I've been stuck in an elevator (Boise Airport), stranded all night on a second story outdoor deck (at my home), but I have never gotten lost on a ski hill chasing a story! Guess what? That's exactly what happened to my photographer Gary Salzman and I yesterday.
We got lost at Whistler!
The combination Whistler/Blackcomb is a gigantic ski resort. So big that when we asked the worker at the rental shop which lift to take to the top of the Olympic Men's downhill course, we were pointed in the direction of a gondola. With only 15 minutes left before the lifts closed, we rushed out not knowing we had hopped on the wrong lift.
So, after discovering our mistake halfway up the moutain, we decided we still had a story to cover.
Off the gondola we go, camera, backpack and all the other stuff it takes to be a skiing camera crew. We proceed down the hill, skiing ,shooting, stopping to interview a few people and skiing more.
You're not going to believe what happened next. We thought we were about to ski right to the rental shop, no luck! We were nowhere near the bottom of the ski hill, we were nowhere near anything, except what was right in front of us: a dry, bare to the bones road!
So, what's a TV News team to do? We had to take off our skis, sling them over our shoulders, fill our arms with the rest of the gear and start walking!
We did just that in our ski boots, down the road looking for landmarks. We didn't find any, but we did finally come upon a man who happened to just be our lucky charm (finally). He gave us one option, which didn't sound like fun after a 12-hour working day. He said we could get back to our final destination if we side-stepped back up the hill and tried to find a path that would traverse the mountain and bring us back down to the rental shop.
Gary and I looked at each other thinking 'okay what else can we do', when this man gave us our second lucky break since meeting him. He pointed to a road marker just yards from us and with much relief he told us a shuttle bus would be coming every 7 minutes! We jumped at that idea and jumped right onto that beautiful bus when it arrived.
We're home now, at least where we are staying until the Olympics wrap up. We're sore too, walking in ski boots is so much tougher than skiing in them. But, the promising part of this whole get lost on the mountain story is that we didn't lose the story. We got it.
You'll get to see it soon as we report live (not lost) from the Olympics in Vancouver.
