Like most adventures of magnitude, the trip was incredible. When we finally slowed to the rural rhythm of Iceland's north coast, the clouds cleared out and afforded us three perfect days of flying in peaks that rose directly and dramatically from deeply carved fjords. And at 66 degrees of latitude the sun barely set leaving us only four hours of dusky alpenglow to get some sleep before waking up for breakfast at a traditional Icelandinc farmhouse with a guide's office downstairs and a heli out back.

Our first pick up was from the N1 gas station in the neighboring fishing village of Olafsfjorour, where crowds of curious kids waited patiently for the strange spectacle of an A-star landing below the town's ski jump. We lifted to the narrow ridges of the Troll Peninsula that dropped 3,000 feet to the ocean and skied softening corn under low-angle, twenty-hour sun that never seemed to set but just seemed to circle. As another group skied a circle of steep first descents we got a little gnar on an exposed traverse, exiting out a long, narrowing slope that ended in a sheep pasture. Then we walked it back to town past friendly farmhouses and wooden fish-drying racks.

The second day of flying started at 3PM as international flight diversions caused a mess at the little, local Akureyri airport and delayed the process of refueling the portable tank of Jet A. But with daylight until eleven and a private heli, we still logged a full day of steep bowl-like features across the fjord in a massive coastal zone dubbed the Hidden Land. Each aspect change presented a different condition—from buttery corn to frozen crust—but reloading on mossy fields as the sun set north to the Arctic provided an unforgettable backdrop. To top off another extended day, we landed back at the farmhouse at 10PM to a traditional meal of lamb stew and fresh baked bread by candlelight.

Day three's flying forecast called for overcast, but our luck held and we burned the remainder of our heli time finding new lines in the ancestral peaks of ACMG guide Jokull Bergmann's family land at the end of the Ski Valley. In Iceland, farm families own the peaks behind their pastures with claims often dating back to early settlement. But few climb to or ski from their summits—especially with a black helicopter that parks behind the barn. JB's heli-ski operation is the first in Iceland, a pioneering effort that may just allow his family to keep its tie to their Skioadalur land, so nailing four first descents on six backyard drops with him as our guide was definitely the vertical highlight of the trip.

And while the corn skiing was sweet and the vistas will not soon fade, it was the cultural experience that really defined the trip. The full story will have to wait until a later edition of The Ski Journal but the summary is that we tasted traditional Icelandic foods such as salted cod, cured horse and whale steak while listening to local stories of land and culture. On our down day we visited volcanic mud pots, soaked in thermal pools and toured the local Kaldi microbrewry where Ski Journal photo editor Grant Gunderson found heaven tasting sweet nectar straight from the fermenting tank. We even lucked into a Friday night in Reykivayk due to our forced layover, surviving the city's world-famous pub-crawl before boarding flights exhausted from the sleep deprivation of soaking it all in.

So excuse me if it seems like I'm somewhere else this morning—as I'm suffering recurring daydreams and inspiring delusions—but my head and heart are still stuck in Iceland, re-living what was one unforgettable place and one unbelievable trip.

By our third day in Iceland, the fog finally lifted to reveal what we'd hoped to see. With steep, snowy mountainsides, pastoral fishing villages and lines that skied directly to the sea, our long trip to the Troll Peninsula finally delivered on the promise of twenty daylight hours and a sky that remained dusky until dawn. We'd landed to rain and gloom in Reykjavik with Europe still reeling from the volcanic panic that shut down the continental airspace and stranded travelers around the globe...

But Icelanders are a flexible and practical lot, with a national character seemingly forged by self-reliance, coastal weather and natural wonder. As a result this country adapted quickly to eruption and disruption even as foreigners cancelled their trips and Fox News stirred up fear with geothermic sensationalism.

At our destination of Dalvik, where we were invited for a week of touring with Arctic Heli Skiing, the season's schedule was already mess. Owner and ACMG/IFMGA guide Jokull Bergmann, was adapting to cancelled bookings, forced layovers and unpredictable weather. But the forecast looked good so he suggested we arrive early and he would adapt.

One day's drive north and one diesel mix up later we were sitting at his family's traditional house in a sheep-farming valley above the Arctic Circle tracking the jet stream. We spent the next morning driving through one-lane tunnels, over dirt-road passes with emergency roadside shelters and past traditional red-and-white Icelandic farmhouses until arriving in the small fishing town of Siglufjorour on the north coast.

Here, in what was the Herring capital of the world until the stock was fished to death, we toured above town and waited for the weather to lift. The clouds cleared out the fjord toward the North Pole and we skied perfect ribbons of corn until nine at night then drove back past backlit peaks and green valleys to a midnight dinner at the farmhouse.

We learned that power was out to all of Iceland and the Dow had crashed a thousand points, but, like the locals, we have started simply adapting to life at the 66th parallel. It might be the daylight, the character or the isolation, but the rhythm of this northern island is drawing us in one line at a time. We already have our peak picked for tomorrow, but there will be no morning rush since the alpenglow won't be raging until at least eleven.

I'm not much for crowded runs and club lines, so I'd avoided Whistler's biggest spring party for the better part of a decade.  But this season with Ski Journal photo editor Grant Gunderson competing in the pro photographer showdown and an invitation from Whistler/Blackcomb for complete VIP immersion into the festival, the opportunity seemed too good to decline. So I headed north on the 99 to see if this legendary event was worthy of all the hype.

My virgin descent into the festival madness started Sunday with bright blue skies, perfect cycling corn and a double feature of festival culture. In some bar, in some corner of the village I took in Pecha Kucha, an event where Whistler residents spoke for 20 minutes—over 25 slides—about their non-snow passions. The rapid-fire rambles ran the gamut from Leslie Anthony's snakes to Lisa Richardson's slow foods cycle. But the sold out highlight of the night was the fashionable ski-town socializing in the Festival Centre art gallery and a packed house premiere of the mountain bike film Follow Me Around.

Two days of sweet corn later, the World Superpipe Invitational went off with pipe stars boosting nines, tens, twelves and fourteens in the 22-foot superpipe. For the record Walter Wood and Jen Hudak won, but by the time the results were tallied I was back milking lift-access corn on the Glacier Express Chair.

As après rolled onward yet again, I escaped to Whislter's new Scandinave spa for eucalyptus steams, a Finnish sauna, dips in the cold pool and some chill time in the solarium. Three hours later I queued up outside the festival centre beside Mike Douglas for the 72 hour pro photographer showdown. It's all a bit of a blur but the American team won with a creative film titled Panty Bloom. It gets even blurrier later but the evening closed out at the Longhorn with Five Alarm Funk and recovery poutine at 2AM.

I'm still digesting the visually stunning Mike Parillo/Travis Rice art show in Blake Jorgenson's gallery from last night, and still recovering from another late night. But for sure, the climax of the week is tonight's sold-out pro photo showdown and I've got my ticket. Thank god I had the rain day yesterday because the WSSF fatigue is hitting me hard this morning. And, unfortunately, its bright blue again outside.

Yet longtime Mt. Baker hardcore Rene Crawshaw earned a first-person Olympic perspective from start to finish. As a volunteer coursework team leader for all four cross events—as well as for the mogul and parallel GS competitions—Crawshaw put in 27 consecutive ten-to-12-hour days battling spring-like snowmelt, hand-shaping features and constructing what competitors viewed as a near miracle of a phenomenal racecourse.

"Everybody's dreamed about being in the Olympics and competing at a world level.  And none of the sports that I competed in were in the Olympics so it was a great opportunity to be part of something special," says Crawshaw. "And I think being an athlete you know how the course needs to be so you almost have a perfectionist view of the course. And you know the amount of hours you have to put in to make it perfect for them."

Crawshaw secured his position through a four interview process with the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC), a nine-day trial period at Cypress Mountain's 2009 FIS World Cup event, a clean RCMP background check and six days of training that covered subjects from event planning to team leadership. Due to his performance at the FIS event, his past as a professional freeskier and his experience as a course official at Mt. Baker's Legendary Banked Slalom, he was given responsibility for a rotating crew of fifteen volunteers as well for the sixth-through-seventh sections of the twelve-section Olympic cross track.

Starting up top from square one, his crew worked to execute the vision of White Industries course designer Jeff Ihaksi by helping turn straw bales, plywood forms and mounds of snow into an Olympic-caliber racecourse one feature at a time. When the gates opened his crew kept their section rut-free between training and competition as well as smoothing it out before it set up at night. For his extra effort on one stubborn hard-to-reach corner, the cast and crew christened a prominent bank "Rene's Corner," but he earned more than name recognition from three hundred hours of labor.

"It's hard to find a word to describe it. It's just an awe, being there and actually seeing a few of the events where Canada did win a gold medal and it felt like all of your hard work actually paid off," says the proud Canadian skier. "And then having [the athletes] thank you at the end for such a nice course, even if they didn't win, they just loved the course."

Crawshaw counts his favorite all-access Olympic memories as witnessing four Canadian gold-medal performances at his venue, being sprayed by Ashleigh McIvor's victory celebration in the wax room while toasting with Team Canada's coaches and taking his daughter Winter behind the ropes to see the torch relay in his hometown of Chilliwack, BC.

The coastal Cypress weather caused a few low points, but, he says, the crew understood failure wasn't an option. "We pulled something from nothing. Between the full-timers, the helicopters and all the contractors bringing snow up, this all went together," he marvels. "A lot of people thought Cypress Bowl wasn't going to be a success or even be able to pull off any of their events. And no events got cancelled or postponed so it was a huge success."

With his coursework done, Crawshaw is still under the spell of Olympic afterglow and he has set his sights on one more shot in 2014. As Sochi, Russia prepares to take center stage, he aspires to again be part of the course crew that will build the fast track to gold-medal glory. Only time will tell if he will once again be watching intently from his own Olympic corner.