Skis + guns = fun

One year ago, I was up at Whistler Olympic Park watching some amazing Nordic races. Callaghan, where the races took place, is a beautiful venue just outside of Whistler and has quickly become one of North America's top x-country ski areas with over 90 kilometres of recreational and competitive cross-country ski trails, a biathlon range, a ski jumping venue, snowshoe trails and backcountry access. It's this sort of venue and the accompanying facilities, which are the enduring legacy of hosting an Olympic games. We're lucky o have it and I can't wait to spend more time up there next year when I move to the mainland.

I've been craving time in the mountains and a rip on the skinny skis for a while, so this past weekend I made my way across the Georgian Straight and bombed up Hwy 99 to Whistler. Although I was a bit unsteady, lacking finesse and sadly realizing that running fitness doesn't fully transfer over to gliding on snow, I was giddy to be back on winter trails. I love running, but the glide and burn of x-country skiing on freshly groomed corduroy tracks, surrounded by trees and peaks, is an almost hypnotic feeling to me and is something that I really miss. After suffering my way through a few hours on the trails, I ran into Munny Munro at the day lodge. Munny is a Whistler based, highly social, extrovert and endurance sports junkie, with a passion for mixing skis and guns. He offered to take me out for a burn on the skis, which equated to him kicking my ass for about 75 minutes. He then gave me a quick lesson in safety and biathlon shooting technique on the range. Apparently I don't have a latent talent for shooting little red disks at 50m range, dashing my last glimmer of hope for Sochi 2014 (I guess there's always curling). I needed the cheater block to steady my trembling hand and only managed to hit one target in about 11 shots from the standing position, but I had a blast, so thanks Munny!

If you are interested in giving biathlon a try, which I would highly recommend, then check out the Whistler biathlon experience, it's cheap and memorable, an ideal combo really. For the more competitive, check out the Salomon Biathlon grassroots race series . For only $20 you get to rip around the trails and fire some guns, while having fun racing your buddies in a spectacular, world class, setting. A great way to spend an afternoon!

Munny showing off the proper hip thrust and claw grasp of the gun


Me going rogue and dreaming of joining the mountain division of the Canadian military


I missed the target, but took a chunk out of the Olympic rings, sorry! I was distracted by the amazing backdrop


Squamish & Lil’wat territory


Same place, one year ago, you can feel the energy of the crowd and the intensity of the racing in these pictures



The legacy of a Games at work, what an opportunity for this young guy. He was clearly influenced by the Olympics and you can only imagine who he is racing in his mind. I watched him ski laps and practice on the range the whole time I was getting my lesson,very inspiring!