March 13-20, 2008: After a four minute heli ride from the mellow streets of Nelson, BC, Baldface Lodge appeared through the front window of the Bell 206: a small collection of chalets and one main lodge nestled into the Kootenay alpine, and home to Freq Week 08. As we ducked out of the way a couple figures scrambled to pull their bags out of the luggage pile. Turns out Benny and Dave just weren’t ready to leave. And for good reason.

Friday morning slid in beneath heavily falling snow. Joined by a crew of shreds from as far away as New York, Los Angeles, and SLC and as close to home as Seattle and The Summit at Snoqualmie, stoke was high. Following beacon practice and a couple warm up laps in knee deep fresh, our guides for the day, Heath and Lanny, introduced us to the Baldface modus operandi-followed by Buff, Karla, Joel and Tyler as well-that would hold for the rest of the week: SFD, or Straight F@#$ing Down. Dropping into perfectly spaced trees with pillows and stump booters around every corner, pairs of riders were encouraged to point it to the cat track a few thousand feet below.

The snow piled up every night of the week–if white rooms are your thing, then this was the place to be. After Kristy and Homie J feathered the cats up into new terrain, glimpses of trees and other riders were had while spending an inordinate amount of time diving through my own spray. Laing got so pitted it was “a life changing experience”. Wibby learned to ride trees faster than ever. Jessie Lu stopped turning altogether and straight lined a chute of her own. Jeff even took a break from powder laps to hook into a few deep diving Kootenay Bull Trout. Couple that with gourmet food, fireworks for JG’s 40th, a couple shred days with Canadian racing legend Mark Fawcett, friendly staff, ping pong, guitar hero, and a saturday night open bar (thanks Palmer) featuring a shotsicle (ever done jager shooters through a four-foot long icicle?), and you have a snowboard trip worth remembering.

Thanks go out to Jeff Pensiero and all of the Baldface employees for a great atmosphere, excellent food, and plenty of good times on and off the hill. The guides mixed quick powder laps with boot packing into new terrain to keep things a little adventurous. Rolling to the bottom of a few thousand feet of riding through burned out trees to find a freshly built booter was a nice touch. Coming home to hot soup, cold beer, a clean chalet, and friendly faces after a solid day of shred never gets old and neither do alpine rock parties featuring Krush and Hambone on air guitar.

Great snow and good company made for an amazing week at Baldface. We hope to share the good times with more of our friends-both old and new-at next year’s Freq Week.

Image 1: CW Rider: Laing
Image 2: Dave Thomas. Rider: Wibby
Images 3-6: CW
Image 7: Mich
Image 8: Dave Thomas. Rider: Hambone