Jamie Chong

During my 20 minute journey to work this morning I noticed Olympic Volunteers in blue jackets loitering around key public transit areas. I suppose the tourists are starting to arrive in our city eager to take in the many attractions. I just hope they leave with a positive impression – I want them telling their friends and family back home how awesome Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler are!

Speaking of the Olympics, I figure I should put a plug in for a small website I built back in November. It’s a map of Olympic venues – venues2010.com. Do me a favour, click some of the ads! I didn’t put a lot of effort into the site, but it helps earn a little bit of spending money.

There’s just over a week until opening ceremonies here in Vancouver, but even though I really want to join the party, I’m getting the hell out! After some arm-twisting, I’ve decided to join a huge crew of friends for a trip to Bishop – a mecca for huge granite boulders. Sean McColl and myself are driving down together and I think pro-climber Will Stanhope is joining us on the way home. There are a number of other Canadians meeting us in Bishop including the cute couple Vikki Weldon and Ryan Olson. So many good friends and talented climbers. I’m actually more excited to just be roadtripping with these peeps than sending projects. I’m also looking forward to snapping lots of pics. It should be easy to get some mag-worthy photos!

Spring and Summer are just around the corner. I’m excited for a few Leavenworth adventures and definitely multiple trips to Squamish. In September I’ll be going to Edinburgh, Scotland – the host of the 2010 Youth World Championships. I was recently selected to be a coach for the Canadian youth climbing team. It’ll be the 4th World Championships I’ve coached so I hope my past experience will help our young athletes do well. There are lots of changes to the team structure this year. In 3 words: no parents allowed. I’m looking forward to the challenge of supervising 24 kids!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 11:37 am and is filed under Bishop, Climbing, Roadtrips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.