Baldface 2009: Shoving Off

When you've got a pre-paid 4-day pow-fest coming up, you better be ready for it. Coming at it injured is not the best way to go. Problem is, sometimes it's the only way to go. I put in a day's ride on March 12 after taking a month's break to heal. Luckily for me, it worked. I was finally healed! After sessioning the terrain most like what I thought I'd find at Baldface (an area of steep trees at Meadows called Jack's Woods), like, all damn day, my ribs felt the same as they did when I started. That was far better than they'd felt after sessions past. I figured it was on. Now all I had to do was repeat that day four times in a row. Food and drink would be provided. No big deal, right? We shall see. Pack those bags and hit those bricks. The drive was nine hours long.

Turns out the first predicament came in crossing the border. That's right, this is an international journey. I had my passport and everything. I guess I also had a few extra inches of hair on my head and face. What follows is a loose transcript of the conversation that went down among two border guards and myself. We'll call them Border Bitch and Border Guy.

BB: Where you headed?
Me: Baldface Lodge, up in the mountains.
BB: How long?
Me: 'til the 19th
BB: How do I know you won't stay longer?
Me: I don't have any place to stay after that.
BB: You ever been arrested?
Me: This one time, it was really dumb...
BB: You better pull your car into the stall that reads 'You'll be spending the next few hours with us'
Me: Fuck
[Border Bitch and Border Guy commence filming of the TV show 'Ransack My Ride']
BB: Is this a sleeping bag?
Me: Yes
BB: What are all these pills for?
Me: I'm going on a four-day snowboard trip and I'm trying to recover from an injury.
BB: These are the kind of pills ultimate fighters take.
Me: Well, I don't know anything about that, but snowboarding is pretty tough.
BB: What does this one do?
[I proceed to explain as scientifically as possible what my pills do, resisting all urges to tell her that one of them makes my dick bigger.]
BB: Why are these two bottles the same, but the pills inside are different?
Me: I put the ones from a bigger bottle into a smaller one to save space.
BB: How do I know?
Me: You'll just have to take my word.
BB: I have to go inside and feign doing some analysis on them. You stay here with Border Guy.
BG: Is this a sleeping bag.
Me: Yeah.
BG: Is this a computer?
Me: Yup.
BG: Can you turn it on for me?
Me: OK
BG: Show me your pictures.
Me: There you go.
[BG spends the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how to scroll through my pictures, finally I do it for him]
BG: Are those breasts? Do you have porn on here!?
Me: You got me. Is that illegal in Canada?
BG: It's all adult, right?
Me: Of course.
BG: OK, you better go in and see if Border Bitch has turned your vitamin pills into methamphetamines yet.
BB: Turns out you're clean.
Me: Thank God. Can I go now, it's only been an hour..?
BB: OK, but I need to lecture you for a few more minutes about pills and bottles and other bullshit.
Me: Right, you mean the fact that I could have three types of illegal drugs in there, so long as they were in different bottles you wouldn't have any idea..?
BB: Basically yeah, you're free to go now.
Me: Sweet, good to know

Yeah, so one hour after I pulled up to the border shack trying my best to leave the good ole US of A, I was allowed access to the Great White North (where I might add it was snowing so hard that one member of our future posse would refer to it as Epic-ing). Maybe they knew that I was already pre-paid. I mean, why bother letting a guy in when his money is already in? Whatever the reason for the runaround it left me wanting a drink and a bed for the night...

Don't let the picture fool you, I arrived at night...

Not long after arriving in Nelson, I was directed to the White House Backpacker Lodge (fancy words for 'Hostel'). For only $26CDN, I got a bed for the night and a free pancake breakfast (provided I cook it myself and clean up after, both stipulations I could live with). Immediately I met Matt and Nick who would be joining me for freq week at Baldface. They offered beer and we drank and yakked well into the night. The trip was looking up and what better time to call it a night and end on a good note. Next time I'll tell you about this crazy druggie named Trevor, a long drunken cat trip to the lodge of dreams and the beginning of what I'm pretty sure was nothing more than a pleasant hallucination... Keep it locked.

Had me feeling like the President... until the next morning