Mike G.
Yelp
Most reviewers got one thing wrong...
For me, I seriously hope this is not a "once in a lifetime experience" but something I get to do at least every year and only regret not living closer so I could be back on a skeleton more often than that.
My wife and I went up to Whistler in February mostly for the opportunity for us to actually do bobsled/bobsleigh and for me to try skeleton. I expected it to be, as many reviewers have said, a "once in a lifetime experience" and while that may be true for bobsleigh for me, that's only because I became addicted to skeleton.
There are a lot of reviews that talk about the professionalism and helpfulness of the staff and those are, if anything, understated. Every person involved clearly loved the sliding sports and that love came through as being willing to do anything to make sure that everyone interested had the chance to share that love. And for many of us, it worked.
I'll skip the step by step description of what to expect since there are already quite a few reviews that cover that very well but will tell you the one thing that most people seemed surprised by in their runs. While watching the sliding sports, it appears graceful and you expect the G-forces to gradually shift from side to side. That is not the case. The G-forces are intense and brutal and surprising the first time. I suspect that's a big reason why first skeleton run times are pretty consistently a bit slower than the second. But, by your second run you know what to expect and surprise turns into that feeling that you get when auto racing, that "just one more lap and I can do just a little better". In my case, "Just one more run down the hill and I can do a better job of keeping my shoulders down in the 'Gold Rush Trail' corner complex and shave off a few hundredths of a second".
OK. I admit it. My name is Mike and I'm a Skeleton Addict.