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As an avid skier, I have been following the woes of the lack of snow in Vancouver. I know since this is a Canadian website, many of you are from Canada. I mean wasn't this a foregone conclusion? Of all the places in Canada, why Vancouver?

Here is a passage from an article published back in 2003 when they selected Vancouver.

"Most Winter Games cities are buried in snow every winter.

Calgary (1988) has an average annual snowfall of 135 centimetres. Salt Lake City (1992) clocks in at 163. And Nagano, Japan, (1998) gets an average dump of 175. Sapporo, Japan, (1972) gets 295 centimetres of snow per year and Lake Placid gets a whopping 420.

But Vancouver has an average snowfall of just 48 centimetres and -- as most Vancouverites know -- it is rare for even that small amount to stay on the ground for more than a couple of days."


Don't get me wrong, Vancouver is a gorgeous city but let's face it, the climate is Oceanic. What in the world were the Olympic Committee thinking?

"Hey! This city will give us tons of perks and such! Besides they had to truck snow into Nagano, why can't they do it here??? Plus if we select them it's their problem to deal with!"

Wrider wrote:Besides they had to truck snow into Nagano

Where did you hear that?? I remember that Olympic. I actually rememebr them hoping it would stop snowing as they literally said it was too much snow.

HYPERR wrote:

Wrider wrote:Besides they had to truck snow into Nagano

Where did you hear that?? I remember that Olympic. I actually rememebr them hoping it would stop snowing as they literally said it was too much snow.

Actually in the days leading up to the Nagano Olympics, they were terribly worried about the lack of snow. Yes during the actual Olympics, they had to cancel some events due to the heavy snow that eventually started to fall.

dr_bar wrote:

HYPERR wrote:

Wrider wrote:Besides they had to truck snow into Nagano

Where did you hear that?? I remember that Olympic. I actually rememebr them hoping it would stop snowing as they literally said it was too much snow.

Actually in the days leading up to the Nagano Olympics, they were terribly worried about the lack of snow. Yes during the actual Olympics, they had to cancel some events due to the heavy snow that eventually started to fall.

I do remember them mentioning that before the Olympics that they had been gettting a lot less snow than normal. But like you said, it snowed so much during the actual games that they actually had to postpone some events. That's nature for you, lol. I dont remember them ever trucking snow though...

Nagano is central western Japan and the snowfall is not as severe as the bitter cold Northern Japan(Sapporo) which gets literally buried in snow. That being said, Nagano is definitely snow country, Vancouver is not by any stretch of the imagination. It is one of the few places in Canada that you can arguably ride a motorcycle almost all year.

Were you guys in Canada surprised when Vancouver was chosen by the IOC?

I hate to say it, but my "Olympic" moment turned into a horror show. Accepted a position with the company supplying bus services to the various venues and events. What I saw leads me to believe that they are woefully unprepared, utterly unorganized and I was watching a major logistics and transportation disaster in the making. For one of the few times in my life, I made the decision not to have my name associated with or take an active part of a logistics operation and walked out the door.

The lack of snow up on Cypress mountain will be I believe only one of many major issues and problems. I would not be surprised to see the Vancouver Winter Games go down in Olympic history as one of the worst planned and executed. VANOC seems to have put too much effort into brand name protection and not enough into operations planning.

ceemes wrote:I hate to say it, but my "Olympic" moment turned into a horror show. Accepted a position with the company supplying bus services to the various venues and events. What I saw leads me to believe that they are woefully unprepared, utterly unorganized and I was watching a major logistics and transportation disaster in the making. For one of the few times in my life, I made the decision not to have my name associated with or take an active part of a logistics operation and walked out the door.

The lack of snow up on Cypress mountain will be I believe only one of many major issues and problems. I would not be surprised to see the Vancouver Winter Games go down in Olympic history as one of the worst planned and executed. VANOC seems to have put too much effort into brand name protection and not enough into operations planning.

Wow sorry to hear about your experience Ceemes.

I didn't know they were so unorganized. It's always interesting to get the inside scoop. I hope they pull through as well as mother nature cooperating.

I always had my doubts about picking Vancouver. Leaving aside my complete mistrust of any Canadian governmental organizational qualifications, it is no secret that snow in Vancouver is hardly dependable. And getting less so all the time with climate change.

But all those self-absorbed politicos have been so determined to show the world how utterly fantastic Canada is that they are not going to let something as puny as the planet get in the way. At best, we are going to lose Billions of dollars on this. We will be lucky if we don't kill off busloads of visitors or athletes driving them up the mountain. And I think we are going to look like fools no matter what..... indebted fools.

BuzZz wrote:Leaving aside my complete mistrust of any Canadian governmental organizational qualifications

You of all people don't trust the Canadian government?

But yeah I agree, after Blues telling us how she goes riding in the middle of winter I was kind of shocked myself to hear that it was put there.
My sister though would KILL to be up there right now, she works at the Olympic Training Center here in Colorado Springs and knows a lot of the athletes.

Dude, I don't trust any government.

Because they all consist of bureaucrats and even worse, politicians. This forum's censor-bot will not allow me to express my true feelings on politicians...