KLMNO

Travel

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022. SECTION F EZ EE

LIFESTYLE

Going on a family

vacation? Here’s how to

plan one that everyone

will enjoy. F2

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted travel domestically and around the world. You will find the latest developments at washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/

BY MICHAEL BENANAV

While traveling through parts
of North Africa and the Middle
East 20-plus years ago, I experi-
enced a moment of dread well
known to travelers through the
ages: Just a few weeks into the trip,
which would last nearly seven
months, I finished the two books I
had brought with me.
At the time, I was taking Arabic
classes and renting a room from a
man in Giza, Egypt. Perusing his
sparsely stocked bookshelf, I no-
ticed an old hard-bound edition of
T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of
Wisdom.” “Take it, take it,” he in-
sisted. A foreign friend had left it
behind, he said, and it was of no
use to him; although he spoke
English fluently, he couldn’t read
it at all.
Among the many things that
struck me about this remarkable
work were Lawrence’s descrip-
tions of Wadi Rum, in Jordan. He
wrote of a wall of rock “sheering in
like a thousand-foot wave towards
the middle of the valley,” of sharp
hills forming a “massive rampart

of redness,” of sandstone domes

and crags and “parallel parapets”

that “ran forward in an avenue for

miles.” It was, he declared, an “ir-

resistible place,” a “processional

way greater than imagination. ...

Our little caravan grew self-con-

scious, and fell dead quiet, afraid

and ashamed to flaunt its small-

ness in the presence of the stupen-

dous hills. Landscapes, in child-

hood’s dream, were so vast and

silent.”

Though I had no plans to visit

Jordan, mostly because I had very

few plans at all, I knew I needed to

see this place for myself. After

traveling through most of Egypt, I

crossed the Sinai Peninsula by

public minivan, then the Red Sea

by ferry. Once in Wadi Rum, a 4x4

driver dropped me in the middle

of the desert that Lawrence had, if

anything, undersold. Armed with

a map, some local advice and my

background as a wilderness guide,

I spent a week trekking alone over

salmon-hued dunes and among

monumental massifs, from one

hidden watering hole to the next,

SEE BOOKS ON F4

On trips, paper books

and pleasant plot twists

BY JEN ROSE SMITH

T

emperatures on a recent Vermont morning hinted, I thought, at

the wisdom of staying indoors. In farm valleys framed by low

peaks, frigid steam billowed from the surfaces of half-frozen

rivers. Frost bloomed across the roadway. In the colder hollows, the

car’s outside thermostat registered 20 degrees below zero.

But reaching down past the passenger seat, I just shifted my plastic

ski boots closer to the heater vent. In the back of the car was the bag I

packed for a three-day, northbound journey along the longest back-

country ski trail in North America.

The 311-mile Catamount Trail runs north-south along the length of

Vermont, following the rounded spine of the Green Mountains between

Massachusetts and the Canadian border. Its 31 sections can be skied as

individual day trips or linked up for a weeks-long, continuous journey

that only a few hardy skiers have completed. I’d chosen the rolling

terrain of Sections 13, 14 and 15 at the middle of the state, with plans to

overnight in trail-side inns.

Once I’d chosen my route, I was glued to the weather forecast.

Despite bone-chilling temperatures, Vermont had received little snow

by early January. While many ski resorts use machines to produce their

own snow, backcountry skiing depends on ample quantities of the

natural version.

“It’s very challenging,” said Catamount Trail creator Steve Bushey.

Even the northernmost parts of New England get less snow than they

SEE VERMONT ON F6

The inns and outs of

Vermont’s backcountry

Three sections, three days:

Skiing along the lengthy Catamount Trail

JEN ROSE SMITH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Backcountry skiers on the Catamount Trail in Vermont face frequent uphill

climbs in the rolling terrain of the Green Mountains. The 311-mile trail

runs north-south along the length of the state and has 31 sections.

NAVIGATOR

When the U.S. Embassy

can help Americans

traveling abroad —

and when it can’t. F2