Our Mt. Baldy adventures started on the chair lift in Big White when Mr. J Hilton said Mt. Baldy staff day was the next day.
Thrusday
Conrad and I woke up eary and drove towards the baldy zone. We stoped in Penticton for a coffee and to see the Lake frost in the mornig. From Penticton we headed to Osoyoos, the last stop before Baldy. Afternoon we landed in Baldy, as soon as we got there we jumped into our shred gear. Another adventure in baldy!
Baldy is only open for the weekends. This was a Thursday! Josh, Mt. Blady's main man it was his birthday so the resort was opened for a staff day. We rocked up and they told us we were late! love that place. Real people, real mountain life.
When the lefts closed at 3, The Ride guys Jay (Mr. Hilton), Steve (Scuba), Ian (Holiday), and Andy (Bill), plus some North shore friends from Big White, met up at the Baldy Lodge. All had our eyes fixed on the hip that was just made out of the side of the hill/The main road. Baldy style, so RAD!
We all adventured up to the cabin we were staying in "The Honkey Tonk Cabin".
Food and beverage Bill (Andy) started cooking up a storm after some casual drinks at the Honkey Tonk. Josh came over for some food and drinks to celebrate his birthday. The cat driver came over for some birthday drinks aswell. He had over heard our talk about the hip, so he propose he grab the cat and shine the lights on the hip so we could night shred. It was awesome!
Friday
We rode the hip until the cat's battery died. They had to jump start the cat with another cat. At that point I thought that this was the end of my first night in Baldy... But how wrong was I.
Back at the Honkey Tonk we all carried on drink the delicious Big Surf beer, in the awesome double hot tub! After the tub Mr.Hilton and a few others thought it would be the best idea to grab the GT Racers and race down the hill on them. Best idea ever! With a local at baldy we were shuttled with the GT's in the back of the truck. Jump in and hold on. He drove us to the top of the Mt. Baldy cabins, where his cabin was. He lived right on the hill... 4 or 5 runs later we decided to call last run all the way down to the bottom. Shredding down the last GT run we had lost Mr.Hilton on the way down. So instead of driving up the road to find him, we decided to boom up the ski hill in the truck to find Hilton... Hanging on for dear life in the cab of this truck with a bunch of GT racers.. It Didn't work as well as the driver thought it would. We had it pretty far before it just completely sank into the snow. Some time of digging later, one the the guys suggested that he grab his truck to pull this one out. About 10 mins after he left we see 2 head lights charge right for us, snow spraying everywhere. One of the boys from north van says" hey that trucks looks like the work truck".. And kinda left it at that until the truck got to us and the stuck truck. When in fact it was his work truck... and now we have 2 trucks stuck on the ski hill. The cat had to rescue both trucks that night. Lesson learned don't leave your keys in your truck in baldy and be ready for any adventure to come you way come apon. That was my first night in Baldy.
The next morning started off with the Honkey Tonk crew sharing our stories from the pervious night. Food and beverage Bill killed it with a mean breaky to start our shred day. After breaky we rocked to the Ride guys cabin to set up some next years shred sticks for our Baldy shred day.
First day on the HellCat... such a good day!
The weather was awesome, blue bird warm spring day. When the lifts closed we stated hiking up to tower 4 to hit the hip once again.
Fonz! JUST Killiing it!
Saturday
The first day of the contest! It was crazy how fast the weather can change at Baldy. It went from sunny blue bird day to the next day with crazy white out conditions.. Not ideal for the comp, but we all registered and headed up to the course. Once at the course, Scuba and Josh made the call to push the comp to the next day. So we would ride 2 locations in one day instead of 2 days, 2 runs on each location. Since all the riders were on location Scuba decided to do a Chinese downhill to the bottom. First one down gets a gopro.
That evening it was the hip/rail jam! The winning trick off the hip was a double backflip tail... Like a boss.
Sunday; the actual contest. All the riders had one run on the 2 locations. It was awesome everyone was cheering on the riders. The sun came out and made the day.
I didn't take home the gold this year but had the best weekend of the season for sure. Love Mt. Baldy.
That was my Mt. Baldy Slackcounrty experience :)
Thank you: Ride Snowboards, Pentagon Boardshop, Ride Crew (jrhagency.com), Conrad PK (for the photos!), and Mt. Baldy.
