On the southern edge of Packwood, Washington, past where the suburbs slip into the foothills of the Cascades, my partner, T, spotted a string of fairy lights faint on the horizon. 鈥淵ou want to stop for a beer?鈥 he asked. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not like we鈥檙e in a rush.鈥 He was right. We were on a ski road-trip loop from Seattle with a week to burn and no plan other than a list of resorts to check out. I finished the slice of takeout pizza growing cold in my hand as he pulled the van up to Packwood Brewing Company.
In the morning we would wake up in the parking lot of White Pass, a mountain we鈥檇 be exploring for the first time. But for now, we grabbed pints and headed toward the fireplace, where we sat, sipped our drinks, paged through books, and planned our day.
Sometimes, in the scramble of tracking storms, finding lodging, and coordinating schedules, I forget that skiing can be the least remarkable element of a ski trip. Often, the parts I remember aren鈥檛 the floaty first tracks or the rail-to-rail groomer arcs. They鈥檙e the moments in between: goofy 颅lift-ride 颅sing-alongs, apr猫s conversations with 颅strangers who 颅become friends, beers and books on the back porch of a backwoods brewery. They鈥檙e the things I would have missed if we had rushed along鈥攊f we hadn鈥檛 pulled over.
I am not inherently good at slowing down or diverting from the plan. I often speed through towns and lift lines. Last winter changed that. Amid fear and heartbreak, COVID-19 slammed the brakes on so many kinds of forward motion. In my life, there were no flights to foreign powder-chasing adventures, no meetups with friends in the Wasatch or the Wallowas. Instead, T and I brainstormed smaller, closer plans. We hit the road in our van.
From our house in Seattle, we鈥檇 drive toward the Cascades or into the Olympics with a loose agenda for the weekend. The day after Christmas, we wound through the burn scar of the Beachie Creek fire to the Hoodoo ski area and finished the day in Sisters, Oregon, at Boone Dog Pizza with the best food-truck slice of my life. In February, I watched a friend鈥檚 toddler figure out French fries. I found a new favorite parking-lot shower facility (Mount Bachelor) and a preferred place to dip in the Deschutes River down the hill from those showers. Time expanded as the miles slowed down. I took in more鈥攖hings I might never have experienced if I hadn鈥檛 given in to the baggy timeline of a road trip.
Now that I鈥檓 fully vaccinated, I am 颅tentatively planning bigger ski trips for the coming winter. Yes, I鈥檓 excited about heading to the spiny mountains of western Canada. But I鈥檓 also thinking about the hot springs, tiny towns, and secret stashes I鈥檝e yet to discover along the way.