This is my first time at Baldface. The Nelson area has the largest concentration of snowcat ski tenures in the world, but Baldface is the largest at 30,000 acres. It is north of Nelson and Kootenay Lake and south of Retallack, where Adam and I skied in January 2000. Weather permitting, access is by helicopter from the Nelson airport
Heli view of Nelson
And the west arm of Kootenay Lake.
One of Baldface’s distinctions is its friendliness to snowboarders. Owner Jeff Pensiero is a boarder and note the decor on the dining room wall.
Not to mention this sticker in our cat.
Early on the first day we saw the top of the elaborate course prepared for the upcoming Red Bull Supernatural event Feb. 3-8. http://www.catskiing.ca/reviews/powder- ... face-lodge.
Baldface’s clientele is about 40% snowboarders vs. well under 20% by my observation at other snowcat lodges in Canada. They also rent powder oriented snowboards, which I have not observed elsewhere. There was one snowboarder in our group at Mustang who commented that his own board was not ideal for powder but had no alternative there unlike us skiers.
Baldface runs 3 full cats with 36 customers at a time, same as Chatter Creek. Our Baldface group had 4 snowboarders and also 6 Swiss skiers. The other 2 cats were big groups of repeat customers from Idaho and California.
Most lodge facilities, food and service are comparable to Mustang and Chatter Creek. Baldface does not have a hot tub yet, but may have one as soon as next season.
Jan. 23
My snow expectations were sky high after last week and knowledge that the recent storm while I was in Revelstoke was stronger down here. There were 2 holdover customers from the previous tour who confirmed that opinion. However, overnight there was some fog and a thin ‘humidity crust” formed on top of the snow. It was very uniform and did not impede skiing as a crust from melt/freeze or rain would. But there was not the billowing smoke of the previous week. Skis or snowboards passing by sounded a bit like a zipper opening.
Ski terrain reaches to but not above tree line like most of the snowcat places in the Selkirks between Nelson and Revelstoke. There are some open stretches like this.
And some clear cuts like this.
The clear cuts were about as well buried as those at Mustang and much more so than at Chatter Creek.
Most of the skiing is in the trees, but as I remember from Retallack and CMH Kootenay this region has the most consistent natural spacing of trees I’ve seen anywhere. Lead guide Silas briefing us here.
One of the weather plots is decorated with a Hawaiian wood carving.
Loading the cat with scattered trees in background.
Today’s skiing was 8,300 vertical after the morning transceiver drill.
Jan. 24
The second morning starts similarly to the first. I don’t even notice the humidity crust skiing as we’re so used to it, but a poke/drag of a pole at our first pickup shows it’s still there. Our tail guide Clayton fashions some “natural ski poles” for the benefit of Baldface’s photographer who is in our cat today.
Before too long it starts dumping snow around 10AM. Soon the powder is flying and conditions are comparable to last week. One of the more memorable runs is Confirmation, which starts in the trees next to the Red Bull course. Profile near the top shows the steep pitch with a couple of the competition jumps in the background.
Bottom of Confirmation. There was a nice jump between the 2 riders at left.
It dumped the whole afternoon. The skiing was epic but in general a point and shoot camera was no match for the weather. Clayton sticks a ~20 footer here though he did lose a pole.
Thankfully Baldface’s photographer Jamie did have a camera up to the task and I will add a few of those pics later. We had some unexpected delays (replowing of a collapsed cat road and search for a missing wedding ring) after 3PM and did not have time for a run after that, so finished with 11,300.
Jan. 25
Once again we were teased by the weather. We saw it dumping all evening, but we slept through the high winds in the wee hours. These were not confined to the alpine but penetrated deep into the trees, a relatively rare event seen only once or twice a season. The snow was often densely wind packed, a phenomenon quite familiar to Mammoth skiers. The guides were quite careful to avoid open slopes that were potentially wind loaded. Note wind waves in the open area to the left of the trees we skied here.
Our guides move to some of Baldface’s signature tree runs where spacing is so good that skiing is easy even in thicker snow. Bottom of Cheeky Monkey.
It’s much steeper up higher in this naturally spaced old growth.
Top of Cordless
Lasagna had the softest snow of the day. I stopped midway down and caught snowboarder Les Saito with his GoPro film pole.
9,117 foot Mt. Loki on the east side of Kootenay lake is briefly visible during a sunny break.
One of the Swiss launches a small booter at the end of a run.
Silas spent quite a while before our last run digging a snow pit.
Baldface Lodge in background is at 6,300 feet, high within Baldface’s elevation range and probably the highest snowcat lodge in Canada.
This last run ends in the same clear cut as yesterday morning, now filled in with new snow.
13,000 total today.
Heli view of Nelson
And the west arm of Kootenay Lake.
One of Baldface’s distinctions is its friendliness to snowboarders. Owner Jeff Pensiero is a boarder and note the decor on the dining room wall.
Not to mention this sticker in our cat.
Early on the first day we saw the top of the elaborate course prepared for the upcoming Red Bull Supernatural event Feb. 3-8. http://www.catskiing.ca/reviews/powder- ... face-lodge.
Baldface’s clientele is about 40% snowboarders vs. well under 20% by my observation at other snowcat lodges in Canada. They also rent powder oriented snowboards, which I have not observed elsewhere. There was one snowboarder in our group at Mustang who commented that his own board was not ideal for powder but had no alternative there unlike us skiers.
Baldface runs 3 full cats with 36 customers at a time, same as Chatter Creek. Our Baldface group had 4 snowboarders and also 6 Swiss skiers. The other 2 cats were big groups of repeat customers from Idaho and California.
Most lodge facilities, food and service are comparable to Mustang and Chatter Creek. Baldface does not have a hot tub yet, but may have one as soon as next season.
Jan. 23
My snow expectations were sky high after last week and knowledge that the recent storm while I was in Revelstoke was stronger down here. There were 2 holdover customers from the previous tour who confirmed that opinion. However, overnight there was some fog and a thin ‘humidity crust” formed on top of the snow. It was very uniform and did not impede skiing as a crust from melt/freeze or rain would. But there was not the billowing smoke of the previous week. Skis or snowboards passing by sounded a bit like a zipper opening.
Ski terrain reaches to but not above tree line like most of the snowcat places in the Selkirks between Nelson and Revelstoke. There are some open stretches like this.
And some clear cuts like this.
The clear cuts were about as well buried as those at Mustang and much more so than at Chatter Creek.
Most of the skiing is in the trees, but as I remember from Retallack and CMH Kootenay this region has the most consistent natural spacing of trees I’ve seen anywhere. Lead guide Silas briefing us here.
One of the weather plots is decorated with a Hawaiian wood carving.
Loading the cat with scattered trees in background.
Today’s skiing was 8,300 vertical after the morning transceiver drill.
Jan. 24
The second morning starts similarly to the first. I don’t even notice the humidity crust skiing as we’re so used to it, but a poke/drag of a pole at our first pickup shows it’s still there. Our tail guide Clayton fashions some “natural ski poles” for the benefit of Baldface’s photographer who is in our cat today.
Before too long it starts dumping snow around 10AM. Soon the powder is flying and conditions are comparable to last week. One of the more memorable runs is Confirmation, which starts in the trees next to the Red Bull course. Profile near the top shows the steep pitch with a couple of the competition jumps in the background.
Bottom of Confirmation. There was a nice jump between the 2 riders at left.
It dumped the whole afternoon. The skiing was epic but in general a point and shoot camera was no match for the weather. Clayton sticks a ~20 footer here though he did lose a pole.
Thankfully Baldface’s photographer Jamie did have a camera up to the task and I will add a few of those pics later. We had some unexpected delays (replowing of a collapsed cat road and search for a missing wedding ring) after 3PM and did not have time for a run after that, so finished with 11,300.
Jan. 25
Once again we were teased by the weather. We saw it dumping all evening, but we slept through the high winds in the wee hours. These were not confined to the alpine but penetrated deep into the trees, a relatively rare event seen only once or twice a season. The snow was often densely wind packed, a phenomenon quite familiar to Mammoth skiers. The guides were quite careful to avoid open slopes that were potentially wind loaded. Note wind waves in the open area to the left of the trees we skied here.
Our guides move to some of Baldface’s signature tree runs where spacing is so good that skiing is easy even in thicker snow. Bottom of Cheeky Monkey.
It’s much steeper up higher in this naturally spaced old growth.
Top of Cordless
Lasagna had the softest snow of the day. I stopped midway down and caught snowboarder Les Saito with his GoPro film pole.
9,117 foot Mt. Loki on the east side of Kootenay lake is briefly visible during a sunny break.
One of the Swiss launches a small booter at the end of a run.
Silas spent quite a while before our last run digging a snow pit.
Baldface Lodge in background is at 6,300 feet, high within Baldface’s elevation range and probably the highest snowcat lodge in Canada.
This last run ends in the same clear cut as yesterday morning, now filled in with new snow.
13,000 total today.
