ZOOM-IN: RISK MATURITY AT BALDFACE LODGE
There’s a give and take to big-mountain riding that lives at constant odds.
On one side, you have those days when everything lines up—stable snow, good light, friends you trust—and the mountains feel generous, almost personal.
On the other side, they take. Senselessly. Friends, heroes, people who knew exactly what they were doing and still ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The longer you stay in this world, the more you feel both truths pressing against each other. Best feeling in the world. Worst phone call you’ll ever get. Same arena.
That tension is the backbone of Risk Maturity.
I didn’t come into the course thinking it was some intro avalanche class. I’d heard about it for years as a sort of top-shelf program—the one built specifically for what pro snowboarders, filmers, photographers actually do in the backcountry. Not guide certification, not a generic level-one. A week designed around the realities of building jumps into start zones, threading heli lines for cameras, and trying to make a living in terrain that can kill you while you’re technically “at work.”
So when we gathered in the Baldface lodge after two days of first-aid, I wasn’t wondering what the class was. I was wondering if it would make the backcountry feel even more intimidating than it already had.
And, in a completely different corner of my mind, I was hoping no one would notice that my physicality is… let’s just say not quite on par with the mountaineering types in the room.
Jeff Pensiero—Founder and CEO of Baldface—started by giving the origin story of the class.How Pat Moore talked about Pat coming up as an East Coast rail kid who suddenly got the keys to bigger mountains, and how, around that same time, the close calls started stacking up.
“The enthusiasm of the pro snowboarder was getting the better of some people. We’d lost a couple people. It made us think—maybe what we need is avalanche training that’s actually for us.”
He explained how they already had structured training for guides, but nothing for the people on the other side of the lens: the riders, photographers, and TM’s trying to hit deadlines without fully understanding the risk they were standing in.
“What we’re really talking about,” Jeff said, “is how do you be a professional snowboarder, photographer, team manager? How do I understand the risks, quantify those risks, and what can I do to avoid them—or still accomplish the same goals without taking them?”
The first year, eighteen people showed up. Now the course sells out and has quietly grown into a community.
“People come back and recap experiences,” he continued. “They share the scary stuff that happens in our line of work. By being vulnerable and open to questions, we’ve seen this exchange of information. I really believe we’ve moved the needle and raised the standard for what we expect from each other.”
Then he handed it over to Pat Moore, who mostly tried to thank everyone else but of course, he is an integral part of the puzzle. “It was Jeff, myself and Billy Anderson at the bar there [at Baldface]. We were talking about some close calls and Jeff asked what type of training were people getting. The conversation led to the industry needing to create a better baseline for mountain safety to help riders and crews. Jeff opened his doors and tapped his guides to share their experiences and knowledge and it went from there.”
“The biggest thing about this,” Pat said, “is the commitment from Jeff, Baldface, and all the guides. They’ve brought the value of the lodge, the value of their experience and their vulnerability to help our community grow from it. And huge respect to you guys for signing up. It’s an investment—time, money, being away from your people. It takes a lot to get up here.”
If Jeff was explaining the why, Pat was acknowledging the cost: nobody in that room was there by accident. Everyone had chosen to stare directly at the part of snowboarding we usually keep blurred out of frame.
Then John Buffery, known as buff, tied a bow on the opening presentation. One of the key early architects of splitboarding, and now a Senior Avalanche Officer for the Ministry of Transportation. In a world where mountain expertise often gets wrapped in unapproachable machismo, Buff is the opposite: thoughtful, articulate, and endlessly curious. He carries the kind of snowpack knowledge that only comes from decades of keeping highways safe and watching mountains breathe, but he delivers it with the calm of someone who sees the work as service, not performance.
“Risk,” he said, “is the effect of uncertainty on your objective.”
From there he broke uncertainty into two piles—knowledge gaps you can shrink by learning more, and random unknowns you’ll never be able to fully control. The goal of the course, he said, was to give us a systematic way to deal with both: principles, framework, process. Values, logistics, then the day-to-day decisions in the field.
He called the week a “baptism of knowledge” and told us not to stress about catching every detail. Let it wash over you. Let it start the journey.
The Body: First Aid and Fear
Before that “baptism” at the lodge even began, we’d already spent two days in town learning how bodies break and, hopefully, how to keep them going.
We ran CPR and choking drills. We practiced bleeding control, wound packing, and tourniquets. There was a lot of talk about death—sometimes direct, sometimes just hanging in the pauses between instructions.
Day two was airway management, burrito wraps, dislocations, fractures, splinting. The burrito—basically a DIY rescue sled made from whatever insulation and tarp you have—was one of the most important skills of the day: a reminder that sometimes your best chance of saving someone is knowing how to package them and drag them to safety.
The Shift to the Mountains
When we finally flew into Baldface, it felt like changing chapters. The first morning we sat in on the guide meeting: weather models, recent avalanche activity, terrain options. Watching that process was like watching a band soundcheck before a show. You realize how much invisible work happens before a single turn gets made.
Then came the transceivers. How they work, how they fail, why your phone screen is a bigger interference problem than Bluetooth, the quirks of each model. We ran drills for multiple burials, deep burials, triage. It’s wild how quickly thirty seconds starts to feel like an hour when someone is “buried” and the entire group is depending on your search line not being crooked.
At night, John Jackson gave a talk on longevity. It wasn’t a greatest-hits highlight reel. It was anxiety, injuries, financial risk, community service, the real cost of putting your body and brain into these projects. Hearing him talk about Art of Flight and everything before and after in a quiet room, without cameras, was one of the more honest conversations I’ve ever heard about being a professional snowboarder.
Snow, Soul, and the Part You Can’t Quantify
The next days were a blend of theory and practice. Buff walked us through snowpack structure: storm slabs, persistent weak layers, facets, crusts, the whole dysfunctional family. We dug pits, ran tests, talked about the difference between the weight of data and the strength of an observation. Ten snow profiles matter, sure—but one fresh crown line usuallymatters more.
Every bit of that was anchored back to his definition: risk as uncertainty on your objective. Shrink the knowledge gaps. Accept that the random unknowns are still out there.
Evenings pushed things past the technical.
Jamie Weeks presented on mental fitness—how emotional resilience is as important as knowing the avalanche bulletin. His gauge on mental fitness mirrored the avalanche hazard rating system: low, moderate, considerable, high—except the layers were fear, fatigue, grief, and ego.
Nick Russell followed with a slideshow that walked the line between levity and heaviness. Years-long line scoping, backing off when the gut said no, getting stuck on the Alaskan coast after a nine-thousand-foot run when the weather turned. I’ve always called Nick a legend in the casual, snowboard way. After that night, the word felt a lot more literal.
Rope Systems and Case Studies
Rope day exposed another layer of ignorance for me. I signed up for remedial knots assuming a few others would too. Nope. Just me. So I spent the morning learning lowers and raises, RAD harness systems, snow anchors—basically learning how to move another human being’s life up or down a slope without making things worse.
That night, Liam Griffen from Natural Selection walked us through Sarka’s burial in Japan—a full case study, decisions, misreads and everything. Travis Rice followed with what he’s learned from being in actual avalanches: the violence, strategies for fighting, what it feels like when the snow finally stops moving.
It was heavy enough that most of us reached for the bar afterward. It was the one night the whole group really cut loose, maybe because we’d finally admitted to ourselves how much this all actually weighs.
The Long Walk and the Longer Exhale
The next morning was slow. Some of the Whistler crew didn’t even make it outside. Buff, maybe punishing us or maybe just being Buff, had us hike from the lodge to Mushi Ridge on foot. No cats, no splitboards. Just a long, sweaty walk to have us ride back down before starting the drill.
We ran a scenario with four burials and two “injured” patients—Buff and Jamie, fully committed to their roles. It was tense, messy, loud. I could feel my heart rate spiking every time someone yelled a distance or a time. When we finally had everyone dug out, packaged, and moved to the makeshift heli pad, the relief hit hard. My hands were shaking. I could’ve cried right there.
Instead, we moved back to Mushi Ridge, where Craig Kelly’s cross lives.
The energy shifted the second we stepped into that space. All week, loss had been this quiet, shared backdrop. At Craig’s cross it came into focus. Baldface guide Joaquin led a prayer he’d learned from his local Native tribe in New Mexico. Pat Moore spoke about how much sadness the community has carried this year, how many people we’ve lost.
I didn’t walk up there expecting to cry, but the moment caught me and the tears came anyway.
What Risk Maturity Really Is
By the end of the week, nobody walked away feeling like an expert. That’s kind of the point. Risk Maturity doesn’t hand you a certificate and a guarantee. It gives you language, tools, and community for living in that space between what you know and what you can’t possibly control.
Jeff’s hope is that we raise the standard for each other. Pat’s hope is that we keep showing up for the work. Buff’s hope is that we walk away with a process we can apply not just in avalanche terrain, but in every big decision we make.
There’s a give and take to big-mountain riding. When it’s good, it’s the best feeling in the world. When it goes wrong, it’s devastating.
You don’t graduate from that reality. You just keep learning how to live honestly inside it.
Final note, I can’t recommend this class enough if you ever have the chance to attend. The technical, empirical learning is incredible on its own, but the lectures, in this case from Nick Russell, John Jackson, Jamie Weeks, and the others—those were something rare. Risk Maturity isn’t just an avalanche course; it’s an intensive, all-encompassing look at how we move through the mountains and why.
And if you can’t make it up North, that doesn’t close the door. Take a local class. Practice with your friends. Run scenarios. Build your literacy. The mountains don’t require perfection—just an honest effort to understand what you’re stepping into.
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