Please push F11 and make sure you are in full screen view. Note: to jump to the slides not on the brothers' trip, start with slide #28
Dick broke off from the group to take a ride on a pontoon plane that lifted its pilot and six photographers above the area's many glaciers. His plane was a variant of de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver. The plane was last manufactured in 1967, the year Dick graduated from college. He's retired; why isn't this plane?
Here we see the base of Blackcomb mountain with the sliding sport track. Note how the mountain homes snake around the base.
Whistler will be the Nordic events (sliding sports) venue for the Vancouver Winter Olympics which will start in a few months. This winding track is used for luge, bobsled (bobsleigh), and skeleton (where participants ride head first and prone on a sled shaped like a human skeleton).
Soon we flew over areas with minimal habitation -- at least by humans.
Lakes greened by rock flour were trapped behind high mountains and fed by glaciers.
Here we see the olympic athletes' housing, built on 96 acres of a former garbage dump about 4 miles south of Whistler. To the left are gravel piles kicking up dust. Some of the construction funds were used to mitigate methane pollution, lest the athletes run on gas. While this is to be a permanent village to be used to train Canadian athletes after the Olympics, the large tent is obviously temporary and will be used as a 42,000 square foot dining room for the nearly 3000 athletes, officials, and coaches participating in the "sliding" games. Housing includes a 100 room hotel and several duplexes.
One of the more distinctive mountain caps, this may be called "smokestack."
For you photoshop fanatics, here's a mountain top in color...
...and black and white.
The next slides have been pasted together with software so expect a bit of lens distortion.
After a half-hour, it was time to return to civilization. The plane's base at Green Lake shows progress coming to Whistler with hydroelectric towers enhancing the landscape and power boats creating interesting patterns on the pristine water.
The Jack Nicklaus designed golf course is quite spectacular from the ground but somewhat less impressive from the air. Is it called "Green Lake" because of the color of money?
Soon we were landing.
For those of you who are into Canadian Rockies glaciers, I've put my August 2003 pictures from the Columbia Icefield (near Banff/Calgary) on Picasaweb at http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/ColumbiaIcefield#slideshow .
The additional slides start here with these Green Lake waterfront homes.
Probably what these mountains looked like before the ski resorts mowed down strips of trees
Helicopter base
Residences and golf courses around Green Lake
Blackcomb Mountain
The valley where the bobsleigh track (upper right) meets the residences
Bobsleigh track
Olympic Village for athlets; dining room is under the large tent
Athletes' complex at right middle
