the first thing to come to terms with when you visit Wengen is how stunning the place is. The town sites on the side of a U-shaped valley at the base of the Eiger-Munch-Jungfrau massif. Below is the Lauterbrunnen Valley, with vertical cliff walls and a neat little town,  and above you are peaks that are about 11,000 feet tall.

Above you can see the Jungfrau. The Silberhorn in the center is catching the dawn light. Direct sunlight does not hit the course until after Noon, so many of my photos are pretty dark. In the lower center of the picture you can see the mid-section of the race course. When you are on the pitch, you feel tiny since the mountains are so huge above and around you.

From the top of the course you face the Eiger (left) and the Munch (right). The Jungfrau is off the frame to the right. The Eiger is the largest wall in Europe, and there is a train tunnel through it. The train goes up the slanting black line in the lower center of the picture, then turns and heads into the Eiger about 1/3 of the way up the wall. It tops out at an observatory on the saddle between the Munch and the Jungfrau, just at the right edge of the photo. 

Here is the Eiger. The patch of snow at the top center is the White Spider. Heinrich Harrer, famous for Seven Years In Tibet, was the first to climb this face, and his book on the climb is fascinating. The train windows are too small to be seen, and they are just above the horizontal banding at the bottom of the photo.

Before the race, the Swiss Air Force puts on one hell of a show. It lasts about 30 minutes, and they do some really crazy stuff.

This photo is from inside the Eiger train station. The train stops, you are told you have 5 minutes. Believe it, after all, the Swiss have this whole freakish thing with time. These are the windows that have been used to rescue trapped climbers on many occasions, and were in the Eiger Sanction with Clint Eastwood. In this shot, you can barely make out the race course  along the top left of the snowy section in the center. The clouds at the top of the frame are covering Interlaken.

Here's a shot out the window. Remember, this is a fraction of the way up the wall, and you look straight down about 1000'. When Eastwood did the stunt of cutting himself free from the top rope and onto the rescue rope, he was hanging outside this window, and did his own stunt. Balls of steel, no doubt.

From the top of the race course you can look down at Wengen on the right. 

Close up of the town. There are no gas-powered vehicles in Wengen, but every version of super golf cart you can imagine. The town is accessible only by train from Lauterbrunnen. The train station is in the lower center, and you access the ski hill by catching a train which climbs to Kleine Scheidigge, on the saddle below the Eiger. From there, you catch a chairlift to the start. The finish is well below the train tracks, so to get out of the finish (and to the slalom start) you take a chairlift. There is a train station there to get you back up the hill, but the wait is about 20 minutes. So, making 3 full laps on the course is about the most you can do in one day. 

Here is a shot looking up the Lauterbrunnen Valley. The race course is on the far left, and on the far right is the town of Murren. Parts of on Her Majesty's Secret Service were filmed there. Thsi view was part of my walk to the train every morning.

The weather was unseasonably warm, and the snow was nearly non-existent. When the sun came out, the temps shot up, cooking you in your ski clothes. The course was heavily coated in chemicals to keep it frozen, and even though it is pretty flat in most sections, stopping and edge control were pretty much unavailable. Here a forerunner sits in the windows of the starthouse.

 

Since the Norwegians have arrived, we can start the course tour. 

Looking down from the start to the Hundschopf. This was race day, and the crowd was waiting for the sun to reach the bottom of the jump so that the race could start. Not visible in this shot (or any of my others, really) are the start traverse and the Russisprung jump. The weather start is at teh left side of the carousel turn above the jump.

View from the same crowd. The Hundschopf is the small gap in the center of the photo. at about the end of the skier's right B-net is the Minschkante, a small roller, and then Canadian Corner.

The jump itself is a narrow shot through the rocks. It takes great precision at high speed, the gap on the right between the pop fence and the rocks on the right is slightly over 2 meters. Cameras always flatten out hill shots for some reason, but I assure you that it is quite steep, probably in the high 30-degree range. Using this worker's sneak was not easy given the tightness and conditions. My tips dragged against the right cliffside several times.

The Air Force doing their tricks above the jump. 

Below the jump is a large roundhouse turn.  

 

Wasserstation- this very flat road section was like glass. Imagine being in the middle of a hockey rink and trying to stop. It's too flat to get any edge angle, so you sort of drift by.  

This is the famous tunnel under the train tracks. 

In general, the terrain is low angle and rolling, but is very fast. 

Hannegschuss: this section is the fastest on the World Cup. 

Below the Silberhorn jump is the Osterrichloch (Austrian Hole). The course bends left and heads into the Zeil-S and the finish jump. 

The Zeil-S is a roundhouse left footer to align to the finish bump. 

Looking down the Zeilschuss. It is about the same size and steepness as Golden Eagle. Most racers try to stay on the left panel, and they can end up about a meter off the right hand pad. If they make a big move, they can land in the center, but it's tough. The turn above pulls them away from the left panel. 

Looking up the finish. The panel is right on the crest. 

Steven Nyman flying through the finish jump. 

Nyman was happy to have avoided the A-net. 

Hermann? Well, he's always happy. 

The Mexican ski team. This guy deserves huge props for not only racing at age 48, but also for having the coolest suit on the tour. No one else could pull off six guns and fringe. 

After the race we got to hear Ivica Kostelic's chops. Once he got warmed up he let out his inner Elvis.