water.

2. Give any German flag-bearing fan a wide berth. I took a shot upside the head, then had a great chat about Oktoberfest. I guess that’s not so bad, eh?

3. Best Whistler restaurant — Prime Tapas at the base of the Creekside Gondola. If you have a chance, order the mussels (from Vancouver Island) or the fresh Tuna. If you’re trying to . . . you know, I suggest the oysters.

4. Lindsey Vonn is gorgeous (yes, believe the hype).

5. Vancouver’s diverse neighborhoods should be a destination themselves: Granville Island’s maritime and market vibe, chic Yale Town, historic Gas Town, the most authentic and largest Chinatown in North America; with the influx of green space and parks, I can see why the city is a popular destination.

6. I can’t help but give a shout out to Bryon Wilson, the bronze medalist in the men’s freestyle moguls, and a fellow resident of Butte, Montana. That was an extra special moment for me.

7. Whistler Resort and Village claims to be the best on the continent. I haven’t seen another place that could dispute that statement either. In fact, not many places force me to founder away in the deep powder, but Whistler’s peak did just that.

8. Random Olympic sport thoughts:

• Snowboarding: What other Olympic sport lets you listen to your iPod as you compete while your pants hang below your butt? Is that part of its draw?

•Ice Dancing: Trying to make skating as cool as you can, without doing any of the cool things.

•Luge: Are you people insane?

•Skeleton: You people are insane.

•Curling: A beer drinking game turned Olympic sport. What’s the point, and why can’t I help watching hours of it?

9. Olympic travel isn’t as bad as people thought ahead of time. Buses are numerous and frequent, avoiding the Sea to Sky Highway driving checkpoint is easy with some planning (open 6 a.m. to 6 p .m.), and a pass is easily obtainable in Squamish.

10. There is so much going on, all the time, you should pick and choose what to do. The daily Olympic events are a must, then grab a bite at one of the outstanding restaurants, then take in some of the festivities: public celebration sites in Vancouver, free afternoon and evening concerts in Whistler, Fire & Ice at skier’s plaza in Whistler Village, or simply just wander around — any of these are completely worth it. Keep in mind, I didn’t have any time to museum- or tourist-site hop around either.

11. Big props to my friend Louis, his family, and his roommates for putting me up for the trip. I successfully did ten days of the Olympics on an uber-mini budget of around only $1,200. It helps those mittens were all sold out.

12. The Olympic spirit is something everyone should experience. When you have so many people, with so many different views, supporting so many things, tension is bound to arise. I never felt any thing like that. People from all countries were supporting everyone, although still hoping for their favorites to win.

There was a peaceful coexistence of all athletes, and people from all over the world. Even I was a monster Norway fan at the cross country race, an American fan at the skiing, and a Canadian fan every other time. I’m not sure if there is a sense of competition of the athletes against the elements — mountains, ice, or clock — or if there is just a sense of being involved in something larger than your personal ideologies. Whatever the reason, it’s special, and I will never forget it.

The post 2010 Olympic Trip Conclusions: 12 Things Everyone Should Know appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Today officially marks the beginning of the end of this escapade through Vancouver and Whistler’s Olympics, but in true Wick style, I need to end it with a bang (insert innuendo here). By that I mean a day jam packed with Olympic events. I caught three different disciplines, but none are legitimate events, really. The ladies super-combined is just a combination of two different ski runs, while the skeleton is nothing more than a balls-to-the-wall human missile contest.

The new prize for the worst $200 I’ve spent goes to the ticket I bought for the Ladies Super-Combined. I was stuck in a pit, miles from the racers, behind two ski paths, a row of press cubicles with Volkswagen sized cameras, and four fence barricades for the gal catching the occasional edge and bailing into a few spectators. Let’s just say it wasn’t the best spectator sport I’ve caught at the games.

I did, however, get to see some of the most technically sound and fastest skiers on earth. The downhill event is the fastest speed event for Alpine skiing, and where the gates are the farthest apart. To help you imagine this, it’s what you imitate on that run after you’ve put back a few of those lunchtime beers in the lodge. The Super-combined event pairs that up with the most technically challenging event, the slalom, where the gates are really close together.  First one down the mountain wins — my kind of skiing.

Both are completely different styles of skiing, to the point of being very different sports. The morning was very cold and the snow on top of the hard course a bit sugary. When the competitors flew down the hill (and if you watched the finish of the skiing events, that’s literally true for a large portion of it — they call it the “hot air” jump), they kicked up snow behind them that looked like a trail of smoke. I was quite far away, though, and I like to believe it was smoke. Actually, I would have believed anything to justify the overly priced, awful tickets I bought.

The slalom took place, after rebuilding a completely different course in the afternoon, and the conditions totally changed. The icy course for the Downhill was now turning into heavy, wet snow once the sun crept over the Whistler peak, blinding all my cohorts in the (sort of) viewing pit. This was the final run of the day for the skiers, and it is when the energy of the competition ratcheted up. The racers with the best first run times were scheduled to go last, as to increase the suspense I suppose, and that’s just what happened.

In my best play-by-play voice . . . Julia Mancuso from the U.S. is sitting in first, followed by Anja Paerson of Sweden. Germany’s Maria Riesh, a favorite, is on course and, Whoa, we have a new leader! Next, America’s Lindsey Vonn, already a gold medalist at the games. She’s killing the course, is looks like a gold medal run to me, folks. Three quarters down the run and things are looking good . . . Wait, No! She goes down! The Vonn-couver Games is no more!

The stands were electric as she went down the hill, the obvious favorite, but you could hear a pin drop when she slid down the slope on her back. The few Germans, in their lederhosen, were the only ones to be heard as their gal took home the gold. The wicked finish almost, not quite but almost, made me happy I bought those tickets.

Then it was on to my most anticipated event: Skeleton. To get to the Whistler Sliding Center, you must hop on the Excalibur Gondola from the base of Blackcomb Mountain. I had a pretty quality talk with some Canadians on the ride

The Canadians: “The Canadians are favored in both men’s and women’s.”

Me: “No way.”

The Canadians: “Yeah, dude, and the Canadian chicks are hot.”

Me: “Nice, I’ll keep an eye out for maple leafs.”

The Canadians: “Think about it, bro, there’s just something sexy about a woman willing to turn themselves into human missile going 150 km/h down a frozen waterslide.”

Me: “I hear you on that one.”

I’m not sure what drugs the people were on when they thought of Skeleton, but no doubt there were many. I thought the luge was madness, but it doesn’t even compare to what went down that track. Skeleton has far less handling; the runners are rounded verses a sharper beveled runner on luge sleds, and the speeds are greater. Let’s get this straight for all the academics out there — you can’t really steer the thing, you are going way faster, and by the way, you are now headfirst.

On their runs these guys were smashing into walls, hitting the tops of the banked turns, and getting sent into the foam stoppers at the end of the track (the last measure preventing the racers from shooting off the end of the track and hurtling through space). I realize I have an extremely untrained eye, but the degree at which the Skeleton seems completely uncontrolled is mind blowing. The number of times I stood in sheer amazement watching these missiles blast through the Tunderbird Turn, the final picturesque turn over the beautifully manicured Vancouver Olympic Logo, was amazing.

And to think, I thought I might enjoy having a go at the Skeleton. After seeing it in person, hell no.

So my trip to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver is now coming to a close. Today is a day of packing, seeing if I can snag some kind of skating ticket on my way out of town tomorrow, and getting ready to head back to the real world. Because let’s face it, events like the Skeleton just shouldn’t happen in the real world.

The post 2010 Olympics Day 9: Downhill, Slalom, And The Human Missile Events appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

I survived the hangover of 2010, and got up early this morning so I could catch a bus to Whistler Olympic Park, about 9 km down the Sea-To-Sky Highway from Whistler Village. I had a ticket to the Classic Style Cross Country Sprint races. Since I’m cross country skiing illiterate, I really had no idea what to expect. I’ve learned at the other Olympic events I’ve been to that in person they are far more impressive than the finely edited broadcasts you see on television, but cross country skiing? Really? Yup.

After an unwarranted ticket scalping interrogation by the RCMP (a mounty that went without his morning Timmy Horton’s, apparently) at the gate of the venue, I grabbed a fence position as the sun rose over the racers already on course.

I figured I’d see a start, then wait for 20 minutes, then see a finish and the rest of the racers trickle in. Shows you how little I know. Rapid fire, the skiers came shooting passed me and my Norwegian-speaking neighbors. The fans roared to life, their coaches sprinted along the snow and barked orders as far as they could keep up. As quick as I began doing nothing when I entered the stadium, just as quickly the mayhem broke out.

This kind of race — and correct me if I’m wrong — begins with every competitor starting at intervals in a time trial situation. So if you can imagine, craziness follows each skier as they go around the track. For me, relatively unaffiliated as who to cheer for, noticed there was a kind of wild wave of energy that coursed through the venue for both the men’s and women’s races.

When the time trials were done, then came the dull. Over an hour and a half of nothing; meticulously anal course grooming, hand raking, leveling, and raking again. Not the spectator sport it should be. Maybe this is where my cross country skiing stereotypes come from.

But — and there always seems to be a “but” on this trip — back comes the mayhem, throwing everything I had ever thought about this sport on its head. For the rest of the afternoon, the races kept coming without breaks, men’s quarterfinals then women’s, men’s semifinals then women’s, finally both championship races. The racers left their heart and souls on the snow, they were pushing themselves to literal exhaustion (and getting carried off), and the numerous photo finishes made me a Norway fan for the day (nothing like jumping on the bandwagon). All I need is a funny-horned helmet thingy (see above). I cheered my adopted team on to a bronze medal, behind two Russians, and walked out of the venue, stunned at the athleticism of the athletes, humbled by my ignorance of the sport, and psyched to go see the Barenaked Ladies.

Come on . . . get your head out of the gutter. The entertainment surrounding the Olympics is a draw itself. The Whistler Live! concert series taking place every night throughout the Olympics in the village square, made a real effort to attract Canadian artists to perform at “their” Olympics. The Barenaked Ladies were tonight’s headliner, playing a completely free show. Besides being well known (and sending me back to my high school days), they are a talented band, very Canadian, and the maple leaf pride resulted in an outstanding show.

The night was capped by my peeping through the fence at the Whistler Medals Plaza to see my girls, Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso, receive their gold and silver medals for Ladies Downhill Skiing. I’ll see you, Lindsey, tomorrow at the Super Combined before I go experience everything that Skeleton actually is.

Peeping, Barenaked ladies, and sweaty European athletes — just another day at the Olympics for this TheExpeditioner.com reporter.

The post 2010 Olympics Day 8: Cross Country Skiing And Barenaked Ladies (Not That Kind) appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

My head could spontaneous explode at any moment, so if this blog stops randomly in the middle of a sentence, someone call my parents.

The showcase event of any Olympics is the men’s downhill skiing competition. This one is no different. When I was looking at tickets before I came, this was the event I first looked for. I found them to be astronomically priced, and I then came to terms that I wouldn’t make it. When I learned there were public viewing areas along the course, I had to go.

I had to ride two different lifts to get to the top of the course, and just as I skied off the second, the sky opened up as if Mother Nature knew the Olympic showpiece was soon to be on display (she’s been a cranky-old broad, otherwise). I started at the top, weaseling my way to a spot along the fence to take in the race. It turned out to be a great spot. When you attend events like this, you usually only see a fraction of the course and the racers for the milliseconds as they fly by you. From this spot, I saw the start and the next eight gates down the course, so I lucked out.

These viewing pods didn’t have anything more than a fence surrounding it and several volunteers staffing it. There wasn’t a scoreboard, racer lineups, or even speakers to listen to the finishes (the lowest of the pods had speakers, but that’s it). So for me, besides seeing a portion of each run, and knowing that it may be the run that is talked about for years, it was fairly uneventful. The crowds hovering around with different country flags would cheer as their racers went by. I, a fan of Bode Miller, gave a whoop as he took off from the starting chute (P.S. Bode’s back- finished with a bronze) along with all the other star and striped fans.

To counteract this lack of anything race-related, several people that brought their technology up to the mountain would holler out the lineups and results after a few button pushes or calls to friends. The impromptu announcers with their boisterous deliveries and different accents were, though not only helpful, at least a pretty cool memory.

Being a skier, I was interested to see what it was like seeing the best skiers in the world in person. After experiencing the luge in person, I figured the skiers’ speed would amaze me. It did, and proves to me I’m a chump when it comes to skiing. The one surprise to me was how quickly they reached that speed. Since I was at the starting gate, this was fairly easy to see: within thirty feet of the chute these guys were already traveling at colossally high speeds. Gravity is pretty cool.

The reason for my current condition is the nightly party that takes place at the base of Whistler Mountain called Fire & Ice. This is a celebration that is normally only once a week, but this being the Olympics, it’s been happening every night. Live music is played while skiers and snowboarders throw a barrage of tricks through and over three flaming rings. What people do for entertainment, right?

I headed over for the start of the hip-hop group Swollen Members (that’s their actual name, I can’t make this stuff up), that took the stage before the flames were lit. Fireball whiskey in hand (had to keep with the theme), the beats were loud, the energy was high, and the tricks were big. Towards the end of the show, the rappers commented on being hot, so what’s the only logical way to help out? Snowballs. It was absolutely hilarious; snowballs started flying from every direction, some towards the stage, most in no particular direction at all. Both Swollen Members ended up dodging projectiles for the rest of the show, while one lucky toss hit the mixing table and stopped the song.

So, I sit here, watching the ladies snowboard debauchery on T.V. (literally everyone is flailing around the course), and preparing for the few remaining  days ahead of me: a cross country sprint race, ladies super combined (weather permitting), and, yes, skeleton, followed by another circuit through Vancouver on my way out of town. For now, though, the rain is again coming down on Whistler, and it looks like I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon.

I blame the Olympic revelry.

The post 2010 Olympics Day 6: Men’s Downhill And Whistler’s Olympic Revelry appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

I believe I described skeleton, right here on TheExpeditioner.com, as “extreme headfirst sledding, in tights, somewhere within Avatar’s Pandora.” I still hold that to be true (stay tuned, there might be some tickets for these shenanigans in my future). So take that description, replace “headfirst” with “feet first,” and you have the most accurate picture of the sport called Luge. I snagged some tickets to the first two qualifying rounds to see what in the world this is all about.

Actually, Luge has had quite a lot of the headlines at the beginning of the Olympics, and not because of the tight outfits the lady competitors wear. In my last post I wrote about my time exploring Vancouver all day. Because of that, I missed any news from Olympicville.

It was only an hour previous to the ceremonies when I learned of the tragedy that happened on the Olympic luge course. The death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili will forever remind us of the inherent risks involved in highly competitive, high-performance sports. There was a moment of erupting cheers in support of the Georgian athletes at Robson Square which will be one of those special moments I will always remember. In fact, right now, there is a giant statue of the Olympic rings in the middle of Whistler’s village that has become a memorial to the athlete, with flowers, candles, and a picture of him. This outpouring of sympathy from people completely unconnected to him or his country is a reminder of what the Games are about.

So with Luge on the mind of nearly everyone lately I thought I’d see if luck would shine down on me and there would be a ticket available. It was shining, there was a ticket, and I was boarding the Blackcomb gondola faster than you can say, “holy crap, was that a luger that just went by?”

After the slog through the watery snow that makes up Whistler-Blackcomb’s lower mountain and the airport-intrusive security, I finally made it the track, which was impressive itself. I know it has been the source of much controversy of late (too dangerous? Driver error?), but I’m talking about the physical track. This ribbon of icy concrete traces 4,507 feet of mountainside, now reduced to about 4,000 feet for the lugers, and drops over 500 vertical feet in the process. The mastermind behind this design has the athletes reaching speeds my Pontiac won’t even think about (really).

My only experience with luge is watching it on T.V., on the Olympics (not like ma and pa throw luge watching parties like the Superbowl). The racers gracefully glide along the finely manicured path, rolling up the banks, and skidding to a finish with ease. Well, T.V. has it all wrong, as usual. I was blown away at the sheer speed at which they passed me, the sound of the sled rails on the track, the violence of the force these things generate. This isn’t a finely edited joy ride down a slope, this is a sport seemingly always teetering on the brink of a disastrous accident. Oh, and that graceful stop we’ve all been seeing, before they shortened the track, people were outshooting the finish and being launched into the foam pit that sits at the end of the track (on a fairly regular basis according to the gentleman I was chatting with at the race).

Needless to say, I was quite impressed at the luge. The discussion around the village is still: “is the track too dangerous?” I have a feeling that question is just one of those anomalies that ends where it begins, because what I witnessed is a beautiful, crazy sport that is dangerous in and of itself.

Where was luge when I was growing up? If you put Gassy Jon in a tube of ice with a sled, I bet he wouldn’t ever be stopped.

The post 2010 Olympics Days 4-5: Luge (The Wildest Sport On Earth) appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

There’s really no excuse for me to only spend 12 hours in a city like this, or any city for that matter, but alas, I’m trying to keep a schedule. Vancouver: bustling, urban, chic, innovative, I had to see it all. Could I? I mean, I had Opening Ceremony parties to attend to. Whether I like it or not, I had to, I was going to head up Whistler Creekside in the morning and set up camp next to the Dave Murray downhill course to see if any of the Olympians would smile at me as they passed (or so I thought . . .).

What does a first time Vancouverist (that’s Vancouver and tourist — did you catch that?) do in such a diverse, and Olympicly vibrant city such as Vancouver? Granville Market.

This island in False Creek holds one of the best markets I’ve been to in North America. I arrived there early and the workers were just getting things set up for the day. That didn’t stop the activity, however, and bakers were churning out goods. The blindingly colorful vegetables were stacked, sweets were on display, cleaver-wielding butchers tended to their lamb hocks, and the smell of JJ Bean cappuccinos hung densely in the air. It was love at first sight. At first the resemblance to Seattle’s Pike’s Place Market was evident, but the more time I spent in there I found it to be less raw, more polished in delivery.

I walked out the back door with that cappuccino in hand, to be staring face to face with the Swiss House. This isn’t normally the Swiss House, it most likely has something to do with the ferry docks close by, but throughout the Olympics, many countries have come to Vancouver and overthrown a willing business to make that place their home base. The Olympics were back in my world, with not even an hour away from the hoopla, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it again. I didn’t have a choice.

I headed across Granville Bridge into downtown Vancouver, and the pulse of everything Olympic related. I surrendered, letting the spirit fill me back up as I headed to Robson Street. It was blocked off to allow only pedestrians, which filled it up quite fast. The streets were just alive; different organizations had activities going on, art displays, trivia contests, and music. Then I made it to Robson Square, where the official Olympic countdown clock was located. Underneath was a skating rink you could look down onto. There were people zip-lining overhead — more craziness, that is all there is to it.

My vehicle out of there was a neighborhood called Gas Town. More known for the legal drug houses that Vancouver started not long ago, you may be surprised to know about the revitalization going on in this part of town. There were still some, let’s say, less than engaging folk around, but the old brick buildings, cobblestone streets, and souvenir shops were all worth crossing the street a few times as a safety precaution. Besides, at the end of the road, there is a spooky statue of the man Gas Town is named after, Gassy Jack. Call me crazy, but I’m not sure if I’d like to be known as Gassy Jon.

From Gas Town it was off to the nearby Chinatown, the largest in all of North America. I was particularly interested in this since learning this along with my visit to China last year. It was most definitely one of the more authentic Chinatown’s I’ve stepped foot in, right down to the lanterns on the street poles, and the fantastic dim sum in my belly. I took a spin through Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park, a calming respite from the city life, done with immaculate Chinese landscaping.

Time for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Games. This was more or less the reason for my venture down to Vancouver, I figured I wanted to see the city at it’s best, and this may be the best reason to show off your best. All except that I couldn’t get near B.C. Place, the stadium holding the ceremony. The security level must have been on high alert, like the color purple alert or something, because nearly everything was blocked off within a three block radius of the stadium. That was a buzz kill to my finding some atmosphere.

I headed down to a nearby park in the neighborhood of Yaletown where there was a designated area to celebrate throughout the Olympics. I went to the front door and followed the line to the end of the block, then around the other side of the block, one more block, then it double-backed on itself and took a right hand turn almost another two blocks . . . are you kidding me?

My lightbulb lit up. I remembered the big screens at Robson Square, so myself, and 5,000 other people headed there to catch the ceremony broadcast. It was awesome. They had three jumboTrons that I counted, and a projection of the broadcast on the side of the Sears building across the street! People were getting crazy anytime anything about Canada came on. Despite the typical Vancouver rainy drizzle, it couldn’t have been any better. The one thing that did tork me, was that Wayne Gretzky took the torch right past my locked up bike while I was stuck in a crowd of dripping Canuks. Can you believe that?

Afterward, Olympic Mardi Gras broke out (picture Mardi Gras without the beads and areola sightings). A monster fireworks show, huge flame cannons spewed, laser designs and spot lights lit the sky, and people dressed in different Olympic sports kept flying by overhead on that zip line.

I couldn’t believe it all. Well, I guess I could, after all, it’s the friggin’ Olympics! It was time for a latte and a drive back to Whistler so I could wake up early enough to be on the hill before the Men’s Downhill began. It was just my luck that with all the rain/snow mix, and huge snow dumps above the freezing line on the mountain, the course wasn’t ready and got rescheduled. I just found out the event I actually had tickets to, Ladies Super Combined, is now rescheduled, too.

So it looks like I’m going to have to juggle some things around, see if I can figure out some more of this Olympics stuff I’ve been hearing about, and get to all those other things on my “Vancouver To Do” list the next time I have twelve hours to kill.

The post Olympics Day 3: 12 Hours In Vancouver (Mardi Gras — Olympics Style) appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

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

I didn’t need a whole lot of prodding. He could’ve stopped at “snowing” and I would’ve been in. Whistler-Blackcomb Resort is one of those places that you just need to ski before you die. Period. So, in true Whistler ski-bum style, my friend and I dropped any sort of quasi-plans we had and headed to the lift. After a week without snow, the white gold was more 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 here since he was six, and he started outlining the day’s runs as if from a mental shopping list. He recited some stats a friend had passed on to him: yesterday the mountain saw the lowest number of lift ticket sales in the last 30 years. Apparently people are afraid of the Olympic hoopla. I sure didn’t mind.

I hadn’t known how valuable this was until we began our assault on two boards. This place is immense. With 8,171 skiable acres, 200+  runs (that’s an exact number straight from their website), I feel bad for the people that didn’t have the insider’s guide that I had with me. He would explain where we were, the landmarks around us for a reference, and give me the names of runs. Sure of myself, I would chime in, something like, “so that means Whistler Mountain is over this way,” just to be completely shot down and his lecture started over.

I like to think I’m fairly critical about subjects I think I know a lot about, but I was smitten by this place. 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 first gold medal of the Games to this resort. Good call 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 little easier (it is currently 45 degrees and raining at Cypress — not real 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 were skiing in the general area (and underneath it!), we discovered a few public viewing platforms along the side of the runs. So, my journalistic prowess took over, and I schemed a way to catch some of the Men’s action to complement my ticket to the Ladies the very next 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 making a sharp right hand turn over a roller at top speed (you’ll know this when you see it — the giant cameras of some well known stations were already set up). This sends their carving edges into the atmosphere and without the ski-to-earth technique that is somewhat important to success in the sport, there will be some serious action. That’s exactly where I’ll be. (Imagine 100 km/hr yard sales coming to a halt at my feet!) Granted my fool-proof plan works out.

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

The post 2010 Olympics Day 2: Smitten By Whistler-Blackcomb appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

The Olympic Games (exhale). Well, not quite yet. Those officially start Friday, but don’t tell Whistler. Based on their scurried preparation all day, I’d say they know how much time they have down to the second. For me, my trip to the 2010 Games started with a fourteen-hour drive and a late-night pitcher of dark beer (not at the same time).

As I sit here at my computer, now twenty-four hours in, I’m thinking about the two faces of Whistler that I witnessed today– starting completely different than it finished. To put it simply, it is pre-morning versus post-morning coffee. I could feel the transformation happening right before my eyes: from the mega posters now hanging from the slope-side condos, to the splattering of temporary media structures erected all over the city. The energy of the people, the infinite amount of volunteers donning their questionably sky-blue outfits, and the village where a tangible excitement was ratcheting up throughout out the day. The preparations hit overdrive. In fact, I even overheard a practice medals ceremony, where the winter sport powerhouse countries of India, Egypt, and Kenya took home the medals. It made me chuckle a bit.

With my local guide, Louis — a friend I taught with in South Korea — showing me around, I put forth an outstanding “prep session” myself. I mean, if the Olympics can do it, can’t I? My first reaction to Whistler is how personal the village feels. It is modeled after an old European ski town, car free but for two streets, and architecture to match. It wasn’t Aspen yuppy, which often comes with the development of a resort. It felt welcoming and intimate — just how a ski town should feel with two imposing peaks always looming over your shoulder.

Then, I couldn’t resist the burly, bearded mountain man in me any longer. We jumped aboard a lift that took us up to the one-of-a-kind, world-record-shattering, Peak-to-Peak Gondola. This feat of engineering is truly remarkable. For 11 minutes, I dangled 1,472 feet in the air in a metal box climbing 7 1/2 meters per second, hanging from three strings nearly two miles (1.88 to be exact) from their nearest support pole. It was unnerving, amazing, and unbelievable. I would add breathtaking, but we traveled through a cloud most of the trip making the vistas look more like a milky white soup.

It’s been a good start to the trip. The Mounties took it easy on me at the border, I got a great  tutor of the Whistler area and the mountains, and should be set up now for a wicked time for the remainder of Olympics 2010. Tomorrow, I’m off to begin my own version of 36 hours in Vancouver. But, with so many highlights around the city and extra sights to visit because of the Games, 36 might not cut it. Besides, I heard a rumor there may be some kind of fire stick traveling through town, with ensuing celebrations . . . just a rumor, though.

The post 2010 Olympics Day 1: Preparation appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

86 events, 17 days, 5500 participants from 80 different countries, 3 billion television viewers, and 1 managing editor sent to stir up the pot and see what happens. Yes, the rumors are true: I will be loading up my camera, skis, tickets, and computer and heading to Whistler on February 9th for roughly a week, to see what all this Olympics hype is about (and to do my best tracking down the notoriously inept ski jumper from Calgary’s ’88 Olympics,  Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards — he’s got to be nearby, right?).

Truly, though, I am extremely fortunate to have this opportunity. To many, the Olympic Games symbolize the coming together of people and cultures from all over the world. Despite its controversy, as there always seems to be at this event, I have always held the belief that the games mean more than winning a race of a sport that you never see but every four years. It is about representing your country, yourself, spirit, abilities, and seeing the best in people from different backgrounds.

Besides all that, how cool is the Skeleton (picture extreme headfirst sledding, in tights, somewhere within Avatar’s Pandora)? Where else do you see cross country skiers with rifles on their backs, or curling for that matter? This is stuff you just don’t see everyday!

To better follow the happenings, TheExpeditioner will put up a picture along the right hand side of the site, under the Features Section. So, keep an eye out for my daily Olympic dispatches from my time in Vancouver, Whistler, and everywhere in between.

The post TheExpeditioner.com Is Headed To The 2010 Olympic Games appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.