Lugging back-country skis and poles on our shoulders, my son Tom and I trudged along the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway at Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park, searching for a section of road that had not been plowed.

“Just park your car at the gate and keep walking. Eventually you’ll get to a place where you can ski,” a ranger at the park entrance told us when we drove up that morning from our campsite near Klamath Lake. Naively, we believed him.

Tom and I were in the first of a two-week, circuitous journey through the Northwest earlier this month that began in Salt Lake City, Utah, and ended in Seattle, Washington, taking us to some of the most scenic and celebrated places on the continent. In the previous few days we had run along and swum in California’s Lake Tahoe, then backpacked and camped in the shadow of Yosemite’s Half Dome before steering north to Oregon.

At Crater Lake our skiing was not deterred by a lack of snow – 25-foot drifts towered over us in places, and glistening expanses of white extended as far as the eye could see at this elevation of more than 7,000 feet in early May.

The problem was skiing over roadside drifts and then plunging down steep embankments that on one side led to a dense forest and the other to a 2,148-foot-deep caldera that was formed some 7,700 years ago by the collapse of the Mount Mazama volcano.

At the bottom of the caldera crystal clear Crater Lake spreads over 23 square miles, one of the most magnificent natural sites in all of America.

Tom and I did not fancy our skiing options – bushwhacking through evergreens, or possibly tumbling into the caldera and plunging into the 1,949-foot-deep lake, the deepest in the United States – so we traipsed on asphalt for nearly two hours, hoping to find snow-covered pavement.

“Why did they go to the trouble of plowing the blankety-blank road and then block it off?” I griped.

Tom, who has worked as a back-country ski guide in Colorado, was suitably confident to make a short foray into a field where the drifts were less formidable, but I decided to play it safe.

By late afternoon, though, when we reached Watchman Peak, which rises more than 8,000 feet, it was apparent the pavement would go on and on and on.

“That’s it!” I exclaimed. “Let’s head back – but first, I don’t care, I came all this way, I’m putting on my damned skis.”

For about 100 yards I carefully picked my way along the side of the road away from the treacherous caldera. I felt great for 30 seconds.

Then, as if on cue, the skies darkened and a rumble of thunder reverberated.

Tom and I looked at each other. With no shelter for miles this was no time to fool around.

I hastily unsnapped my skis and we hustled back toward our distant car, parked on the other side of a locked gate.

“Oh well, at least we can say we skied at Crater Lake,” I said.

We initially contemplated pitching our tent in the snow just outside the park and trying to ski the next day, but a gloomy weather forecast persuaded us to abandon Crater Lake and move on to our next adventures: kayaking off the Oregon Coast and in the Columbia River Gorge, and hiking on Mount Saint Helens, after a short stop in the running Mecca of Eugene.

Tom and I managed to run nearly every day to break up long hours in the car, including one extensive ramble in celebration of his 28th birthday. I served as Tom’s support crew, driving ahead for 5 miles at a stretch, and then jogging back and forth for a few miles until he showed up. After Tom refueled with water and energy bars we repeated the process.

In the end, Tom covered 28 miles, including a 2,000-foot climb over a mountain pass; I probably loped a quarter of that distance between car shuttles.

On a gloriously warm sunny morning in Eugene, we had a couple hours to kill before meeting friends Mike and Margie for lunch, so Tom and I pulled into Alton Baker Park not far off Interstate 5. After parking our car we spotted a runner stretching his muscles.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find the Prefontaine Trail?” I asked.

“You’re standing right at the start!” he replied.

The 4-mile, woodchip-covered path, serves as a memorial to University of Oregon running legend and 1972 Olympian Steve Prefontaine, who died in a 1975 car crash. After our run we jumped into the Willamette River, and then dried off in the sun until our lunch with Mike and Margie.

It was a happy reunion – they had put Tom up during his 2,000-plus-mile bike ride a few years ago – and the afternoon capped off perfectly when Mike took us to watch a meet at the fabled Hayward Field, one of the world's best-known track and field stadiums that will host the U.S. Olympic trials later this summer.

It was tempting to spend more time in Eugene, but the Oregon coast beckoned. We climbed into Tom’s car – loaded with skis, snowshoes, a kayak, camping gear, and a guitar and mandolin; all the equipment he will need when starting his new job as a kayak guide on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula – and plugged in The Grateful Dead on his iPod.

We drove toward the setting sun as the song “Truckin’” played:

“Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street

Chicago, New York, Detroit and it's all on the same street

Your typical city involved in a typical daydream

Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.”

This is the second installment in a series chronicling Tom and Steve’s excellent adventures in the Northwest. Last week focused on backpacking at California's Yosemite National Park. Next week: Kayaking in the Pacific surf and Columbia River Gorge; and hiking on Mount Saint Helens.