Family Ski Trip Planning: Childcare Solutions & 2026 Winter Olympics Preview with Writer Annie Fast

In this episode Annie Fast, Oregon-based freelance writer and former professional snowboarder, joins the Ski Moms to discuss two critical barriers facing ski families: accessible childcare at resorts and mothers competing at elite levels. Annie's investigative work for Ski Area Management revealed a troubling trend of resort daycare closures post-COVID, including Vail's Small World, Jackson Hole, and Bridger Bowl facilities, while highlighting success stories at Mount Bachelor, Mount Hood Meadows, Brundage, and Tamarack with year-round programs. She explains why finding childcare information on resort websites is nearly impossible and how this impacts both visiting families and employee retention. Annie also previews her coverage of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, spotlighting Olympic moms competing with young children and the challenges of decentralized venues. The conversation covers practical advocacy tips for ski families, the reality of split-day skiing for toddlers, and why true "family-friendly" resorts must offer guest childcare. 

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Transcript

Nicole: Welcome back to the Ski Moms Podcast. It's season five and we're hitting the slopes. We're sharing real, unfiltered stories of motherhood on the snow. From conquering the bunny hill with toddlers to squeezing in your own powder days, this season celebrates every type of ski mom.

Thanks for joining us. We've got a great season lined up and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. The ski moms are so excited to talk to Annie Fast today.

She is a writer based out of Oregon. She covers snowboarding and free skiing. An article that she wrote for Ski Area Management caught my attention.

And as a freelancer, she is always covering what is new and trending in the industry and really thinks of important things that maybe are beyond the top of the surface.

You can find out more about her writing@anifast.contently.com we are so excited to have her. Today. We're going to be talking about childcare, we're going to be talking about the Olympics,

and we're going to be talking about things that can help move the needle to get more families out on snow. So welcome. Annie.

Annie: Hi, thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Nicole: So we'd love an origin story. That's usually where we start. It sounds like, did you go right to snowboarding as a kid or what was your journey?

Annie: No, my, I grew up in an Air Force family. We kind of lived all over. My parents, my mom actually was the first skier in our family. She's from Helena, Montana.

Grew up skiing there,

taught my dad how to ski.

And then we just grew up skiing with my family. A lot of skiing in Europe when we were stationed in Germany.

Then we moved back to Northern Virginia and that's when I started snowboarding. And I actually don't know what year it was, but it was pretty early. It was in the late 80s.

I was probably,

I don't know, 14 or something. It was pretty early days of snowboarding. The first time I saw a snowboard,

we were on a family trip to Jackson Hole, where my part of my family lives, and I saw a snowboard go under the chairlift and I was like, oh, yeah, I took a,

took a lesson at Grand Targhee and never skied again.

Sarah: I, I do remember, like the first times seeing snowboarding and it was like so wild to see compared to what it, you know, what it looked like to ski. But tell us also a little bit about,

you know, what, what skiing looks like for you right now. Are you always, like traveling all over or do you have a home mountain where you are?

Annie: Yeah, I live in Bend, Oregon, which is right next to Mount Bachelor, and it's a big snowboard resort. My former resort was Big Sky, Montana and Bridger Bowl. That's where I went to college.

And then I lived in California working at Transworld Snowboarding Magazine for about 10 or 12 years.

So I was traveling a lot when I was at the magazine. And now I don't love traveling that much. So I try to stay home. I try to write a mile Bachelor and just kind of hit the powder days and do a little bit of travel.

Depends on what,

what assignments I have. But it's not my favorite thing anymore. But I still enjoy it when it, when it pops up.

Nicole: Yeah, it has to be a pretty good offer. I feel the same way when, when people are pitching me and I. I can only get Sarah on maybe one trip a year.

So it's gotta be really good to get her out of,

out of her comfort zone of the places she already knows and loves.

Tell us about your career path.

We would love to know, did you go right into writing? Did you do some other things before the. You ended up as a journalist?

Annie: Yeah, I mean, so I was in. I was in Bozeman, Montana. I was. I graduated from college.

I was pursuing a professional snowboarding career. It was going pretty well. I was working at the camps at Mount Hood. But I think once I graduated from college,

I realized that snowboarding wasn't enough. Like, I needed something else to, you know, keep my, keep my brain going. And I actually picked up work pretty quick from Nest and Award magazines back then.

I got a regular column and I got a paycheck, you know, you know, 300 words, and it was, you know, $150,

which was,

you know, a couple waitressing shifts in, in Montana back then. So once I figured out I could make, you know, that. That pretty much covered rent back in Bozeman at that time.

So it took off pretty quick, I think. I did freelance for about two years, and then I got hired at transworld and moved down to California and worked in house at the magazine that whole time.

Sarah: And let's pick a few of your, like, most recent, some of your favorite articles anymore.

Annie: I'm writing a lot about Olympics leading into the Winter Olympics here. But one of my last articles that caught your attention was the Scary Management one about childcare. And I guess I could tell you how that started off.

Obviously, like, we moved to Oregon when my son was born a few months after we moved here.

And I had just started full time freelancing. Yeah, my husband travels. He's a cinematographer with Burton and Red Bull, so he's on the road. So when we need childcare, it's kind of up to me to figure out how to cover it.

And so I was starting to do a little bit of work with the resort, covering some events, and,

and I was finding that I could use their childcare up at Mount Bachelor, leave my son there, go judge a snowboard event or cover, you know, one of their snowboard events.

And that was the first time I used it. And then Burton hired me to go out to the Burton US Open at Vail,

and my husband was also working at that. And I was like, well, what am I gonna do? And figured out that they had the Small World Daycare up at Vail, which was right at Golden Peak, which was right, here's the skier, the lift, here's the competition venue, and then right adjacent to the lift is the childcare.

So it was just this, like, amazing experience for me. We did it for about three years and we would have breakfast together and then we would drop them off or go check out the resort or the venue, you know, do a little competition check and then bring him back over.

And I'd ride the chairlift over it and see him back playing in the snow. And it was just so amazing and so comfortable for me to work and know that he was taken care of.

That it just stuck with me.

Nicole: So you're, you're watching,

you're covering events and you're seeing how important it is to be working with the comfort and knowledge that your child is being well taken care of. It probably helped you be more productive and perhaps more creative as you've started to dig into what is the industry norm.

Is that normal that if you're working on the mountain, you can expect to have quality daycare right in the base area?

Annie: I would say it's not normal. And I would say the challenge is that it's really difficult to figure out whether it's an option. All it's not as straightforward. You know, you go to a ski resort website and there's.

It's very clear how to sign up for lessons or buy a lift ticket, but the childcare options are buried. And I could, I couldn't figure it out. And yeah, so no, it's not, it's not straightforward and it's not regularly offered at all.

Sarah: And so tell us. So, so did your article tell us more about, like, what your article covered and how you went about doing all that research because to your point, not easy to just, you know, Google and.

And this stuff surfaces.

Annie: Yeah. So I started.

It was A couple resorts caught my eye. And it was like, to be fair, it was post Covid,

a lot of things happened, and childcare and, you know, even children's ski lessons or some of the last things to come online after Covid. So there was a lot of variables there.

But I saw that small world shut down. I was paying attention to Jackson Hole. They closed their daycare.

Bridger Bull, one of my home resorts, a nonprofit ski area, shut down their. Their daycare, which was a really odd one to me because that's a community ski area.

And.

And I was just like, what is happening? And I started to look into it a little more. I created a spreadsheet, tried to figure out if there was a trend.

And honestly,

I couldn't find a trend. But the.

The process of looking into it was really interesting because it just revealed how,

you know, scattershot it is. You know, there. There's no trend. There's no guarantee that there's. There's childcare. It's really difficult to figure out whether there is. And so that's. I pitched Dave Meeker at Sam on it, and he responded immediately, saying how him and his wife had used the mountain snow daycare while they were working there and how,

like,

massive that was. And they had just covered daycare at ski areas as an employee benefit, but they hadn't really looked into it from a consumer point of view. So that was the angle of my article.

Nicole: And I think that's an important thing to mention, that daycare not only benefits someone like you who's coming in to ski,

it's really an important factor into retaining talent on the mountain.

If we don't have quality childcare as families, they start moving up. You know, maybe they're seasonal their. Their 20s and TE.

And then they decide this. This wants. They want to make this a career,

and they perhaps start a family. And then we. We lose them or we lose one of them,

perhaps in the family. If it's, you know, two people who met at the mountain and how are we expecting them to find quality childcare? Of course, housing is another issue that we've been talking about, but the.

The childcare is. Is huge. And just I know when, like, Steamboat put money into that new childcare, how appreciative the employees were.

Sarah: And I'm.

Nicole: I don't know if they've done the study yet, but employee retention has to be a huge benefit of Investing in these childcare centers. Have you found any of that to be the case?

Annie: Yeah, you know, I didn't look specifically into that, but I did see a massive trend of resorts totally focusing on moving in. In some, in some instances, including I believe at Steamboat,

the childcare for the general public or for the visitors was turned into just childcare for employees. And that happened at a lot of different ski areas.

I think that might be the case at Jackson Hole. It was really, I couldn't get a straight answer there, but so a big movement to prioritize employee childcare over guest childcare in some instances.

And then right here in Oregon, I didn't see that. You know, there's been,

there's kind of childcare for everyone in Oregon and Idaho,

two areas that I just saw this like major increase in childcare. A couple of the Oregon skiers here, Mount Bachelor and Mount Hood Meadows have year round childcare. So they've turned their childcare centers at Mount Hood Meadows into almost like a community daycare preschool type situation with year round offerings.

And same at Mount Bachelor and then Idaho just.

I am so interested in what's going on at Idaho. At Brundage and Tamarack they just have these amazing new on snow daycare centers. And I had a chance to go to Brundage and see their daycare center and it's just so cute.

And it's the same setup that they had at the Small world daycare at Vail where it was just,

you know, you go into the lodge, you warm up, you walk right past the daycare center. It's about 30ft from the lift that you load and it's just what,

what awesome amenity for guests and for, you know, locals to be able to put their babies and young kids in a daycare and, and take em out for a run and put em back or you know, whatever you need.

Nicole: But I agree with you, every website is a journey when you're trying to find this information.

And as a parent,

you know, we're trying to get the lessons lined up and we've gotta get the lift tickets and we've gotta get the lodging and you know, it's just one more thing that's like, I don't know if this is worth it.

Maybe there's another vacation that's just easier.

Annie: Yeah. And you know, another. It's interesting because I was, I was trying to remember as we were setting up for this podcast, I think it was Ski magazine that you know, you get the best family resorts and their best family resort was a Couple resorts, there was eight of them and I would say like half of them didn't have any childcare.

And I think back to when I, you know, did the resort guide for transworld and of course I was in my twenties and I wasn't thinking about childcare and we would do the same thing.

And I think that's something I would love to see, is that, you know, if you're going to call something a family friendly ski area,

it has to have childcare for guests. You know, that's,

I just can't imagine how that works. Well, I do know how it works out because some ski areas who aren't able to provide childcare, like Timberline Lodge,

they have a family pass. You know, they're, they acknowledge that they can't, they don't have the facilities, they're at the top of the mountain.

So they've introduced this family pass where a parent can share the pass.

So acknowledging that the solution is that someone's gonna have to sit in the lodge with a baby or the, the toddler. And so that, that's a solution that they've come up with.

But I just think that I would, I would challenge editors at different Scheme magazines and snowboard magazines to take into account childcare when they're putting together these family friendly resort listings.

Because that's just the reality of, of it.

Sarah: When you're, when you've spoken to some of these resorts and gone in and either found they, hey, they have, or, or do not have childcare,

did you find that there were themes around that? Whether they are saying it's just too expensive or it's an insurance thing. Like were there, were there certain themes that were blocking them from having this offering of childcare on the mountain?

Annie: Yeah, I think there were general themes that were pretty consistent about the ratio of caregiver to child is really high for infants. And so employer retention was an issue or having enough employees to.

It's, it's especially, you know, there's like childcare for that four plus, but it's the one through three that there's just not enough childcare for. And that's the one where you have the higher ratio of caretaker to especially infants.

I think it's a two to one ratio which varies state by state.

I think insurance is an issue.

I think what were some of the other issues?

I think in Bridger Bull's case they just didn't have enough space and they just decided to allocate that space to something more pressing.

And also they said that the usage wasn't where they needed it to be to, you know, I think they were getting five or six kids a day, which they couldn't like, justify.

Yeah, it was, it was just an array of issues and yeah, nothing, nothing that you could really totally pin down. But yeah, employees was a big one.

Nicole: When you think about, you know, the journey of a single mom or a single dad trying to get a kid of the multiple ages out to the mountain, you know, they need to be aware of that also that it's just not always capable, we're not always capable of doing that swap.

And I was thinking about Middlebury Snow bowl has a beautiful toddler room,

kind of like a co op room where people bring books and toys. But you need two parents to do that. You need or a grandparent to be able to sit in that room with the younger one.

And I think the more that we talk about, you know, that families come in all shapes and sizes.

You know, the family of five with two parents who are available for skiing is really probably the exception, not the rule, when you're talking about families in North America.

Annie: So you've got the infants who literally cannot go skiing or snowboarding. Then you have the toddlers who.

And even up to, you know, a certain age, especially here in the Northwest, where the conditions are just,

can be really challenging.

You know, two or three,

two hours of skiing or snowboarding is a lot for a little kid. And then having the ability to do those split lessons where they go out for two or three hours and then go back inside and play in the nursery or the daycare center,

I think that's really realistic too. You know, like, I love those programs where they're, they're starting to ski, but it's like these kids are not going to go out on the mountain for the whole day.

And so I've loved seeing those options too. And you can't do that without a daycare center.

Even my son, who's 9 now, still can't pull a full day at Mount Bachelor in Mount Bachelor, conditions that we have sometimes in the winter.

Nicole: And what are some things that we can do as parents to advocate as ski moms to make our voices heard? Do you think the industry cares? Are there ways that we can vote or let them know that this is something that is important to us?

Annie: You know, I, I think just, you know, resort by resort, just let your,

let the people at the resort know you're, you know, if you're a season pass holder and you don't know if you can justify buying a season pass Next year, knowing that you're going to have, you know, a young child at home, just let them know what your needs are and advocate for your,

for your family.

Also, if you're looking at going to a destination resort,

email them. You know, if you're, if you're not finding the information you need,

email them, Let them know you can't find it on the website, you're confused. You know, you're definitely not alone in your confusion.

And let them know that if you do decide not to go to the resort because there is no childcare, like, let them know that that's, that was a deciding factor.

I think that's important because otherwise they just won't know that that's something that's missing.

Or if you do have a terrible experience at a resort because you weren't able to get on the snow because the amenity wasn't there, then let them know. Yeah, I think it's a resort by resort, really.

Nicole: One of the other things that you have been writing about that we are very excited to talk to you about is Olympic fever. Sarah and I have it. We are always watching the World cup races and we love the World cup season.

But Olympics is a whole nother level. We only get this every four years.

What have you been working on around the Olympics?

Annie: Well, this is my second Olympics. Well, my second Olympics working for the Olympic broadcast services. So actually working for the Olympics I've covered. This will be my fifth Winter Olympics. It started in Italy.

We're going back to Italy.

So I, you know, I cover all the sports, I cover all the qualifying. And this is really fun because,

you know, now I'm bringing some of this knowledge about motherhood, which was actually a really big topic at Paris this summer with Allison Felix bringing, who's a track star who's also a mother and has a really interesting movie that just came out documenting her struggles as a new mother and some of the challenges she had with her sponsors and some of the advocacy work she did that led to some great maternal benefits for athletes,

which maybe Kimmy Fasani spoke about because she's been continuing that work in snowboarding.

But so the Paris Olympics had the first nursery for athletes and at those Games and I'm just kind of continuing that conversation in the Winter Olympics, just highlighting some of the moms who are competing.

And these are, you know, athletes that I've known since,

since we were teenagers. Like Jamie Anderson, who's competing for, she's just had a baby. She has maybe a 2 year old. I'm not really sure.

So we have. I was just putting together a list yesterday that I think I sent to you that is just a laundry list of athletes who are moms who are at the top of their, you know, performance career competing to go to the Winter Games and bring their little babies with them.

And it's just so cool.

And so that's what I'm covering right now. But in addition to that I'm covering, you know,

the top tier half pipe competitions and I'll be in Lavino to cover standing at the bottom of the slop style and halfpipe course covering free skiing and snowboarding. So really looking forward to that.

Sarah: How will they be handling the childcare for the Italy, the Winter Olympics since it's, it's spread out between so many different venues.

Annie: Yeah, that's what I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm asking about that because it really isn't as centralized as Paris was with you know, all the venues right there in the heart of Paris.

So La Vigno is about four hours from Milan. I think if I wanted to go from Lavino over to the men's race course, it's a nine hour drive.

So it is not, it's very decentralized. So I actually haven't had a chance to look into whether there is childcare. I know that most of these women are traveling with their partners,

they're finding their own solutions which is what we have to do a lot of times.

So I will, I'm just starting to research that article but I will share the link when I have it completed and we find out what their, what their problem solving solutions are because really it's a lot.

Nicole: And what do you do for your own childcare? Now you have a son who, he's at school age. How do you cover that?

Annie: Yeah, so my husband does travel a lot in the winter.

I am usually the, the default parent so when I do I'm a little bit more. And you know, he's chasing snow with, with pro snowboarders, trying to run up to Whistler when it snows.

So he is just on a different schedule and so I know my schedule. I will fly my mom out from Montana sometimes to help out. Our father in law lives here in Bend, so he helps out too a lot.

He's a great grandpa.

So we rely on family mostly. Almost entirely, probably.

Yeah.

But just a lot of planning ahead.

Nicole: This is very reminiscent of Kimmy's story as her husband was taking all, you know, he was taking the lead on most of his travel and as we were watching her documentary, Butterfly in a Blizzard, and, you know, we saw her hopes and dreams kind of having to take a bit of a backseat.

It was pretty heartbreaking for Sarah and I to watch because she's this incredibly talented and trained athlete,

and she figured it out. But it definitely. You can't have two careers where they're chasing snow.

It's seemingly impossible unless you have, you know, a stable of grandparents who are willing to fly.

Annie: Yeah, it's the grandparents that we're relying on for sure. I'm trying to think if I've brought him to resorts since.

Since the US Open stopped,

but. No, I. I don't think so. Cause I. It always seemed like, you know, in theory, it seems like it would be so fun. I'm working with Shaun White on his new snow league, and we had that in Aspen, and I was like,

I'll bring him. It'll be awesome. You know, he knows a lot of these athletes now, but the reality is it's long days, and it's like just another major unknown. So I haven't been bringing him.

We did just bring him out to New York for my husband's premiere, and it was really fun, but it was.

It was a lot to have a kid along with, like, adult dinners and all that stuff. So,

yeah, I would not recommend. But I'm glad we brought him. Cause it was fun to bring him to New York and see. See what his dad has been working on the last couple years with the Olympic coverage.

Nicole: Are you using your own social media to cover it, or are you just using the Olympic broadcast services? What are your expectations from day to day? Are you supposed to be live,

generating content, or are you submitting stories that then go live whenever they're ready to put them live?

Annie: I pitch every week, so I'll pitch articles every week. And then I also, you know, as there's news happening, I will write a quick article and post it.

So it's a combination. It all lives on olympics.com.

it's a lot of variety. It's been really fun, and it's been a great learning experience as far as a bunch of covering a bunch of different sports and learning a lot about other athletes.

And also seeing, you know, I was in such a silo with snowboarding and free skiing. And it's so cool to see how some of these stories carry over. And it's all the same themes.

It's just. It's just been really fun to see outside of snowboarding and free skiing. Well, and skateboarding and surfing. So you know, all of our little action sports are now becoming sort of some of the headliners at the Olympics.

So, you know, summer and winter, so that's been fun to grow with our sports, I guess, is kind of what I've been doing.

Sarah: So what's coming up for you for the Winter Olympic qualifiers that you'll be going to like, where are they and what, what disciplines?

Annie: I'm going to cover a few of them. Remote. There's big airs in China that kick off the World cup season there. The US has three Grand Prix, which are World Cups.

There's Copper,

it starts at Steamboat with a big air, and then it goes to Copper, and then it finishes in Aspen.

Yeah, a lot of my coverage will be remote, but it's all, you know, on NBC. And I can communicate with the PR staff at the resort if I need to get quotes.

But a lot of what I do is remote, which I like, because the last Winter Olympics I worked with the US Ski and snowboard team, so I was running the show at all the Grand Prix.

And it's a lot. It's a lot of travel. So I have so much respect for those athletes. And I wish Jamie Anderson the best, traveling to all these different Grand Prix with her kids, because it's going to be a lot.

Nicole: And so give me the timeline of when the team is locked. I don't know when these events are. I know the Olympics start around 8 February.

Is it unknown until sometime in January, who's on the team and who's not?

Annie: I mean, it is about,

let's see, I don't have the exact date in my head, but it's January,

probably about two weeks before the Olympics that it's actually named. Yeah, it's. And so you're supposed to get your family over there. And, you know,

some athletes have already met their quotas, like Red Gerard and Chloe Kim in snowboarding and I think Alex hall in skiing and probably a few other skiers. But.

So, yeah, they kind of had a. Have an idea,

are pretty confident. But the team is not officially announced until about two weeks before the Winter Olympics. So it does not leave a lot of.

A lot of room for planning.

Sarah: We had Alice Merriweather on and she was telling us how she found out she was made the Olympic team, like via a text when she was on a flight going somewhere else only a few weeks before.

And our jaws dropped because we just imagined this being something years in the making.

Not necessarily. I guess everyone's getting ready and hoping their number gets drawn, but we Were,

like, just very surprised that it's.

It's done on that timeline.

Annie: Yeah, I was, too. And I always thought that, you know, I've covered Olympics, snowboarding, and free skiing forever, and I always thought it was something specific to our sport. And I was like, why do they do this to us?

And then I was like, oh, they do this to everybody. You know, that's one of those universals that I've. I've realized isn't just specific to snowboarding or free skiing.

Nicole: It's so the swimmers are qualifying weeks before their competitions for the summer. And track and field, the same thing. There's some.

Annie: Oh, my God. Track and field. I covered the track and field trials ahead of Paris there in Eugene.

It is the most brute. It's beyond brutal how those qualifiers are. It's just one chance they have to qualify to get to the trials.

They have this one race. If they get tripped up, if they have a false start, that's it.

And it's not far out from the Olympics either. And that was track and field.

Nicole: I mean, are we really getting the best if that's the process? I mean, suppose somebody's shoelace breaks or, you know, they're just,

you know, suppose it's. It's a woman and she's, like, having a bad day on her period or something like. I don't know. That seems so arbitrary and awful that they're not given more time.

I protest.

Annie: There was a lady aping Moo who was one of the Nike athletes who was kind of.

She runs in the Gosh. You know, it's. She's a middle distance runner, and she kind of got mixed up in the middle of this pack and kind of got tripped up, fell down, and didn't make it to Paris.

And,

you know, I think these seasoned athletics journalists were just like, yep, that's how it goes. And I. I still haven't recovered from it. It's been. You know, it was.

It was a couple years ago, and I was like, this is brutal. But that's just,

you know. But then at the same time, you look at the athletes that did qualify. Team at USA did amazing at Paris and in track and field.

So it works. Is it perfect? I don't think so, but it works. And. And that's not how ski and snowboard qualifying is. It's.

You know, it's a cumulative sort of process through all the Grand Prixs and all the World Cups, and it's. There's a lot more room for error than it. Than it was in track and Field.

But still the, the timeline between getting the team placement and going to the Olympics is pretty short.

Nicole: Well, Sarah and I are going. We don't, we don't know if we've qualified for any events yet, but we're,

we have our tickets to a number of events. We are so excited.

What do we need to know? Like, what do we need to bring? What do we need to be on the lookout for? How do we curate this experience?

So it's incredible for us.

Annie: Gosh, I don't know. There's so much to see, right? Like, I want to see Jesse Diggins compete in cross country. I want to see Lindsey Vaughn and Mikayla Shiffrin. And actually the US Women's Alpine team is phenomenal right now.

I mean,

I want to see them take it all the way to the podium. I would kind of choose women's alpine,

women's cross country.

Nicole: We got women's GS and women's slalom. Sarah made this her part time job. Sarah, you, you tell about the process.

Sarah: Well, it's just the website to buy the tickets. It's just very Italian is all I can say. You're never quite sure you got the tickets except for the money comes out.

And I literally had to call Nicole at one point. She had to pull over because I had all my tickets.

And then is she had to panic buy one, one more GS ticket. So we were like buying like one ticket, two ticket. We needed, we each need,

we need like I guess six to seven tickets between us. So it was a real journey to just get those tickets. But we have them for the GS and the slalom.

Annie: That is the battle. Yeah. And then, yeah, you got to come over to Lavino and see the half pipe.

Nicole: And the only ticket we could, we could find because the general seating never became available. I don't know if they just gave those to the Italians, which bless if they did.

You know, Italy deserves something for putting this on.

But we have the one with Prosecco and Italian pastry included mid mountain. So, you know, the ski moms may be getting a little tipsy. The coverage could be going off piste depending on how early we get there.

Annie: Well, that sounds like great Olympic coverage. I think that's the spirit of the Olympics, right? A lot of opera ski, a lot of prosecco, a lot of.

Yeah, I don't know what the official opera ski drink of the Olympics is going to be, but I know we're talking a lot about pasta internally at the Olympics, so there's a lot of pasta coverage happening.

So.

Nicole: So I did have an Idea. You know how pins are a big thing at the Olympics? Like, we should bring ski mom pins over because they could be the hot commodity of trading.

And, you know, I'm. I'll chase down, like, the. The athletes, and I'll be like, you want a ski pin?

Annie: Do you want a ski mom pin?

You do need pins because you need a place to start your trading. Yeah, you actually do need to do that. So I don't know if you get something designed colle item.

Nicole: I know I can't use the Olympic rings. I probably can't even say that on this podcast without them coming for me. The Olympic Federation, there's. They are deadly serious about where those rings used, are used, and how.

Annie: Yes.

Nicole: Okay. So when you're writing, do you have your laptop there? Are you recording into your phone? How are you capturing every, you know, all the little details?

Because it's cold. It's not like you. There's a desk set up at the side of the mountain.

Sarah: It's cold.

Annie: Yeah. Beijing has set the bar for cold. So I'm not scared anymore. It was very cold in Beijing.

I had like, boot warmers stuck to my phone. I mean, I'm doing everything I normally do. It's a lot more regimented and controlled. There's a lot of prioritizing different media.

You know, it kind of starts with rights holders and video, and then eventually the athletes travel through this entire maze and get to get to print media, where we just are in a scrum and we get our quotes.

It's all very controlled and all very, very organized.

And then we have a media center right at the bottom. You know, you.

A lot of media doesn't even go out on the snow. They can sit in there and you get your printout of the tricks, you get your printout of the results, you get a printout of actual quotes from the athletes, or, you know, that's all online now.

So you can cover the Olympics at the Olympics without standing outside.

But I prefer to run out there, see it for myself, and then run back inside and cover it all.

But it's fun. It's like a very fun experience.

It's exhausting. It's long days. It's a little bit cold, but that's okay. I'm used to it. I'm a professional outdoor spectator, so I've got tricks.

Sarah: Well, we definitely want to follow along with all of your coverage for this. So where are we looking for this Olympic broadcast content?

Nicole: Exactly.

Annie: It's all on Olympics dot com. So you go to that website and you know, it's. Or you can actually download the app is kind of the easier way and just go under news and that's where it's all living at.

And then I share some on my Instagram, you know, probably like some behind the scenes in my stories and my Instagram is just Annie Fast.

Nicole: So that's a good skiing Instagram name, Annie.

Annie: Thank you. I did race border cross.

Nicole: Will you bring your board with you? Will you try to get in some turns while you're in Italy?

Annie: For sure. Yeah. I've already done some research. There's. Yeah, it's. There's going to be some open,

open runs and even in. In Beijing, which was.

We weren't supposed to snowboard. Really. I got powder turns in Beijing, so I am definitely bringing my snowboard.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It'll be fun.

Sarah: And will anyone else in your family be there with you?

Annie: You know, that's another one of those things. I was like, this will be awesome. We'll bring my son. And lodging is challenging and it's long days and you know, I would love for them to come.

And also tickets. That's really hard to figure out too. So.

Nope, they won't be.

No, we'll go. Maybe we'll bring them to France for the next Olympics. But yeah, this one,

it's. Lavinia is a really small town and I think it's kind of. It's going to be a little bit challenging for people to find lodging and get around. So not ideal.

Nicole: We always wrap with some apres ski vibes, apres snowboarding as well. So let's say you've. You've filed your last assignment.

You've maybe gotten in one run where what are you going to be eating and drinking to kind of celebrate the wrap of a great, successful day at the Olympics.

Annie: Oh my gosh. Well, hopefully I'll be eating a giant bowl of pasta, but I know that in Lavino it's a little bit more of like Swiss food. So it's kind of a little bit Swiss German.

So maybe it'll be something more like a nochi or something like that. And a glass of wine. You know, I have. It's fun because the people who are there from the industry, I know a lot of the agents and you know, their family, the athlete family.

So maybe I'll run into the Gerard family there, which is. Runs about, you know, a dozen deep with their, their whole family, Red Gerard's family. Or I think that's the fun thing about it is you just go out and you just see everybody.

So hopefully I just run into the whole crew at, at some restaurant and,

and celebrate and forget how, how much work I just put in that day and get to celebrate some of their metal moments together with them.

Nicole: Annie, thank you. This has been so much. We've covered so many of our favorite things in this podcast and I hope Sarah and I run into you. That sounds like we're gonna be on the other side of the mountains and.

But we will. We would love to have you back and we can talk about your post Olympics experience if that's okay with you.

Annie: Yeah, that sounds great. I'd love to share, share more about how that went. Yeah, and thanks for having me on and I'll, I'll be sure to stay in touch as I find out more about, like, how these female athletes are going to, you know, manage their families while trying to reach the peak of their careers.

So I'm excited to see how that works out and I'm sure I'm pretty confident they'll have it figured out.

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