Weathering the Weather

Weather almost always seems to be an issue at the Olympics and it's no different here in Vancouver. I've been asked a lot about the conditions, which change quite a bit depending on the venue. I've spent most of my time in the Main Press Center in downtown Vancouver and this is the launching point to various venues, whether its a 20-minute shuttle to the hockey arena, a 45-minute bus to Cypress Mountain or a 2-hour+ bus trip up to Whistler for the alpine skiing events, luge, etc..

Here in Vancouver, there's no snow to be found. It's fairly nice, with temps in the 40's generally, though it's been somewhat damp and rainy early on.

Up at Whistler, it's been hit and miss.
(At left is the luge track at Whistler, by the way)





We've had rain and fog that's wreaked havoc with the alpine skiing events and generally made a mess of the slopes. After several days of that, it improved a bit, then a heavy snow hit last night that caused more cancellations.

Hopefully it won't cause too much of a backlog with the skiing events..

At Cypress, the weather has been pretty sloppy. They had to truck snow in there to begin with to cover the snowboard tracks and the rain that's been coming down has caused even more problems. A total of 4,000 standing room only seats at the snowboard cross venues were returned because more than a foot of snow had been washed away, resulting in some muddy slopes and treacherous footing. Keeping our fingers crossed that things get better,

So the four Olympic mascots in Vancouver are Miga, Sumi, Mukmuk and my favorite, Quatchi.
He's a hairy sasquatch-looking fellow.




I believe the hat I'm sporting here has Mukmuk on the top...

I decided the look wasn't for me and passed on buying it.