CHECKING BUCKET LIST BOXES - BALDFACE LODGE

Hey all - Cody (Glade Operations Guru) here.

I have been snowboarding for almost 30 years. I didn’t find snowboarding until I was in high school, but when I did, I was immediately hooked and I’ve never looked back. I grew up just outside Salt Lake City, Utah and became obsessed with the growing local snowboard culture at the Cottonwood resorts Snowbird and Brighton. I was also following every major competition and watching every snowboard video that dropped. I was watching and re-watching video parts by Mikey LeBlanc, Kevin Jones, Devun Walsh, Dave Downing, Todd Richards, and especially local legends Jeremy Jones and JP Walker, and so many more.

The more that I watched, listened, and learned about snowboarding, the more I saw the name Craig Kelly. So many of the interviews and articles of these guys that I looked up to were talking about Craig Kelly as the guy they looked up to. At this point, he had walked away from the spotlight and lucrative sponsorships to pursue a passion for freeriding. Craig had clearly left a mark on a sport that I now I loved and I had to learn more. I would stockpile TransWorld SNOWboarding magazines and try to understand everything I could about Craig and all the other riders he was inspiring to learn how these legends “made it”. I loved learning about the industry tech as it evolved and watching the tricks get bigger every year. Whenever I was part of some sort of ice-breaker activity, or asked to introduce myself, my first defining quality was always “I’m a snowboarder.”

Moving into my working/college years, I didn’t have as much time to dedicate to my obsession. It wasn’t until I got wrapped up in the news cycle around Craig’s death in Revelstoke Canada, on January 20, 2003 that I heard about Baldface Lodge just outside Nelson, BC. It was then that I learned he had been part of this new endeavor to create a snowboarder inspired, unique and exclusive, cat-access backcountry experience. I had a hundred questions. What was this place? How much was it? How do I get in?..... Being a poor college kid, I quickly learned that an experience like Baldface might not be in the cards for me any time soon. But 10 years later, with a career started and some financial stability, I began to revisit the idea of getting to Baldface. I put my name on the waitlist and waited for a call back, but it never came. So the next year I put my name on the waitlist again, and it never came. After 10 years of putting my name on a list, making calls to the Baldface office, and dreaming of powder runs in the BC backcountry, I started to give up hope. It was becoming more and more a destination for the elite. It seemed you basically had to be Travis Rice, Blake Paul, Mark McMorris, or another elite snowboarder with an invite to the Natural Selection Tour, to get bumped up on the ever growing waitlist.

More than two decades after first learning about Baldface Lodge, I finally got the call. A few close friends of mine had a connection to a group that had worked their way into the lodge through the chaos that came from COVID19; and they had an open spot. I was thrilled. I felt like I was 19 years old again. I was about to check a box that had now become a bucket list item for me and I was laying awake most nights watching clips from the Baldface Instagram account like a kid on Christmas Eve thinking about the bounty he is going to receive when he wakes up.

I watched the weather at Baldface throughout the 23/24 season to see how conditions were stacking up. I checked the Baldface Instagram account regularly. I quit skateboarding every day out of fear that I would get injured before my big trip. I was so stoked.

At long last, the day arrived and I found myself coming in for a landing at Baldface Lodge. It was one of those moments that are hard to wrap your head around because you’re doing something that has been so unattainable for so long. The only word that came to mind as I tried to process my experience over the next 4 days was SURREAL.

So how was it? Was it all worth it? Did it live up to my expectations?

The lodge was amazing. Being a lover of snowboard history and culture, I spent a lot of my down time looking at all the memorabilia hanging on all the walls. Reading all the notes from the pro snowboarders who had gifted the lodge a board. Or inspecting the old bindings from years past.

I also have to say that Baldface thought of everything. They had a theater room stocked with classic snowboarding vids, all your avalanche safety gear, a room dedicated to drying boots (yes it smells like you think it would, maybe worse), an unparalleled quiver of snowboards that you could take and test at your leisure, a place to freshen up your wax and tune any blemishes from the day’s adventures, and my favorite - massage services.

The food was amazing and designed to keep you energized and riding at your best. The sleeping quarters were clean and comfortable. One of the seven chalets at the property also had some pretty great Craig Kelly memorabilia as a tribute to his legacy.

While all of these things enhanced my experience, that’s not what I was there for. I was there for endless powder and backcountry features that would test my skills and my nerves. Unfortunately, our week was some of the warmest March days they have seen there at the mountain, which meant we were looking at a week of hot pow and summer corn. I admit that I was fighting some disappointment early on. But our Baldface guides came through for us and if there was powder to find, we found it!

As luck would have it, we were assigned the one and only Kevin Sansalone, former pro snowboarder, to be our guide and he did not disappoint. We were able to make the most of the conditions and found lots of north facing powder stashes in the vast 21,500 acres of the Selkirk range. I didn’t go to Baldface for spring riding conditions, but after almost 30 years of riding, I can say it was the best spring riding I’ve ever had despite temps upwards of 40*F.

So to sum it up… It was worth the wait, and the money, and it was as fulfilling as I could hope it to be. I saw this quote soon after my trip and it really resonated with me after such an amazing adventure:

“If you think men climb high mountains for the view or the glory or the hero pictures, then you don’t know much about men or mountains ”

- William Johnston

Here’s to chasing dreams and mountain adventures.

See ya out there,

Cody