A Wintery Rainforest

After the winter that the majority of the US has had, the amount of snow up here in Whistler, British Columbia is pretty unbelievable.   We flew up to Seattle on Monday, then drove the rest of the way up past Vancouver to Whistler.  The drive and crossing the border was a bit of a hassle, but it was also a beautiful drive along the coast.  I've never been to this part of the continent, and can really see the appeal of this place. 

It's going to be a pretty short trip - training through Friday, then we compete Saturday and fly back home Monday.  So far it's been fun and relaxed though, traveling with the guys I went to World Juniors with, as well as some of the younger guys from the Winter Sports Club.   Martin's here with Todd Wilson, another coach from the club.  I'm having fun traveling with some younger guys. 

I better enjoy this while I can, because, by the way, I made the US Ski Team (along with Michael Ward and Erik Lynch) and won't necessarily have seniority next year!

The temperature hovers right around freezing up at the Olympic park, so when it's not snowing, it's raining, or we're in a short break between the next bout.  Although we've only been here for two days, I'm starting to appreciate how lucky they were with the weather during the Olympics here.

The Day Lodge, where we change for jumping - and skiing, since the XC stadiums right here as well.

Despite these "rainforest" conditions, we've been able to jump the large hill both yesterday and this morning.  This is the first time the hills have been opened since the Winter Games. It's a shame, because the hill's definitely one of the coolest and most fun that I've ever jumped.  Fortunately the inrun is refrigerated, which helps keep it a little less sticky when slush is coming down.  There's a pretty solid hill crew that did all they could to keep the track cleared out, but it was snowing too hard for them to be able to do anything for a couple of our jumps today.

A few of the German special jumpers came over for the training camp, and I watched Martin Schmidt, one of their bests jumpers, go no farther than 75 meters one jump.  That's how it goes sometimes though, especially when it's dumping snow.  Like I said, they were pretty lucky with the weather during the Olympics.

Snowbanks. Big ones.

Todd Wilson took some cool pictures of the technology at the jump.  Check them out on the slideshow.

680 days until the Sochi Games.