WHISTLER, B.C. - From the sun over Greece to the snow-covered mountains of Whistler, the Olympic flame arrived Friday in the small resort community that will soon welcome the world to the Winter Games.

Just days before lighting the cauldron at the opening ceremonies in Vancouver, the torch stopped at Olympic venues for the first time since the 2010 relay began more than three months ago.

It has been seven years since Vancouver and Whistler were awarded the Games, but dreams of staging the Olympics in this quiet mountain paradise stretch back much further.

"Whistler has been waiting for this for 50 years, and it's finally happening,'' said torchbearer Jim Moodie, who carried the flame in front of a large sunlit Inukshuk with ski jumpers launching into the air in the distance.

"I've been skiing up here since it opened in 1966, and to actually have this moment is really, really special.''

The Games are woven deep into the history of this community, which in many ways owes its very existence to Olympic ambitions.

Whistler first attracted attention in the 1960s when a group of Vancouver businessmen prepared to bid for the 1968 Games.

Those Olympics instead were awarded to Grenoble, France, but Whistler Mountain was already under development and over the next several decades blossomed into a world-renowned resort.

There were two more bids, for the 1972 and 1976 Games, but those, too, ended in failure.

That losing streak changed in 2003, when Vancouver and Whistler were officially awarded the 2010 Olympics.

"It's unexplainable,'' said Moodie, who was part of the board that oversaw construction of the athletes' village in Whistler. "It's just so emotional to have that happen after such a wait.''

The torch visited the ski jumps at Whistler Olympic Park Friday, as test jumpers flew through the air and landed on packed snow. The flame also passed through the biathlon stadium and cross-country skiing areas of the park.

Melanie Whittal, a volunteer from the Vancouver-area city of Ladner who will be working at the park during the Olympics, said for her, the torch's arrival means the Olympics have already started.

"It's the start of all the Games,'' said Whittal, 48, who sells outdoor and ski equipment.

"We've followed the journey of the torch all the way from the beginning. It's exciting - it's the fire!''

On Friday evening, the flame was expected to be carried on a snowmobile up Whistler Mountain, site of the Olympic alpine events.

At the top of the mountain, Canadian freestyle skier Julia Murray, whose late father Dave Murray was an original member of the famed Crazy Canuck downhill team, was to hand the flame over to another former Crazy Canuck, Steve Podborski.

Podborski, who won bronze at the 1980 Olympics and is a member of the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, planned to ski with the torch to a waiting celebration at the bottom of the slopes.

The Olympic flame was lit in Greece last October at a ceremony that used the rays of the sun and a special mirror to start the fire.

Since arriving in Victoria shortly after, organizers have staged the longest-ever domestic Olympic torch relay, passing through every province and territory and stretching as far north