Nancye's Adventures: Snowbasin- 2002 Olympic Downhill

2002 was the first Winter Olympics that I attended. My friend Tina came with me for the first part and then my brother and his friend Andy came for the last part. While Tina was here we had tickets to the Women's Downhill at Snowbasin. I was thrilled because this meant we got to see Picabo Street ski in her last Olympics before she retired. The day of the event turned out to be a pretty one and actually not too cold if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, up at the top it was so windy it delayed the race. And kept delaying the race until they decided to call it until the next day. From what we heard it was so steep at the start that as they pushed out to race the wind would have pushed them over the edge. So, we came back the next day. And once again it was gorgeous but windy at the top. We lucked out though and they only delayed it for awhile before starting the race. If we had to come back another day we probably would have missed it. That day we got to see Picabo Street race in her last Olympic downhill. We also saw a young Lindsey Kildow (now Vonn) ski in her first Olympics. It was an amazing experience.

I moved to Utah in 2006. Each winter I have wanted to go ski at Snowbasin so that I could see the entire women's downhill run. Somehow each winter passes me by without getting there. Until this weekend. I was able to get some passes from work and I met my friend Kevin there. The weather was not as nice as the days in 2002 but we made it work for us. Our first time up on that part of the mountain you couldn't even see the top where the starts were. We decided to go ski the Wildflower Downhill (women's run) and try the top later.

When we came up the lift around lunchtime we could finally see the top and decided it didn't look too bad. And we lucked out. When we took the tram up it briefly cleared up for a moment so you could see a bit of the Ogden valley but mostly you were looking down on clouds. We skied the track over to the women's start house. I worked my way through all the powder to get as close as I could. Since Kevin enjoyed the run over to the start house we took the tram up and did it again before skiing all the way down. I'd love to go back and try it again when you can actually see everything. And someday maybe I'll do the Women's 2002 Downhill course from top to bottom. I'm just glad it won't be injected and icy like a normal race course.