An Ode to Olympic Valley

Entering Olympic Valley, CA is experiencing a living museum, filled with history, memories, and natural wonders. Even the sky occasionally takes part, merging with the Valley from above, or drifting over the mountains and through the trees on a blanket of white magic.

The entrance to the Valley reminds us of the 1960 Winter Olympics, also known as Squaw Valley 1960. This was the first Olympic Games to take place in the Space Race era, and Prentis C. Hale, President of the Squaw Valley 1960 Olympic Winter Games, remarked about it in his speech:

“You can return home as the world’s best-equipped ambassadors of unity and peace. Before we pay so much attention to conquering outer space, we should devote ourselves to conquering inner space: the distance between nations.”

Great history, symbolism and themes, as you enter Olympic Valley. And that's just the beginning!

The mountains are visually stimulating, one look and you're pulled in, enchanted.

If you are not a visual storyteller yet, you'll become one in Olympic Valley through osmosis. Imagine, for example, visiting this Valley and trying not to remember it, trying not to talk about it with someone else. The beauty stays with you and you feel obliged to share it with others through photos, art, music, or words.

As you ascend the mountains you discover "the air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious," as Mark Twain wrote about in his book, Roughing it. "And why shouldn't it be? -- it is the same the angels breathe.”

And the angels know a good thing when they see it too.

Olympic Valley is a place of beauty and serenity. It's Mother Nature at her best - pure and majestic. You can't help but feel you're in the presence of something great, something divine.

Even the creek and trees vibrate with splendor.

Olympic Valley is a gift to the spirit and this gift should be shared with others. As you exit the Valley you can return home not only equipped as ambassadors of unity and peace, as Prentis C. Hale suggested over 60 years ago, but as ambassadors of the environment as well.