Fort Collins designers put Olympics on course.

• Author: Caley, Nora
• Position: Attitude Altitude

It's not easy designing a cross-country ski trail system for the Winter Olympics, one that will satisfy athletes, spectators, the media and the exacting standards of various skiing and biathlon governing bodies.

Phil Hendricks knew what the job involved, and he welcomed the assignment.

"We've been involved in every Olympic games since 1976," he says. And I'm an ex-cross-country skier."

Henricks is a senior associate at the Fort Collins office of EDAW, a San Francisco-based landscape design and urban planning firm that won the bid to design the Nordic competition trails of the 2002 Olympics near Salt Lake City.

"The Olympic bidding process is not complicated, but it is very competitive," says Jana McKenzie, a principal at the Fort Collins office and the project manager for this venue. "Most of the other firms were based in Utah."

It helped that EDAW's Atlanta office served as the lead design firm for the 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park for the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. (EDAW has offices in 26 cities, including Denver.)

With a design budget of $900,000, EDAW developed a 14-mile trail system in Soldier Hollow, part of the Wasatch Mountain State Park near Heber City, Utah. The goal: design a trail system into the existing hill with minimal environmental impact, following strict guidelines dictating the difficulty of turns, maximum and minimum grades for climbs, and the distance and sequence of every climb and descent.

The venue will host 25 Nordic events. International journalists and other spectators expect easy access and good views, so the design included new roads into the area and places for camera stands. Athletes expect...