Olympic Snow Making & Course Building

The task of making and shaping snow into the best competition courses for the world’s elite winter athletes is no easy task.
To face the challenges of changing weather conditions and extreme mountain terrain The Vancouver 2010 Olympic and
Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) will bring the world’s top course builders and groomers to make, shape and transform
Cypress Mountain, Whistler Olympic Park and Whistler Creekside for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. These specialists will
work alongside Mother Nature to construct and maintain outdoor courses for Freestyle Skiing, Snowboarding, Nordic
Combined, Ski Jumping, Alpine, Cross Country and Biathlon.

Cypress Mountain
Sport: Snowboard & Freestyle Skiing
To prepare for a variety of weather conditions, Cypress
Mountain has a snowmaking reservoir of more than 5
million gallons and the terrain has been shaped to
accommodate the construction of Freestyle Skiing and
Snowboard event courses with the minimum amount of
snow.

The courses:
Aerials
The aerial course, which includes an inrun, table, jumps,
landing area and finish corral, requires a base of
approximately 150 centimetres of compacted snow.
The inrun, table and landing are completed and snow-
covered first; then jumps are designed on the table.
Snowcats are used to move snow and the course is
completed with final shaping by hand.
• The inrun is 85 metres long with the first 55 metres
at a 26 degree angle and the next 30 metres at 25
degrees.
• The table where jumps are made is a flat 25 metres
while the landing area is 30 metres at 38 degrees.
• At the end of the course is a 30 metre finish corral.
Moguls
The mogul course is located next to aerials and requires a
minimum base of approximately one metre.
To ensure an average angle of 27 degrees throughout
the 250 metre long course, the hill is groomed flat with
snowcats. Then the moguls are added again using
snowcats, pushing snow up the hill and piling it in
designated locations. Once the piles of snow are in place,
the moguls are shaped by hand using shovels and skiers
to smooth out each mogul.
Crews build and shape the two jump sections using
shovels and snowblowers.
Snowboard Halfpipe
Construction begins with a dirt in-ground structure. When
weather is cold enough, snow is packed onto the dirt.

A laser level and display screen help to push and pack

snow onto the halfpipe to the correct specifications,
building it 160 metres long, 19.5 to 20.5 metres wide, lip
to lip, with an 18 degree slope and 6.5 metre high walls as
set by FIS standards.

Once all snow is pushed onto the course, the walls are
built up with snowcats; trimming the face of the pipe wall
to get a rough shape. The surface of the halfpipe is
finished using a Zaugg, an implement attached to the
After the snowcats create the rough form of the course,
front of a snowcat and cuts the exact radius into the pipe
fine shaping is done using hand tools such as shovels and
walls.
rakes. The start gate is installed at the top and safety
nets are installed along the course.
Once machine work is done, hand shaping crews come in
with rakes and shovels to do the finishing touches.
The upper section of the course is on steeper terrain and
requires more snow in order to correct the angles while
Snowboard & Ski Cross the lower section is on a less steep pitch and requires less
The snowboard cross event will run February 15 & 16 and snow to construct.
ski cross on February 23 & 25. Between the two events
modifications will be made to the 1.1 kilometre course. The course is cleared of new snowfall to maintain the
• Some ski cross banks will be filled in so they are less original, firm running surface. During racing, grooming is
steep. done by hand or side-slippers. After competition or
• Some jumps will be lengthened and the second training the course is groomed with snowcats.
corner will be pushed out five to eight feet to
accommodate the faster speeds of ski cross racers.
Parallel Giant Slalom
• Some technical start features will be removed to
The 527 metre PGS course intersects with the
accommodate long skis and other course features
Snowboard and Ski Cross course in two locations. After
will be modified to meet FIS specifications.
ski cross events finish on February 25, the areas that
• Both the snowboard cross and ski cross course will intersect will be cleared of all features and the snow will
include seven corners, three hip jumps (that may act be moved off the course to leave the hard packed snow
as corners) and approximately 18 jumps. The highest base clean and open.
jump is approximately 25 feet from lip to landing.
The best conditions for PGS are very hard packed snow.
The course is constructed with snowcats moving snow
into the field of play and the areas where snow is needed
The course is 45 metres wide with a vertical drop of more
for features, such as jumps, starting from the top of the
than 170 metres.
course to bottom.

Forms made of lumber are used to construct the base of

features and conserve snow.
Whistler Creekside
Sport: Alpine Skiing Whistler Creekside Olympic courses will have a snow
The Whistler Creekside venue will host Downhill, Super G, maintenance crew of 40 staff operating 24 hours a day
Giant Slalom, Slalom and Super Combined Alpine Skiing with a fleet of 20 snowcats during the Games.
events. The men’s races will take place on the Dave
Murray run, with a vertical drop of more than 850 metres Olympic course groomers will work to keep the alpine
and length of 3158 metres and the ladies races will be on courses clear of natural snowfall over 15 centimetres to
Franz’s run which is just over 2870 metres long with a prevent the warming-up of the top layer of dense icy
vertical drop of 770 metres. snow needed for an elite ski race. Sometimes this means
pushing snow off into the trees.
The course:
The Whistler Creekside snowmaking system has the
The perfect alpine race track is almost, but not quite, ice.
capacity to make 5600 gallons per minute; the equivalent
Crews start as soon as temperatures go below -1° C to
of a gravel truck full of snow produced every minute.
make wet, dense snow and establish a firm foundation. As
natural snow falls it is mixed in with man made snow to
For the Olympic Games the courses have been modified
maintain a hard base.
and upgraded;
• The Timing Flats were widened from 40 to 75
Dry powder snow is around 10 per cent water, normal
metres to create a larger finish area for spectators
hardpack recreational trails are around 45 per cent water,
and broadcast media.
ski race courses aim for between 55 and 65 per cent.
• The Men’s course added a new section from the
Coaches Corner down to Powerline in order to make
Repeated grooming of the track with snowcats with
room for two finish areas.
tillers beats up the snow to remove air while melting
• The Ladies course was modified to combine Jimmy’s
some of the ice crystals which then refreezes after they
Joker and Wild Card to run onto Franz Run in the
have been groomed. If this still does not bring the target
middle and over to the previous Men’s course at the
hardness, then water can be injected into the top 20
bottom.
centimetres of the snow surface.
Whistler Olympic Park
Sport: Biathlon, Cross-Country, Nordic
Combined & Ski Jumping
Situated in the Callaghan Valley, the Whistler Olympic Park
typically receives large amounts of snowfall annually. In
combination with the fact that Cross-Country and
Biathlon courses require shallow snow bases and lower snow
densities, the result is that very little snowmaking is needed at
this venue. The only snowmaking system at Whistler
Olympic Park will be for the ski jump landing hill.

Whistler Olympic Park sits an elevation range between

840 and 930 metres and in recent years, the month of
February has posted average daily temperatures between
+3°C and -4°C and received an average of more than 190
centimetres of snow on the ground.
The courses:
Ski Jumping
Each of the ski jump inruns has a built in refrigeration
system, automated inrun covering system and an
integrated winch/track setting machine. These features
allow staff to build the inrun early in the year and
maintain it throughout the season with minimal
maintenance.
The depth of snow on the landing hills is approximately
45 centimetres.
The landing hill is initially prepared by a winchcat because
the slope is at a 35 degree angle and it is only possible to
groom the landing hill while tethered on a winch system.
The final landing hill preparation is completed by hand
with rakes and skis so the finished product is within 2
centimetres of the design parameters of the ski jump.

The refrigeration system

keeps the inrun frozen, the
covering system protects it
from rain and snow, and
the winch/track setter
prepares a high quality ice
track for the athletes to ski
down.

The main source of snow

for the ski jump landing hills
and outruns is through
snowmaking. The ski jump
snowmaking system can provide appropriate coverage for
the landing hills and outruns of both ski jumps with
approximately 100 hours of snowmaking at -3.5 C.

The snow used on ski jumps must be very dense with

approximately 60-70 per cent water to provide a hard
landing surface. To create the correct density a variety of
techniques will be used including snowcats, manual boot
packing, and adding water to the snow.
Cross-Country and Biathlon
of firmly packed snow provides
Whistler Olympic Park will consist of two separate five-
ideal conditions while on the
kilometre cross-country skiing competition courses, a
courses, a range of 50
four-kilometre biathlon competition course and a 3.75-
centimetres to several meters
kilometre Paralympic sit-ski competition course.
of snow is ideal. Fresh snow is
tilled and packed to create a
The cross-country course meets FIS standards and the
firm consistent surface for all
biathlon course meets IBU technical rules with competitors.
strategically placed uphill, downhill and flat sections to
provide course which are tough but fair for all Ideal snow densities are
competitors. approximately 40 to 45 per
cent water, but cross-country
The width of the cross-country trails ranges between 6 and biathlon competitions can
and 12 metres with the widest parts mainly on the uphill
still be run at lower densities if
sections to allow passing. Biathlon course width ranges
necessary.
from 6 to 9 metres.
With shallow snow bases and lower snow densities
Cross-country events take place with a groomed packed
snowmaking is not needed for the cross country and
base of approximately 45 centimetres of snow that is
biathlon courses.
prepared with a large snowcat after every snowfall to
beat the air out of the snow and mix new snow with old The cross-country stadium will have five snowcats and
as much possible to provide a consistent base. Final biathlon will have four snowcats and the three
preparations help to create a very smooth and consistent snowmobile rollers available to provide 24 hour grooming
surface. coverage.

During Olympic and Paralympic cross-country In addition to the Olympic biathlon and cross-country
competitions fresh snow will be worked and tilled to
trails, there will be warm-up trails and several cutover
provide the surface needed and in rare cases large
trails for the shorter competition distances (two, 2.5,
amounts of fresh snow falling at the last minute may be
three, 3.3 and 3.75 kilometre) and 40 to 45 kilometres of
removed from the course to expose a harder base layer.
easier recreational trails, including flat parts that will be
used for the Paralympic sit-ski competitions.
In the biathlon stadium a range of 30 to 60 centimetres