WSSF 2010: Day 4

Right off the bat some of you might noticed that this post is about Day 4 at the Telus World Ski and Snowboard festival and that somehow I failed to talk about Day 3. Well that’s because I was in Vancouver on the Monday and then came back up for the day on Tuesday. I wanted to check out some of the action on Blackcomb as the WSI (World Ski Invitational) was up at the Superpipe for the Semi-Finals and Finals as well as the Superhit.

The weather was pretty dreary out and it kept threatening to rain but I was still wanting to go up and check it out so I did just that. I arrived in Whistler at about 10:30AM where I met up with my buddy Keith. We headed off to the gondola just before noon so we could check out the event closer to the start of the finals.

I was a bit anxious about riding to the event with my camera gear on my back. I have gotten used to carrying a 2L water-hydration pack when I go riding, but not 25 pounds or so of camera gear strapped to my back with a larger backpack on. I kept my gear to a minimum, which consisted of my Canon 7D, Canon XSi (with grip), 70-200m, f/2.8L IS and the 17-40 f/4L. It fits all nicely into my ThinkTank Streetwalker Pro backpack too. Getting onto the lift is easy, getting off the lift with the pack is the tricky part. Since the Peak 2 Peak Gondola is closed, Keith and I had to make our way up Blackcomb via the Excalibur Gondola, to the Excelerator chair then ski down to Glacier Lodge and take the Jersey Creme chair up to the Rendezvous Lodge. Then we skied/rode down Springboard to the base of the Superpipe in the Nintendo Terrain Park.  Yes, Keith was carrying more like 50 pounds of gear and hasn’t skied in over 14 years, but I still think taking a heavier backpack than I am used to on a snowboard isn’t an easy task at first either. Getting off a chair with a snowboard isn’t as easy as skier’s getting off a chair, add a pack and it makes it much more fun!

Did I mention that this is the first time Whistler/Blackcomb has had a 22-foot super pipe? Typically it is roughly 19-feet high, so now (if they can get themselves the 22-foot pipe cutter from New Zealand) their local Olympic athletes can practice at home!

Alright, so on to the photos! It was hard to choose a selection of photos from the 1000+ I took on the deck of the halfpipe. I uploaded 110 to flickr, but I have to decide how many photos to add to this post!

So many photos to choose from, at least they don’t take up too much bandwidth and I am sure many of you out there have fast enough internet connections so the load times shouldn’t be too bad in loading this page. Just randomly pulling photos from my recent upload too.

It is pretty amazing what people can do on Skis, including the amount of amplitude (height) they can get above the deck. There was talk about trying to look at getting this event into the Olympics too, since snowboarding on the half-pipe is an Olympic sport, why not skiing? They allowed for the Ski-Cross to happen this year which was pretty crazy and awesome to watch!

You can check out the rest of the photos I’ve uploaded over on Flickr. I would appreciate any feedback on them or for you to favourite any of them you like! After all, how do I know I am doing any good or if you enjoy the photos I take if no one mentions it?

Next up will be the Grenade Games half-pipe event on Blackcomb, but not till Thursday!