Sweating through three layers of clothing, temples throbbing from last night’s tequila, I set my skis in the classic snowplow V and skid to a halt.

Ahead, the trail is steeper and narrower, the trees closer together. Feeling the forest closing in, I turn and squint back up the hill where my friend Wally leans on his ski poles and stares at me with an expression that says, “You’re out of your mind, why am I following you?”

I’d seen that look many times through assorted escapades all the way back to high school. This detour through the woods on Snowmass Mountain, I know, is pushing the envelope, but there is no retreating now. Turning back in the direction of gravity’s pull, I pause and ponder, what would the Good Doctor prescribe? What would Hunter do?

The answer comes in a rush with the wind through the pines, a voice deep and raucous — or perhaps it’s just the tequila talking:

“When the going gets weird, the weird take off their skis and vamoose.”

And that’s exactly what I do. I take them off and clump down the trail in my cumbersome boots like a long-lost moon walker, at times sinking into pockets of snow thigh deep. It is the safest way out of the forest and back to the adjacent groomed run. It is not, however, the last foray through the pines we will make this day in search of the new gonzo shrine to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Of course not. These ski trips of the past few years are way more than vacations; they are adventures. And the mere fact that we’ve never before gone off piste like this won’t deter us.

This has been off the rational course from the start. I’d never even skied until just before turning 49, when I ventured solo to Lake Tahoe, rented a pair of skis, hopped on the lift at Heavenly Mountain and worked my way onto the intermediate runs in three hours.

Born of mid-life crisis, skiing has become a most rewarding obsession. The year after Tahoe, I reconnected with Wally Rutherford, a high school buddy I’d lost track of for 20 years, at Whistler-Blackcomb in British Columbia. Since then we have traveled to Vail, Colo.; Park City, Utah; and this year, Aspen, Colo. We have skied 17 resorts, most of which can be found on Ski magazine’s annual list of the primo places to ski.

But the Great Snow Leopard that has been calling me out is Aspen.

It is more than the allure of the four mountain resorts within 30 minutes, all accessible on one lift ticket. It is the mystique of Hunter S. Thompson.

Long before I considered strapping on skis, before I became aware of Aspen as a playground of the rich and famous, it was the funky little town where in 1970 Thompson ran for sheriff on the “Freak Power” ticket, and narrowly lost. It was near his mountain hideaway of Owl Farm where he composed those off-the-wall narratives for Rolling Stone that cast journalism in a whole different light.

It was in an airport on the way to skiing in Utah that I learned of Thompson’s suicide in February 2005. It is fitting that our first day of skiing at Aspen is the anniversary of his last gonzo surprise. The feeling is reinforced by the occasional avalanche blast in the distance as we romp in six inches of fresh powder on Aspen Mountain.

The spirit of Hunter Thompson is alive in these hills … somewhere. We have no idea how elusive it will prove to be.

Aspen has always been a confluence of contradictions and conflicting forces. From silver mining boom to bust in the late 1800s. From cultural and intellectual center to skiing mecca. From the push to develop to the pull to preserve. From a haven for misfits and free spirits, not unlike the Florida Keys, to a high-altitude outpost of the stars.

Even if you don’t recognize any celebs under all the layers of winter wraps, their presence can be felt as you approach the town on Highway 82 and pass tiny Pitkin County Airport, where executive jets are massed like so many SUVs around a modern shopping mall.

Wonder which one belongs to Costner? Could that one taxiing on the runway be taking Ed Bradley to a 60 Minutes assignment, or perhaps it’s Eisner heading off on business? Do Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell each have their own jet or can they be seen peering out of adjacent portals making faces at Ringo as they vie for takeoff?

And what about Jack? We’ll get to Nicholson later.

The artsy, quirky side of Aspen is just as evident. The Sunday we roll into town, X-artist Yutaka Sone directs the rolling of a pair of colorful, 8-foot-square dice down the same halfpipe at Buttermilk Mountain that was the site of the Winter X Games a few weeks before. The dice come up 4 and 2.

Space in the hotels and eateries can be as tough to find in July, during the Aspen Music Festival, as at the height of ski season. If you want mental stimulation, you can take in a lecture at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies or the Aspen Center for Physics. Or if you want to give mind and body a rest, you can catch a set of ol’ cowboy Dan at laid-back McStorlie’s Pub.

It’s debatable whether Aspen is the best ski destination in America, but this is certain: It is the priciest we have encountered. I wasn’t sure I could afford the trip until Google led me to the Tyrolean Lodge. At $165 a night for a surprisingly large room with two queen beds, a spare twin and a kitchenette, the Tyrolean is easily the best deal in Aspen.

As soon as we pull up to the quaint three-story building at Main and First streets, and see the giant eagle sculpture constructed of chrome car bumpers on the roof, I know we have the perfect base for our quest.

The eagle is the handiwork of the late Lou Wille, who opened the lodge in 1970. From old black-and-white photos, including one showing Wille and his wife, Lynne, standing next to another large sculpture of a pig, the original proprietor is an intriguing character. Couldn’t help wondering whether he voted for Thompson for sheriff.

Hunter Thompson shot himself in his kitchen just before 6 p.m. on Feb. 20, 2005. One year later, at about the same time, Wally and I are on Highway 82 looking for the canyon road leading to the Woody Creek Tavern, where Thompson often ate, held court and raised a ruckus. We notice Woody Creek on a small sign by a turnoff so inconspicuous it can’t be right. A few miles later, we get directions in a convenience store from a clerk with a heavy accent who directs us, I think, to an exit as unlikely as the first.

We’re on a dark, narrow, winding road in a snow flurry, and Wally is giving me that raised-eyebrow look. Can this be the way to a legendary hangout?

Remember, we’re on the trail of HST. And when the going gets weird … we press on. Just as I’m getting flashes of spending the night stuck in a snow bank in the middle of nowhere, there are lights ahead and the famous Woody Creek Tavern appears like an oasis in a peyote vision. The distinctive wild boar on the roof confirms it. This is the place.

The thing about Woody Creek, it isn’t really a town. No traffic light. No crossroads. Just two bumps and a dip in the road. Or is it two dips and a bump? There is a post office and a trailer park.

Due to our roundabout route on Upper River Road, the Woody Creek Store next to the tavern has closed and we miss out on a chance to pick up a copy of The Woody Creeker, a literary magazine co-edited by Thompson’s widow, Anita, which debuted that morning. Though we’re able to get a table at the tavern without a wait, which is unusual.

The tavern, as the sign on the outside wall says, is “a place that takes pride in being a tad quirky.” Among the artifacts covering the walls is a sailfish with a fake human leg sticking out of its mouth. There are plenty of Thompson photos and mementoes, notably a poster by artist Ralph Steadman commemorating the HST Memorial Blastoff when the author’s ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 15-story tower on the sixth-month anniversary of his death.

We discover why the tavern is packed for dinner night after night. The cilantro-spiced chicken dinner special is so tender and mouth-watering I forget to ask the waitress if the Stetson on the stuffed buffalo head in the corner may have belonged to Thompson. Or, perhaps, the lapse has more to do with the fresh-squeezed lime-juice margaritas that Rachael Ray called her “favorite margarita made on U.S. soil.”

As we are finishing a piece of Key lime pie to rival any in Florida, a large group at a nearby table raises glasses for a toast. I reach for mine, thinking — to Hunter? Instead, a jolly fellow proclaims, “To a great powder day! That’s what we’re here for.”

A couple of blocks from the Tyrolean Lodge stand two houses that are at the center of a controversy. (It is the lead story in the local newspaper one morning.) The boxy green, two-story on the left belongs to Jack Nicholson — “his guest house,” according to a resident of the street. Nicholson has lodged an objection with the city about his next-door neighbor’s plan to build a tunnel from his basement to a stairway leading to a new swimming pool, claiming it is in conflict with an environmentally sensitive area.

The flap is a reminder that despite its high profile and highfalutin inhabitants, Aspen is very much a small town.

“What’s remarkable is you’ve got all this money and all this intellectual power here,” says David Trombetta. “You have people come to discuss the world’s problems, and they can’t even get the snow plowed.” Trombetta, a longtime resident, recalls watching a motorcade bearing Margaret Thatcher and the first President Bush pass by on Main Street. “You should be able to build an ideal community here. It isn’t that. There’s a lot of petty politics.”

Trombetta glances out the window and smiles. “Still, you can walk outside and it’s a beautiful powder day. That’s what built this place. That’s the equalizer.”

Aspen’s notorious traffic congestion, which has produced much debate but no solution, is much in evidence. But give credit to the Aspen Skiing Company; they make it easy for visitors to get to and from their four resorts with an efficient fleet of free shuttle buses. The best feature of the Tyrolean is that there’s a bus stop at your doorstep.

Having conquered Aspen Mountain, where the ski boom began after World War II, we head the next morning to Snowmass, which, true to its name, is so massive it will take two days to do it justice. It is here that we discover aptly named Sheer Bliss, a meandering intermediate ski run through widely spaced pines over a soft blanket of fresh snow. On a windless morning, with sunlight reflecting off fluffy snow falling from a solitary cloud, the sensation is that of being inside a giant snow globe.

The morning is so idyllic — so not gonzo — that when we stop for lunch at the Ullhof restaurant, it’s a surprise to see above the bar a poster with the distinctive red, double-thumbed fist atop a dagger clutching a peyote button and bearing the Thompson epitaph: “It never got weird enough for me.”

It isn’t until later that we learn we have spent the day on the wrong side of the mountain. Returning to Aspen we discover a hilarious account in The Aspen Times about the shrine to HST that a group of locals assembled the previous morning amid the pines and aspens next to a Snowmass run with the fitting name of Gunner’s View. According to the news story, laminated photos and articles and artifacts such as a lizard adorned with multicolored jewels were hung from tree branches. Thompson’s widow reportedly donated some items and she was quoted as saying, “I think it’d be great to have a spot to go and smoke a joint and read something about Hunter, think about him.”

That article would serve as our treasure map. The site was described as “hidden, but not too concealed.” We would find it, I was quite sure. But as in many Thompson tales, the mission is a mirage. Personal interests come first. We have two more mountains to ski before we can return to Snowmass.

Both are reflective of their names. Buttermilk, despite being the venue for the X Games, is smooth and mild, ideal for kids and novices. Aspen Highlands is steep and thrilling. Both prove enjoyable, but the spirit of HST beckons from Snowmass.

The memory of Thompson invokes mixed feelings. A letter-to-the-editor labels his suicide cowardly and decries his advocacy of drugs and alcohol use. Be assured, HST was no role model.

On the chairlift after our first unsuccessful search for the shrine, we tell Stan Karr about our quest. A resident of the area for more than 30 years, Karr once played on a softball team managed by Thompson.

“Hunter would yell at the other team. He’d get them ticked off and they’d beat the hell out of us. We’d go, ‘Jeez, Hunter, don’t do that.’ He was a s— disturber.

“He used to have a golf tournament he called the Polish Open. Hunter would come with a shotgun in his golf bag. You’d have to drink a shot at every hole. It was wild.”

Karr wishes us luck and we choose another path into the forest to the left of Gunner’s View as the news story directed. Earlier we’d focused on an area near a picnic table that was marked on the trail map by an icon that resembled a typewriter. I thought it was an omen.

We are getting the hang of skiing among the trees, but the forest is a labyrinth of skier tracks and false trails. With hope fading, I hail a ski instructor who appears as a Pied Piper with bunny ears on his hat and five young students in tow. This is the first he’s heard about the shrine.

The students are curious. He explains that Thompson was a famous author who died, and describes what we are seeking.

One girl speaks up: “Oh, my sister found it with her teacher yesterday.”

“Did she say where it was?”

“Somewhere in the forest.”

Departing Aspen, we make another detour to Woody Creek and finally get inside the store adjacent to the tavern. It is in a 1940s log cabin. It is the official HST headquarters. Here you can buy a T-shirt with the gonzo symbol or one of Thompson’s books. You can have coffee, a pastry and get your picture taken in a 1957 photo booth.

Unfortunately, they are sold out of the debut issue of The Woody Creeker. Also absent is store owner George Stranahan, a friend of Thompson’s and one of the leaders of the Woody Creek Caucus, which the previous day approved a resolution in opposition to the Patriot Act.

Driving back to the highway on the portion of the canyon road we bypassed on our first visit, I lament that HST has been giving us the slip all week. At that moment a song rarely aired on commercial radio begins to play. It’s Warren Zevon singing Lawyers, Guns and Money, a bonafide gonzo anthem.

Suddenly it becomes clear. You don’t have to find the shrine to feel the spirit. In these mountains, we are all snow leopards.

IF YOU GO: ASPEN, COLO.

Getting there

Flying into tiny Aspen/Pitkin County Airport is not a good idea unless you’re an A-lister arriving on a private jet. Commercial flights are limited and expensive. To avoid the 220-mile drive from Denver to Aspen, I flew Delta to Eagle County Regional Airport, near Vail. It’s 70 miles to Aspen via Interstate-70 and State Highway 82, which took less than 1 1/2 hours. It also provided an opportunity on the return trip to stop for a relaxing soak at historic Glenwood Springs in the world’s largest hot springs pool (), 40 miles north of Aspen, and to tack on a bonus day of skiing at Beaver Creek.

Getting around

The traffic and parking situation in and around Aspen can be horrendous, but getting to the ski resorts is a breeze. Free shuttle buses run between town and the four mountains from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. There is also a free shuttle service within Aspen until 2 a.m.

Lodging

The Tyrolean Lodge, a quaint three-story inn with 16 rooms on Main Street, was clearly the most reasonable accommodation in pricey Aspen. During ski season, prices range from $100 to $170 a night. We paid $165 a night for a spacious mid-level room with two queen beds, one twin and a kitchenette. The Tyrolean ( 888-220-3809) remains in the family of original proprietor Lou Wille, who opened it in 1970. Wille, a sculptor, created the distinctive chrome car bumper eagle that stands on the chimney.

Aspen’s most famous lodging is the Hotel Jerome, a restored Victorian gem at Main and Mill streets that dates to the silver boom in 1889. The Jerome ( 800-331-7213) is listed as a National Register Landmark. It’s a showcase of antiques and also houses the J-Bar, a popular aprs-ski hangout. However, you’ll pay for all that history and luxury with rates during prime ski season starting at $635 a night. Also, beware, you may find yourself sharing a room with a ghost.

The Little Nell ( 888-843-6355) is Aspen’s only Mobil Five-Star and AAA Five Diamond hotel. Situated at the base of Aspen Mountain by the Silver Queen Gondola, it is the only true ski-in/ski-out hotel in town. Rates during ski season start at $685.

Eating

The Woody Creek Tavern, Hunter Thompson’s renowned hangout a few miles outside Aspen, is a must stop for lunch or dinner, or for one of the highly acclaimed fresh-squeezed lime juice margaritas. You can peruse the photos, artifacts and pithy sayings that cover the walls while you wait for a table. It’s worth the wait as the food is excellent, notably the Mexican fare.

For barbecue, The Hickory House, 730 W. Main St., serves baby back ribs ($18 a rack) that have won numerous national competitions, in a comfortable, down-home atmosphere.

To kick back with a beer and a burger, try Bentley’s at the Wheeler (328 E. Hyman Ave.), a Victorian-style pub that has a bar made from an old English bank counter.

For breakfast, the Wienerstube Restaurant (633 E. Hyman Ave.) is a Bavarian treat and was featured on Rachael Ray’s $40 a Day, but I preferred the low-key Main Street Bakery Cafe (201 E. Main St.), where the locals start the day.

On the mountains, you can’t go wrong with any of the cafeteria-style lodges. For something different, try Aspen Highlands’ Cloud Nine Alpine Bistro, which serves gourmet meals at 10,740 feet overlooking the scenic Maroon Bells. Or after skiing, take a snowcat to dinner at the Burlingame Cabin on Snowmass for a family-style dinner with live entertainment.

-CRAIG DAVIS

Craig Davis can be reached at