Baldface-English Dictionary

Powder / Pow / Pow Pow: Any depth or quality of snow which has recently fallen and hasn't yet been "tracked," or compressed, either by the weight of a snowcat or a skier/snowboarder.

Snowcat: A truck-like vehicle with tracks instead of tires, like a tank. The cabs of the snowcats at Baldface Lodge sit twelve comfortably.

Fresh tracks / First tracks: Being the first person to lay a track in powder; that is, being the first to ski through an area of newfallen snow. Everyone wants fresh tracks. Riding through powder is so easy and smooth it's like flying.

Duff: Very cold, light powder – too cold to pack into a snowball – which flies up into a snowboarder's face as she rides through it.

The white room: When a snowboarder slashes through duff in such a way that the spray encloses her completely and she can't see in front of her, she's said to be "in the white room."

Shred it / Slay it / Rip it up / Kill it: To make turns in powder on a snowboard. The terms sound aggressive and are usually said with aggression but they really just refer to the tracks a snowboarder leaves behind her in the snow: like a long, lazy "S" traced in butter.

Moving sidewalk: An easy run.

Snowboarder pile-up: In the trees when the terrain flattens out, snowboarders wary of tree wells tend to follow each other's lines. If one person falls and the way is too tight or it happens too suddenly, the others will pile up behind him.

Tree well: When snow falls in a forest it catches on the trees' limbs. This creates a depression, or well, around the trunk of a tree. Tree wells can be five feet deep or more.

SFD: Straight fuckin' down. An answer to the question, "Which way from here?"

Chinese downhill: Usually we dropped in one at a time or in pairs, which means we had to negotiate the order of descent; but when the run was wide open and the avalanche danger low, the guide would declare a Chinese downhill (c.f. Hot Dog): everyone dropping in at the same time in a glorious mess.