Letting gravity carry you 100 kilometres an hour down a sheet of ice with your face just inches from the ground is not everybody’s idea of a good time. But for those looking for just such an experience, thank Vanoc, because it’s on the way.

“We’re saying winter 2011,” Patricia Lesley, a spokesperson for Whistler 2010 Sport Legacies, told the Georgia Straight. “That’s when a member of the public can either do a skeleton ride by themselves or go down in the bobsleigh with a pilot.”

Lesley was explaining her organization’s plans for the Whistler Sliding Centre, which is just one of several 2010 Winter Olympics facilities at Whistler Blackcomb that are opening for the public.

The skeleton experience begins at the track’s lowest starting point, Lesley continued, while the bobsled ride—which can get you moving as fast as 125 kilometres an hour—sets off from the track’s second-lowest start position. Both rides include in-depth instruction and guided walks around the facility.

The track will also soon be open to those interested in pursuing a career in bobsled, luge, or skeleton—activities that were previously all but unavailable to B.C. athletes.

Tim Farstad, executive director for the Canadian Luge Association, told the Straight that this winter, his organization will host a series of recruitment camps in Whistler. According to a CLA release, sessions are scheduled for December 18 and 19, January 8, February 20, and March 6. “Camp coaches will be looking for athletes age 8-14, with strong overall fitness, those who demonstrate a keen interest in sport and a willingness to learn,” the release states.

“We know there are a lot of great athletes out there,” Farstad said. “We want to get them excited to come out and try luge and make them Olympians one day.”

For those averse to death-defying speed, the Olympics have left one of the largest Nordic ski facilities in the world just south of Whistler, in the Callaghan Valley.

Lesley said that the development, still lacking in snow but set to open on Saturday (November 13), was built for the Olympics from the ground up. It boasts 90 kilometres of trails soon to open for classic cross-country skiing, skate skiing, and snowshoeing, she continued, plus two ski jumps, a day lodge, and a high-performance-training centre.

Complementing the Sliding Centre and Olympic Park is the Whistler Athletes Centre, which was built as a part of the Whistler athletes village. Lesley noted that the complex is run by Canadian Sports Centre Pacific and caters to competitors seeking high-performance training.

Up on the mountain, Whistler locals and tourists will notice less construction-intensive Olympic leftovers.

Laura Everest, a spokesperson for Whistler Blackcomb, told the Straight that Whistler Mountain’s Dave Murray’s Downhill and a few other runs served as the racecourses for the Olympic alpine events, and all that was needed to meet the IOC’s standards was some touching up.

“It was mostly just removing some of the brush and smoothing out the transitions,” Everest said. “But beyond that, it was good to go.”

Everest noted that Dave Murray’s Downhill has been used as a competitive racecourse since the 1980s. “So it’s pretty cool that it got to be used in the Olympics,” she added.

The Whistler Blackcomb Olympic upgrade that will likely be appreciated by more people than any other is perhaps the most subtle of the mountain town’s Olympic legacies.

“We doubled the size of our snow-making reservoir and got a bunch of new pipe work put in,” Everest said. “So now we have extra coverage in the early season and the ability to maintain our ski-outs a little longer in the late season.”

For the thousands of skiers and snowboarders for whom there is no better way to end a day on the hill than with a race from the peak to a pint, what Olympic legacy could be better?

You can follow Travis Lupick on Twitter at twitter.com/tlupick.