With another 20cm (eight inches) of snow falling on Whistler in the past few days, the resort’s snowfall tally since it opened for the season last autumn has passed 1,430 centimetres or 47 feet, surpassing the 2006/07 record of 1,416 centimetres or 46 feet, making this season officially the second snowiest on record at the famous Canadian resort.

Winter plans to capitalise on worldwide publicity from the Olympic Games, which they estimate were viewed by more than half the world’s population, by opening up several of their Olympic competition venues to the paying public next winter. The Whistler Sliding Centre which hosted bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events will open a public ride program next season for visitors who want to try bobsleigh and skeleton on the Olympic track.

With two weeks to go to the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics and the backdrop of a record snowfall as well as the blessing of international ski officials, the finishing touches are being applied over the next 16 days to the Olympic alpine ski racing courses at Whistler Blackcomb.

Whistler Blackcomb, the Canadian ski resort that will host some of the Winter Olympic Games next month, could be sold off in a struggle between Wall Street bankers and a private equity firm over the renegotiation of hundreds of millions of dollars in loans. Lenders to Fortress Investment Group, a leveraged buyout group, have posted notices of foreclosure in several North American newspapers, announcing a public auction of the assets of Intrawest, the Whistler Blackcomb resort operator.

Whistler blackcomb smashes record for snowiest month EVER with over 5.5 metres (18 feet) of snowfall. November 2009 takes the podium as Whistler Blackcomb’s snowiest month in recorded history.

With 7 days still remaining this month, Whistler has already surpassed the record for November snowfall, as more than 430cm (172 inches) of white gold slammed the mountains by Thursday afternoon. The previous record, set in 2006, was 416cm (164 inches). So why not see the Host City and Host Mountain Resort before the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games?

Both Vancouver and Whistler are offering accommodation packages to entice visitors to experience both host destinations now — prior to the start of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, which begin on February 12, 2010.