Donna Hosts Heavenly Three-Day Women’s Media Trip to Baldface Lodge

No matter what you think about religion, spirituality or whatever – there is something about three days of perfect powder riding, beautiful scenery, inspiring conversations, excellent food and dancing to eighties music that can turn anyone into a believer in something. This past March, Donna Carpenter hosted a group of female international journalists up at Baldface Lodge in British Columbia for three days of heavenly powder riding. Ladies from magazines like Lucky, Maxim, Transworld, Transworld Business, Snowboard Canada, Frequency, 7th Sky, Onboard and Pleasure, pro snowboarders Hannah Teter and Anne-Flore Marxer and EXPN/NBC host Tina Dixon were all along for the ride of their lives.

The trip got off to a truly ‘spiritual’ start when all 24 ladies met up at the Hume Hotel in Nelson, which is famous for its hauntings and features amenities like tarot card readings and ghost tours. West Coast PR manager Janice Callado had the misfortune of being booked in Room 335, which is known for its high level of paranormal activity. Upon finding out that she was sharing her room with ghosts, Janice quickly packed her bags and switched rooms with Hannah Teter and Mia Troy who planned to stay up all night to commune with the spirits. After a somewhat restless nights’ sleep, everyone was ready for the quick, eight-minute heli-ride up to Baldface Lodge where some of the ladies enjoyed their first flight in a chopper.

We didn’t have to pray for snow at Baldface, it was just magically there waiting for us, with several fresh inches every morning filling in our tracks from the day before. Our first day of riding was nothing less than euphoric. Most of the ladies just laughed as they saw huge open powder bowls before them, completely untracked and waiting to be slashed. Anne-Flore didn’t even need bindings on her board to enjoy the pow pow – she was the first person to ever ride a NoBoard down the Scary Harry run at Baldface. After the best powder day of her life, Olympic gold medalist Hannah Teter jokingly said she was making a career change, giving up halfpipe competitions in exchange for riding pow all season long. Legendary guide John Buffrey, rightfully called ‘Buff’, said that in all his days of guiding at Baldface, he had never gotten in so many runs in one day as he did with us ladies. We ended our first day by meeting at the top of the peak above the lodge where a cross honoring Craig Kelly overlooks the skyline. Buff asked every one of us to give ‘Shout Outs’ for something we were thankful for. Everyone was just so thankful to be there.

And that was just day one. We had two more days of snowboarding bliss ahead of us. Two more days of homemade muffins in the morning, untouched powder all afternoon and sauna sessions in the evening. But perhaps the best part of the whole trip was how amazing it was to ride and hang out with a snowcat full of women who rip. There was no posturing at the top of runs, no jockeying for first tracks, no loud shouts of ‘DROPPING’. Sometimes, it was funny how mellow everyone was saying ‘you go first’ when a huge powder-filled field was just waiting to be shredded. Watching Anne-Flore, Annie Fast, Hannah Teter, Jen Sherowski, Tina Dixon, Anke from Pleasure, Burton Rep Heather Bowen, Frequency’s Jessie Lu drop cliffs, shoots and leave beautiful lines behind was a thing to behold. And just seeing how incredibly stoked everyone was on riding at the bottom of every run was super inspiring.

Our most valuable rider (MVR) was definitely Hope Greenberg from Lucky Magazine. Hope shredded runs she never thought possible and spent a few turns in the white room. Hope said, “It was the trip of a lifetime. A little outward bound (in my case), a little girls gone wild.”

Oh yeah. And on the last night at the lodge, most of the girls went a little wild, dancing to eighties hits, playing air guitar, starting up a limbo contest that Hannah Teter won and Tina Dixon demonstrating her famous clog dance.

There are certain places on this planet, and Baldface is definitely one of them, where you feel like you could spend eternity.

Namaste Baldface.