VANCOUVER—They're expanding the search for snow to cover bare patches on Cypress Mountain, where freestyle skiing and snowboard events are slated to take place at next week's Winter Olympics.

Officials Saturday also said they've had to cancel two of the five days of training for halfpipe snowboard athletes because of the lack of snow on Cypress.

This past month was the warmest January on record in Vancouver, and the snow at Cypress has been hard to come by. They've moved truckfuls of the stuff from higher parts of the mountain and also have brought it in by helicopter from nearby hills.

Saturday they announced they'll start hauling the white stuff in by helicopter from Yak Peak in the Coquihalla Pass/Coquihalla Highway region, which links the Okanagan area and the interior of B.C. to the lower mainland.

Officials said the basic competition courses are in good shape, but finishing areas and support areas—ski trails and such used to move people and goods up and down the mountain—still need snow.

"We're very confident" that things will work out fine, said Tim Gayda, vice president of sport for the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC).

Gayda said there's zero chance any events will be re-located to other hills. But he said athletes who should be training on Cypress have been given the chance to work out on freestyle hills and snowboard courses up in Whistler, where they've had record snowfalls and much cooler temperatures that have left them with virtually no weather worries; at least not yet.

So far, only about 15 athletes have taken VANOC up on the Whistler training offer, but many athletes still haven’t arrived, Gayda said.

Although three days of training for the halfpipe snowboarders isn’t what the Olympic folks had wanted, the secretary general of the International Ski Federation, Sarah Lewis, said three days is all athletes usually get for World Cup events.

“It’s the same for everybody,” she said.

Lewis said weather challenges are often an issue with ski events all over the world and she said VANOC is “very, very committed” to the cause.

“Definitely it’s a challenge,” she said. “It’s an enormous effort.”

VANOC officials said they moved 2,000 cubic meters of snow already from Mt. Strachan and want to bring in 3,000 or so from the interior of the province.

They also said they’re not worried about being mocked by late-night TV hosts.

“Torino (site of the 2006 Winter Olympics) didn’t have snow until just before the Games,” Gayda said. “Nagano (host of the 1998 Winter Games) had rain. It only takes 24 hours for Cypress to be blanketed.”

The weather forecasters are calling for slightly cooler temperatures in Vancouver as the week goes on, but not particularly cold. It's supposed to be 11 degrees on Sunday and the forecast shows the lowest high temperature for any day this week will be 6 degrees.

VANOC officials wouldn’t say how much the snow effort is costing. But they said most snow venues haven’t had problems and that overall contingencies for all the venues are helping cover the extra Cypress costs.