When the Rainbow Hits the White: A Love Letter to Winter Rendezvous
We usually come to the mountains for the quiet. We come to Stowe for the hushed reverence of the pines, the isolation of the notch, and the monochrome palette of grey sky and white snow. But this week, the mountains were not quiet. And the palette was anything but monochrome.
For the last five days, Mark and I have been immersed in the 45th Winter Rendezvous, and as we wrap up this week, I am left with a feeling that is hard to articulate but impossible to ignore. It is a lump in the throat—a profound, overwhelming sense of gratitude.
To the LGBTQ+ community that descended on Stowe this week: You showed up.
And you didn’t just arrive; you arrived with a force that changed the very atmosphere of this valley. You brought sequins to the lift lines. You brought drag to the powder. You brought a fierce, radiant joy that cut through the January chill like a laser.
There is something revolutionary about a Pride festival in the dead of winter. It is easy to celebrate when the sun is shining and the parades are marching down city streets. It is another thing entirely to carve out a space for ourselves on the side of a frozen mountain. To stand at the top of the oversized Spruce Peak lift, look around, and see hundreds of us—goggles reflecting rainbows, flags cape-wrapped around ski suits, laughter echoing off the hardpack—is to witness a miracle of visibility.
We call it a "Rendezvous," but it felt more like a reclamation. For many of us, growing up, sports locker rooms and rural towns were not safe spaces. They were places where we dimmed our light to survive. But this week? This week, we turned the volume all the way up.
I watched you "show out" in every sense of the phrase. I saw it at the pool parties, where body positivity wasn't a slogan, but a lived reality. I saw it on the slopes, where beginners were cheered on with the same fervor as the experts. I saw it in the lodges, where we didn’t have to code-switch or look over our shoulders before holding our partner’s hand.
Mark and I have stood in many crowds, but standing with you all this week felt different. It felt like an exhalation we didn’t know we were holding.
This event is a reminder that our community is not just a demographic; we are a life force. We are resilient enough to weather the storms, and we are fabulous enough to make the storm look good while we do it.
Thank you, Winter Rendezvous, for the party, yes. But more than that, thank you for the warmth. You reminded us that home isn’t just a place with a roof; it’s anywhere we gather, unapologetically, together.
Until next year, keep showing out. The world needs your color.
