A white-haired, dapper Steve Devoto, who was to lead the ski trip tomorrow, arrived well past dinnertime. He settled into one of the pillowed wooden settees and began telling me about routine visits to this place he had been enjoying since 1955. Then another man of the same description, somewhat younger, entered the room.

"Hey Roger," Steve greeted, "are you missing a black strap off your pack?"

"Yeah, I am," Roger confirmed, with a look of wonder.

"I brought it to three paddling classes but I haven't seen you," Steve said.

Roger thought back and concluded that Steve had been carrying it for a year, only to learn that Steve had left it in the car.

"I wasn't going to bring that thing up here," Steve said, referring to the hike to the lodge's front door.

"It must weigh a gram," Roger retorted.

Steve laughed then Roger launched into black strap memories.

"That thing saved Jean," he began, recalling a snow shoe trip in blizzard conditions, during which an elderly man had life-threatening snow shoe issues.

Several decades of National Geographic Magazines yellowed the shelves amongst log books that document visitors' adventures in the area...almost a century-worth. Wilderness reference books, novels, and adventure books crammed the many other shelves. A magazine rack gave clues to the interests of the discriminating visitors to this unique place. Sierra Magazine, of course, but also AARP's mag, On Earth, Alaska, Mother Jones, Utne, Astronomy, Americas and the New Yorker.

A photocopied Eulogy of Justice Clair Sprague Tappaan (1878-1932) tacked to a bulletin board in the hall gave clues to the nomenclature of the place. It described "Tap's" love for the mountain wilderness as well as "his dramatization of the jovial spirit."

In contrast to recently remodeled community bathrooms, our beds that night reminded me of a college zero-budget tour of Europe. Five bunks creatively installed in our narrow room offered mattresses atop patched springs obsolesced by recycled plywood. Pillows with "you put 'em on" pillowcases atop were the only other offerings.

A warped board-slash-shelf along the opposite wall could almost be reached without getting out of bed. Hooks, a two-foot hanger dowel, a twisted hanger and a dusty mirror completed our accommodations. A back door provided the fire escape I was instinctively looking for.

In the morning I would find the door led to a back porch overlooking a sledder's dream: A gentle slope of mature forest with no underbrush, encircling an open meadow.

This lodge, the location of the first mechanized ski lift a rope tow to the top of Signal Peak continues to catalog history.

Among guests I met over the weekend were an "information activist" from Berkeley (still not quite sure what this means) as well as a retired photographer who described what it was like to work with Ansel Adams in his lab.

And my husband's ski adventure? The trip leader had forgotten his food (but remembered the bottle of wine.)

"Lots of people on the trail," he reported, including a team of search and rescue snow mobilers on a training exercise.

Post-trip email chatter included mention of snowshoe hare tracks, brilliant stars and kudos to a brave tenter. The wildlife adventure I experienced inside the lodge was more extraordinary than my husband's outside it.

Editor's Note: For more information about Clair Tappaan Lodge or its programs, visit ctl.sierraclub.org. or call 1-800-679-6775. Maile Field is a freelance writer living in Northern California. She can be contacted at maile22@mchsi.com