Olympic officials will cut two days of halfpipe training sessions and eliminate free ski time for athletes on Cypress Mountain in a bid to save snow for the 2010 Winter Games.
Even as a helicopter dumps a load of snow every three minutes atop the freestyle skiing and snowboard venue, Vancouver organizers say they need to keep athletes off the hill.
While the courses are coming together, organizers said Saturday they're now moving snow for the finish areas and to cover off elements like the routes workers need to get on and off the mountain.
"We don't know what weather will bring and we want to make sure that we always have enough snow at that venue to be able to deal with anything on site," said Tim Gayda, vice-president of sport for the organizing committee.
"It's been a huge effort."
Cutting back training on the halfpipe from five days to three still gives snowboarders more time on the venue than they would have at a World Cup, said Sarah Lewis, secretary-general of the international ski federation.
It won't affect competition, she said.
"The situation, the change, it's the same for everybody," she said at a news conference Saturday. "We've seen that rather a lot of the athletes are choosing to come in a little bit later, to train outside the hecticness of the Olympic atmosphere."
Training on the moguls course hasn't been changed.
Freestyle skiers and snowboarders are also being offered trips up to the host mountain resort of Whistler, B.C. just to keep in shape.
About 15 athletes and officials had taken organizers up on that offer as of Saturday.
Cypress, which is just north of Vancouver, has suffered from the warmest January on record forcing organizers into an extensive contingency plan that's involved bringing into snow from across the province.
The organizing committee won't say how much the extraordinary efforts are costing, but that with no major problems at any other venues, they don't expect the situation at Cypress to throw their budget into the red.
Their new hunting ground for snow is about two hours east of Vancouver off the Coquihalla highway, where trucks are now bringing 3,000 cubic metres of snow -- or the equivalent of three million litres -- from Yak Peak.
The committee said while the courses themselves are coming together, they continue to bring in snow to help finish other areas on the field of play like the path athletes will take to get on and off the mountain.
"We're 100 per cent confident that the events will take place as we scheduled them," said Gayda. "We have enough snow up there to get the job done."
This is not the first time a Winter Olympics has faced a lack of snow.
In 1998, Nagano had major concerns about a lack of snow in the months before the Games. Heavy snow forced organizers to cancel events and left spectators stranded.
According to the International Olympic Committee, the 1964 Innsbruck Games also had snow issues.
The Austrian army rushed to the rescue, carving out 20,000 blocks of ice from the mountainside, which they transported to the luge and bobsled tracks.
They also carried nearly 40,000 cubic metres of snow to the alpine ski slopes.
