NO REST FOR THE WICKED

or the second time that night, we followed strangers to a bar. Two Australian women getting off their shift at the chic tapas restaurant 21 Steps invited us to a dive of a club called Moe Joe’s. Inside, we lost them when we veered off to let a girl in a Level 1 tall-T paint our faces with neon tribal designs that pulsed under the black lights. I tapped into a part of myself that only exists outside the continental U.S. and after midnight—a phenomenon I call my Third Wind.

Gyrating on the DJ stage, some girls were wearing beanies, still in their long underwear, while others danced in outfits that more resembled underwear underwear. Shouting over house music with too much bass, people in the crowd greeted each other with, “Where did you ski today?” and “What time are we going up tomorrow?” in any number of accents. Skiers from all over the world come to work and play in Whistler for one thing—$4 Jaeger bombs, of course—but also for a chance to get down as hard as they ski, surrounded by a sea of like-minded strangers and mountains