Soldier Hollow is about 40 air miles SE of SLC. It is called the best cross country ski racing track in the world for viewing. After spending five days at this venue our family would agree. After a thorough security screening that can take up to two hours all spectators board buses that take them to a beautiful mountain venue surrounded by the towering Wasatch Mountains. To enter the skiing area one walks past wagon trains, tepees, carts pulling wagons and a recreated Utah frontier town complete with folks in clothes of 100 years ago. Then one may walk to almost any place along at 20 k course to watch the best athletes in the world ski cross country.
We watch the mass start of the women's 15 k on Feb. 9 and then walk under a portion of the race course to cheer racers and especially Alaskans as they pass. It is thrilling to watch these brilliant and super fit racers streak around the course. The weather is so warm Kipp and Pyper run around in polypro tops.
Wandering around the course it is possible to stand a few feet from Olympians as they skate up a track to careen down the other side. At the Soldier Hollow venue instead of the skiers taking off into the woods for 15 k and then returning one by one, virtually the entire race is visible. It makes for much excitement and lots of cheering from the crowd.
There are athletes from scores of nations here. At one race a man next to me is wrapped in a French flag. So I speak to him in French about his team, "Il n'y a pas des bon concurrants francais ici?" We cheer the Italians, "Vive Italia," and the Spanish, "Vamanos." Everyone is smiling and shouting.
We return to Soldier Hollow daily for five days along with 12,000 other enthusiasts. The Apache attack helicopters are evident on the runway as we pass. On the bus we sit next to an FBI agent and across from a US Postal Inspector. We later learn that part of the 16,000 strong security force are Brandon Anderson, Paul Kain, and Jeff Bryant, Jim Ireland from Seward as well as Peter Fitzmaurice a former Seward resident. They did good work, there are few times that we felt as secure as these games.
Our favorite at Soldier Hollow was probably the biathlon because Jay Hakkinen is a family acquaintance. We watch the biathletes do staggered starts and then pass under a section of the race course to climb a hill and stand in the sun as they pass. The skiers are fabulous, all muscle and sinew. I can't help but notice that even most of the spectators look in good shape regardless of nationality. As Jay comes up the course we are some of the many cheering for Americans. Being this close one tries to cheer without distracting them. On this course Jay will have a 13th finish, the best for any American ever.

I wish many of my students could be here. I have heard several Seward middle school students talk about skiing not being 'cool'. They would change their minds if they could witness a world class Alaskan athlete like Jay Hakkinen or Nina Kempel being cheered by 12,000 fans in 50+ languages and the entire event beamed to 4.5 billion viewers around the world.
My biggest regret is that Aubrey Smith a Seward HS graduate is not here having missed the Olympic team by one place. Ironically she won a race in Europe this same week. When I meet people they always seem to light up when I say I'm Alaskan. It seems to get a conversation going, regardless of the language. I am also struck by the fact that if these events were held in Alaska we would get as many spectators from Alaska alone, skiing and winter sports being that popular. Most people I talk with are staggered to find out that Alaska is 1/5 of one percent of the US population and yet we have almost 10% of the skiers ie. we are over represented by a factor of 50!

February 13 we ride buses to Snow Basin for the combined downhill and slalom races. We sit in bleachers or stand with twenty five thousand of "our closest friends," other downhill enthusiasts. It is thrilling to be just feet away from the best racers in the world doing 90 mph. We are fortunate to be in the sun for the sixth day in a row.
The SLC 2002 web site told us to start 4.5 hours early to make the event. Two of my good friends with whom I have skied since the 60's, both former US Ski Team members, tried to get to the women's downhill to find it canceled and then stood in line for 4 hours before giving up on the men's downhill even though they had tickets. It is one of the ironies that these two world class skiers who live in SLC did not get to any alpine events. By the sixth day, when we see the combined, they have the wait down to a manageable two hours. However, the lunch line is longer which is why we pack a sandwich in our pockets (this was illegal until the second day when they changed the rule). Sitting in the snow watching young daredevils bolt out of the azure Utah sky is worth the wait.

Getting to the Olympic opening ceremonies was its own marathon. We started in Seward at 18:00 on Thursday 2-7 and arrived at Eccles-Rice stadium at 18:00 the next day after catching the last bus. The opening was an extravaganza that was worth the effort to get there. The choreography was superb and the weather cooperative. I had not been in the stadium for 30+ years when I used to train in this local when I skied for the Univ. of Utah. The parade of athletes was simply magnificent and the lighting of the Olympic flame very moving. The ceremonies included wagon trains pulled by oxen and pioneers pulling handcarts. My ancestors arrived in this valley over 140 years ago in wagon trains and handcart divisions and my extended family still has a farm that was homesteaded before the Civil War in northern Utah. Watching Phil Mahre and Bill Johnson together carry the torch as well as other notable Olympians was something I shall never forget. It was also notable that no planes were flying in the night sky for four hours except a helicopter that circled the stadium during the entire performance. The athletes were bathed in the showering lights of fireworks and the music seemed to shake the entire stadium. With 60,000 flutes and flashlights were got to be part of the performance.

We spent six days at venues seeing about 12 different events. Then we skied for five days. One day I went with my skiing buddies, some of whom I have skied the Wasatch every year since the 60's, to a mountain east of SLC near the Uintahs. We hiked up windblown ridges to ski dry powder between the trees. On the first ridge I noticed a memorial cairn right where we started our descent. Fred said, "That must be for the young skier who was killed in an avalanche here two weeks ago."
I put my skis on below the cornice and started down only to do a head plant and lose my ski. Then I have to dig for my ski in an avalanche zone until another skier points our single track headed into a grove of Aspens. I finally find my ski right in the area where the young skier perished just weeks before. Later we see that the cornice has ripped out both right and left of where we skied. Craig said, "They skied that slope twice before it ripped out. He cut underneath a cornice and that is why it went."
The rest of the day we made tracks in the 'glades' the exquisite openings between the trees on the north face. It was so much fun I broke pole baskets and came out of my skis many times. Powder and trees under a blue sky, that is why I haven't missed a season of skiing in Utah since '55.