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I’m about to climb on a historic artifact—an old-fashioned ski lift chair that is both winsomely slow and troublingly fast. The fast part comes when the chair swings around the bottom wheel and aims for the would-be occupant’s knees (that’s me) lickety-split. The solution is a lift attendant—“lifty,” to the skiing cognoscenti—who grabs the device and slows it down while I sit.

And here at Loup Loup Ski Bowl, in north-central Washington, this lifty is a silver-haired gent who looks quite familiar.

“Say, didn’t you serve me muffins in the coffee shop this morning?” I ask as the lift carts me uphill. That’s the slow part of the process, which gives Mr. Lifty plenty of time to call after me: “I’m a two-career professional,” he explains. “Baker and ski-lift engineer.”

Charming as that is, it’s only one of the many small pleasures to be found at Loup Loup and a dozen other community ski hills around the Northwest. From British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley to Oregon’s Wallowas, local day-use ski areas offer homespun novelties instead of towering statistics.

At Loup Loup, for instance, the total vertical drop is 1,240 feet, the 10 runs (that’s barely a closet at Whistler) have names like “Hugh’s” and “Volunteer,” and the lifts have no name at all. No “Knee Splinter” run or “Grizzly Dinner” gondola here, just Lift A. That’s the one I’m on. I step off at the top and turn my skis into a black diamond run called Bulldog, which offers a merry, rolling, intermittently steep jaunt through a spruce glade. It’s appealing enough to call me back up two more times; then I head into the lodge for a break, which consists of sitting by the huge river-rock fireplace, shedding my boots and propping my feet up on the raised hearth before a lovely fire of ponderosa pine. A bowl of chili, served up by a local matron named Betty, and 15 minutes later I’m closer to a nap than a jump turn.
To say such places are laid-back is understating their appeal, because that makes it sound like the skiing lacks jazz. What it lacks, more exactly, is threat, and those who find life dull without that stay away from local ski hills. While there may be no Peak-to-Creek, the longest advanced intermediate run in North America (that’s at Whistler), Loup Loup’s Bulldog doesn’t require a major expedition to ski it one, two, three times, learning the run better as I go, enjoying the wide open spaces. I don’t have to dodge hotshots barreling down at warp speed (nor do they have to decide whether to dodge me) and the shiniest vehicle in the parking lot is a blue Dodge pickup, not a yellow Porsche.

At Anthony Lakes, a delightful small area in Oregon’s northeastern Elkhorn Mountains, the area’s Nordic circuit rounds its namesake lakes, and I can spend the whole day in light tracked snow under a powder sky with rented equipment for $30.
At Mount Hood Meadows, on the east side of Hood, my wife leaps onto a run so mellow I can literally ski with my eyes closed but, no, Mr. Ski Patrol, I would never really do that. Moseying along, making wide turns so I can look over my shoulder at the towering fastness of the mountain above, I hear the strains of a Swedish folk song; it’s Leslie, so relaxed she’s singing.

At 49 Degrees North, an hour up from Spokane, there’s been a fresh 8-inch snowfall, and conditions are so forgiving I lead Leslie down an expert run called Roller Coaster which is exactly as advertised. “That was a black diamond run?” she marvels. “I skied a black diamond?” Yep, she did. Thoughtfully.

At Mount Baldy, up in BC, the new high-speed quad lift is called “Sugarlump,” which is an accurate description of the amiable auxiliary knob it serves, and of its rolling intermediate runs. On the main face, beneath the main chair, a run called “Rock Star” is an easygoing black diamond on which I carve wide turns between gnarled timberline grandfather trees barely 25 feet tall.

At Crystal Mountain, farther north still in BC’s Okanagan (same name as the Crystal by Rainier, different mountain, snow and ethos), I peer down from my perch on another old-fashioned double-chair and spy what I think are even more historic artifacts—yep, there’s a fellow on skis with 1960s cable bindings. They’re Kneissls, which you can’t even get on this continent any more, but I briefly had a pair back in 1970 that were longer than the average oil tanker. I bump into the fellow in the lift line (such as it is—90 seconds) a few runs later and can’t help but ask about his skis.

“Don’t tell me you’ve had those for 40 years?” He grins. “Found ‘em in the back of my garage the other day. Thought it’d be fun to try ‘em out, eh?” Believe me, best to try such things at a place like Crystal, where a crowd is two skiers in a hundred yards, and black diamond runs are no more wicked than banana cream pie.

Don’t get me wrong—I love Whistler, and Bachelor, and Steamboat, and all the other big mountains where I have to crane my head way, way back to see the top, and a black diamond run might take my breath away. But variety is what lends any enterprise depth, and I heartily recommend a break from the $85 ski ticket at places where the afternoon lift attendant is a guy named Mac who started the day baking marionberry muffins, and the daily tab is $35. All these places offer excellent snow, mostly nonexistent lift lines, a refreshing low-key attitude, and best of all, local character.