|
 |
Creating gold-worthy runs an Olympic team effort
By Ray Grass Deseret News Olympic specialist
DEER VALLEY — Imagine a ski area making bumps instead of smoothing them over. Or building death-defying jumps instead of tearing them down. Or pouring millions of gallons of water over snow to make it harder rather than softer.
That's what Deer Valley Resort has done for about two years.
Working under Bob Wheaton, president of the resort's Olympic venue, crews have been toiling on a mogul course, erecting jumps for the aerials and preparing the slope for the slalom.
To prepare for the 2002 Winter Games, crews spent months preparing the mogul run, which resembles a field of giant marbles, often working way past the time when the lifts closed and skiers were snug in their beds.
First, snow was made and piled on the run. A Snowcat, held on the steep face by a steel cable hooked to a tree and lowered inches at a time, meticulously cut 3-foot bumps every 6 1/2 feet.
Volunteers walked down and built all the left hand turns. Once they got to the bottom, they started back at the top, cut the distance in half and built every turn to the right. Every high spot was sculptured into a low spot; every low spot became a high spot.
The aerial jumps required some engineering. Designers had to establish a landing hill with a 37 degree pitch, a 20 meter run out, a 24 meter table and a 70 meter in-run.
The jumps, the big ones anyway, rise off the ground 14 feet. They are a few degrees shy of being perpendicular at the apex.
With a 35 mph run and a straight-up launch, the aerialists reach heights of 50 feet — about as high as a five-story building — and then twist and turn and spin before landing.
Chuck English, director of mountain operations, and Dave Anderson, snow operations manager, oversaw all of this.
Despite the early snow, Anderson's crew has pumped more than 20 million gallons of water, mostly during nighttime hours, to ensure the courses are in the best possible shape.
In places like the critical start area, for example, the snow is nearly 15 feet deep.
For the past two weeks, two Snowcats have been operating 24 hours a day to groom and manicure the Olympic runs. At times, as many as 15 machines groom the runs.
Jeremy Osgood of the Deer Valley race department has been the on-mountain coordinator. All the platforms spectators see, all the fencing lining the nearly vertical hills and preparation for the slalom fell under his control. Osgood and his crew have been working nonstop for nearly two months.
Steve Graff, ski patrol manager, has been the go-to man for the U.S. Secret Service. When the Men In Black were unable to negotiate the steep mountain to put up fencing and establish control, it was left to Graff and his crew. He is also overseeing First Aid requirements within the venue area and also on the hill for competitors.
Making sure crews, volunteer, coaches and racers make it on the hill, via lifts, has fallen under the control of Paul Hedman and Tim Bruett.
Deer Valley officials have tried to allow Olympic spectators to enjoy the events they're attending without disrupting the ski days and skiing vacations of regular customers.
"It's not a normal experience," said Coleen Reardon, the resort's marketing director. "But it's pretty close. And it's the Olympics."
While there is a snag here and there, most plans to accommodate both Olympic spectators and day skiers have worked well.
"For something this big, it's been seamless," she said.
Reardon and her colleagues hope the television exposure and visits by Games-time guests will bode well for the future.
"We've been on television a lot," she said. "The exposure is great (for the future)."
Contributing: Amy Donaldson
E-MAIL: grass@desnews.com
|
|
February 20, 2002
|
