A truly amazing riding experience here. The folks at Baldface Lodge have just about everything covered. This has been the daily regiment:
6:00am: Alarm goes off.
6:40am: Actually get out of bed.
7:00am: Meet in main lodge for home cooked breakfast. Then go back to room to change and get ready. At least 30 minutes of stretching is a good idea.
8:30am: Get hooked up with avalanche transponders and meet at Snowcat. Then ride until around 4pm. We eat lunch on the mountain which they prepare and bring up with us in the snowcat.
4:30pm: Back in room to chill and take a brief, much needed nap.
6:00pm: Slide show viewing. They have photographers shooting everyone on the mountain and they show it on a big screen in the main lodge. Good laughs all around.
6:30pm: Home cooked dinner.
8:00pm: Your choice. Tune your board. Play some billards or table tennis. Get a massage. Hit the sauna. Or all of the above!
10:00pm: Passed out in a coma.
Straight from a snowboard video…but the only difference is that I’m actually riding it this time.
No cars, SUVs, ski lifts, trams or gondolas here. There are 2 modes of transport: Snowcats and Helicoptors.
I read in a magazine before coming here that this place can look like something out of the movie “THE THING”. I would say a cross between The Thing and The Shining wouldn’t you say? Can definitely be creepy in some spots.
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The first day began with some basic avalanche training. For example here, transponders were hidden in the snow throughout the base and we had to look for them…it was kinda fun actually. Like hi-tech hide and go seek.
Kazuki (designer for Fragment) seemingly standing at the egde of the earth.
Deka-jun (Resonate designer) taking this SICK jump!!! That takes major balls…
What may look like a bear rising from hibernation; is actually me… post-wipeout.
HF taking a nice kicker.
Buff, our avalanche guide expert and Yuki (Kazuki’s GF).
The post slideshow presentation…this is me in picture form…and then me with my legs straight up in the air.
HF doing pop-wheelie’s with a wheelchair. Is there anything this dude cannot do??
When you ride backcountry…you always have to respect nature and its power. Never forget those who lost their lives for the powder.
