Word: snow
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Snow Making. All through November, no snow stayed on the ground. All through December, the same. The first week in January, still no snow. The local Roman Catholic bishop sent out a pastoral letter urging parishioners to pray for the stuff. Not a flake that fell survived the warm winter until Jan. 8-9, when a paltry 4 in. fluttered down. But Karl Fahrner, 50, was not worried. Says the man in charge of preparing the alpine courses: "We knew in November that we could make all the snow we needed, make better snow and better courses...
...hoses that wound 25 miles up Whiteface Mountain. They sprayed water under pressure to create a fine mist that froze instantly and settled on the slopes. In all, 10% miles of slopes have been covered to a depth of as much as 15 ft. For skiing, the man-made snow is not only as good as the natural thing; it is better. The crystal structure of man-made snow is denser; it forms smaller flakes that can be packed more solidly and will stand up better to skiing stress. What is more, the precise mixture can be controlled, enabling Fahrner...
Lean and vigorous, Fahrner has taken a mountainside and turned it into a ski racer's snow sculpture. With swarming Caterpillars and snow packers, he has added bumps and rolling terrain to the course, piling up snow here, scraping some away there, molding an ideal racing network. "The skiers will see some things that are quite different than when we had the World Cup races here last year," he says. "The courses are much tougher, much more technical and difficult...
...someone up on Niagara [a stretch of the men's downhill run] to tighten a section of the safety net?" He paused to survey his mountain: "The worst thing that could happen now is for it to snow...
Stenmark's preparations for the Olympics were derailed last September when he took a hair-raising spill at Val di Senales, Italy, while practicing the downhill, of all things. He suffered a brain concussion and was unable to resume snow training for several weeks. "I've never before started so late in the year," says he, "but I'm not worried." But after his disappointing performance at Innsbruck in 1976-he managed only a bronze in the giant slalom-Stenmark is wary of making medal predictions. "The margins of victory are so small and accidental occurrences...