Training and First Shift!

Today was exciting! I reported to Creekside (the part of Whistler where all the Alpine Skiing events are being held) for 9 AM. It was the first time that I used my accreditation to get through security (called Mag and Bag) - no problems! There was training for any new Alpine volunteers - everyone has to do a 2 hour orientation before they can begin work. It was very informative with a big emphasis on Health and Safety (which I do a lot of as a co-op teacher!).

Here are some numbers: 2400 volunteers working on the Alpine Skiing venue, 1200 working on the course (course crew - me, slippers, gate judges, dye crew, stewards, etc...), 550 course crew on the Ladies and 540 course crew on the Men's - that's a heck of a lot of people!

When training was done I called my Crew Chief - Mike Sheppard from Ottawa - who said that there wasn't much going on this afternoon and they didn't need me. Since we were all done by 10:30 I suggested to my new friend Nelda Robbins from New Brunswick that we ride up the gondola to mid-station to get oriented. We rode up the gondola without our skis and took tons of pictures of the race course below. At the top of the gondola - called mid-station - there is a large tent for volunteers where they serve soup and hot and cold beverages. We had a great lunch and I met up with a number of people from Ottawa. We "downloaded" on the gondola, did a little grocery shopping - then Mike called to say - we need you at 3:30 today - I said Ya Hooo!!!

In order to kill some time until 3:30 Nelda and I went up to the condo she is staying at - really high up on Creekside in a beautiful condo that VANOC is providing for volunteers - there are 6 staying in the condo. Getting up there was quite fun - we took a shuttle - very difficult to drive in Whistler as there is no parking! The shuttle bus driver was a retired bus driver from Toronto who knew nothing about Whistler - I read the map to him as he drove - very funny!!

I got back down to Creekside put my ski stuff on and met my crew to head up on the mountain. It snowed a bit today and we had to clear the snow off the course with rakes. Our team of 5 had a section of the course to clear - we spent a couple of hours working at that - very physical work! Good thing I have been working out! There was so much snow to clear that we used a snow blower on the course! We headed down in the semi-dark - skiing beside the race course to the bottom of the mountain!

I am really tired as I was up very early this morning - not adjusted to BC time yet - I need to be at Creekside for 6:15 AM tomorrow morning - the first training runs for the Ladies Super Combined (Downhill and Slalom combined together) is happening - there is a lot of work to be done on the course so that it is ready to go. Luckily we will be a "later" crew - the early crew needs to report at 4 AM! It will be very exciting to see the ladies in action tomorrow on the race course - today the men were only able to get half the field down before fog rolled in and they cancelled the run. Hopefully the weather will co-operate tomorrow and the ladies will all have a training run.

Unfortunately the battery in my camera ran out today - I will try to get more shots of the course crew in action tomorrow! I really hope that you are enjoying my blog - I am having fun writing it! The pictures that I have on the slide show are also on Picassa - with captions - at:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/janeluv2ski/JaneSOlympicAdventure?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.ca/janeluv2ski/JaneSOlympicAdventure2?feat=directlink

Thanks for sharing my Olympic Adventure with me!