With Christmas day being the only day forecasted to be clear-skied in the mountains over the next few days, the ma and pa Antrim just having moved to the Pacific Northwest smack dab in the middle of the Cascade Mountains, and their children home for the holidays where else would we all be itching to go?

We head out early to make it to the slopes at the Mt. Baker ski resort, situated between Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan (fun fact: nearby mountains are named Mt. Despair, Mt. Terror, and, closing on a lighter note, Mt. Triumph). The rest of the family packed snacks – trail mix, granola bars, etc… – but I made sure to stash the bread and other sandwich ammunition in my pack for later. The group consisted of ma and pops Antrim, myself, my sister, and Matt. Not only did we pack in my sister and Matt’s snowboards into the car, wich they lugged up to Washington from Southern California, but also the rock now residing on my sister’s left hand – Matt having popped the question the previous day, which my sister answered affirmatively.

I had never been to Washington before this trip and before this I was under the assumption that the Bald Eagle – the American icon – was somehow near extinction. Not so. These things are everywhere: in my parents’ backyard watching my poor little pup with hungry eyes, in the forest spying us on our hikes from atop the trees, diving and catching fish from the wetlands just off the coast. Everywhere. And they are yuuge. On our drive up to Mt. Baker, on a wind-break line of 5 or 6 trees alongside a farm we saw what probably amounted to 100 Bald Eagles perched in the morning cold waiting for the morning stretch of field mice.

My parents dropped us off at the main lodge and took off to the other side of the mountain to put their newly acquired snow shoes to work. I got my snowboard rented and we were off. Very nice print, with a snow-covered fir on it matching the surrounding landscapes of the Pacific Northwest which is covered in firs and cedars.

After a few hours of shredding the gnar and with the sun beginning to go behind the mountains it was clearly time for a sandwich break. Stopping at the top of the chairlift we walked over to the bottom of a steep hill which continued further up and set up shop. Now, it was cold this day, especially on this side of the mountain. The thermometer reading between 15 and 17 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly -9 degrees Celsius) and the sun was yet to be fully behind the mountain. The water in my Camel bak froze and became dead weight after about an hour in and, since they didn’t rent goggles at the lodge and I wasn’t about to buy a new pair, each time we went up the lifts I thought my contact lenses were about to freeze to my eyes. So taking off the gloves to make sandwiches was flirting with frost bite. Worth it.

The base of the hill that we were sitting at was beyond the “ski-area fence” by a few meters and was the starting point for people skiing off-piste on the other side of the valley (at the top of the hill they made a U-turn to the left following the end of the valley and were skiing directly opposite us about 400 meters off). I say this since, just as I had got all the items settled a couple of bozos near us began talking to ski patrol about skiing over there. The ski patrol was saying that unless they had the proper training, transponders, shovels, and knowledge of the area they would not be able to join the others. At the point where the ski patrol pointed out the left and then the right edge of the valley, the latter being where we were sitting, he saw us outside of the ski area and promptly told us to move. Hands wooden with cold I threw everything back in my pack and shimmied under the fence, leaving the board dug into the snow where it was and quickly tore everything out again to re-make the spread after sticking my hands underneath my jacket and shirt to get some feeling back in them. Other skiers and snowboarders coming off the lift having no idea what this idiot with a loaf of bread and bare hands fidgetting with a knife and glass jar on the top of a mountain was doing. Used to it.

For the sandwich I went with an asiago-toasted loaf that I picked up at a nice wine, bread, and coffee shop near my parents’ place. For its innards, I swathed on a healthy covering of mushroom and garlic tapenade, picked up at the same local “general store” as the bread, with some slices of backpack-bruised honeycrisp apple (the best kind), nice slices of Comte cheese (rind-inclusive) which I smuggled over from France just for such an occasion as well as to introduce to my sister, and, to help the apple in complementing the Comte and tapenade, a few bricks of 99% Lindt, which I was also trying to get my sister to enjoy. There was also some snow in there as I lost some hand-sandwich coordination for a bit there.

Couldn’t feel my hands or face, but could definitely taste the delicous sandwich. Fuel for sailing down the fresh powder. All in all a good day boardin’ with the sister and future-sister-husband Matt and on new mountains to boot!