Here are a few photos I took of other things before I left the Olympic Park to head further up the mountain to Whistler Blackcomb ski resort.
These are two, relatively short (in my opinion), ski jumps. I am not a skier. My three brothers all skied but I never had any interest in it. My opinion of these ski jumps is based on others I have seen firsthand. Maybe my depth perception is skewed, but this is a training facility and perhaps they scaled things down for maximum “repeat time”.
You see – very compact.
There were ski areas in eastern Pennsylvania, where my family lived for many years. They were small by Rocky Mountain standards, but we were two hours from both New York City and Philadelphia so they were very popular with city folk. My older brother and his wife built a house after they got married, in a small resort town about 45 minutes away from where our families lived. They could see the slopes of Big Boulder ski area from their deck.
My youngest brother, who was born after we moved to Pennsylvania, lived in Salt Lake City, Utah for many years and when I would go out to visit, he and his wife would take me up to Park City, which has also hosted Winter Olympic games and has training facilities similar to these. The ski jumps we saw there seemed much bigger than these.
Here is something I noticed as I walked back to my car after having taken the photos above:
Once again, the electric bear fence.
Within walking distance of the ski jumps I found a large Inukshuk statue, perched high on a boulder:
This symbol has meaning the indigenous Inuit language, and was adopted as the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympic games.
As you can see of you look closely at the photo on the sandwich board above, the large Inukshuk has inspired many “Mini-Me’s,” constructed by visitors.
Some better than others…
I have a small, wooden Inukshuk keychain which I bought in Toronto when I was there in 2019.
My next posts will be of what I saw when I visited Whistler Blackcomb ski resort, just up the road from the Olympic Park. For now – a JohnBoy Travel Update. As I write this post I am in Canmore, Alberta, just south of Banff, in the Canadian Rockies. I drove down here yesterday from where I had been staying in Golden, British Columbia. From Golden, I drove through parts of six National Parks. I will be based here in Canmore for four nights before moving on to Calgary and points east.
I’ve been lots of places and seen lots of things between Whistler and Canmore, and I will be getting to those posts soon. Thank you for your continued patience. My days are filled with seeing new, amazing things and I am accumulating LOTS of photos and stories.
I’m peddling as fast as I can….
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