Celebrating Carnival in Lucerne -- at 5:00 a.m.

Carnival in Lucerne (Luzern) kicks off in the wee hours of the Thursday before Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday.

In Switzerland, the trains run on time -- and Carnival kicks off in the pre-dawn hours of the Thursday before Mardi Gras (called "Schmotzig Donnschtig," Dirty Thursday), when a boat with sparklers on the gunwhales crosses Lake Lucerne. A mythical figure called Fritschi and his wife, Fritschene, disemark, accompanied by a nanny and a jester named Bajazzo. These characters were known as far back as the mid-15th century.

Imaginatively costumed musicians head for the medieval old town. There, as a cannon signals the time, Fritschi launches Carnival at 5:00 a.m. from the Rathaus (town hall) on a square called Kornmarkt. The narrow old streets and picturesque squares are filled with revelers of all ages, costumed and not, who wander around and celebrate. Food stalls, restuarants and bars open early to fuel the revelers. Bands of masked and costumed musicians, dancers and acrobats roam the Old Town streets. The dominant sound is Guggenmusig, merry oompah music played on such simple instruments as trombones, drums and other percussion instruments. The Fasnacht celebrants continue well into the day -- and would continue doing so until next Tuesday.

The costumes and the masks are phenomenal, both those worn by those who would march in the afternoon parade and onlookers: Mythical characters. Monsters. Monks. Mimes. Clowns. Canadian Mounties. Mountain guides. Men in kilts. Men in drag. Men in shorts. Astronauts. Angels. Devils. Butterflies. Bumblebees. Space aliens. Streetwalkers. Farmers. Farm animals. Soldiers. Sailors. Cowboys. Indians. Policemen. Pirates. Soccer players. Snowmen. Hunters. Prey. Elvises. Princesses. Costumed parents towing costumed toddlers in wagons or pushing them in strollers. Costumed parents pushing disabled youngsters, also costumed, in wheelchairs. Real old people. Young people in old-people costumes. Real babies. Grownups in baby costumes. And the crowd was merry and irreverent but not nasty or ugly. And that in itself is worth noting and celebrating.

My colleagues and I donned rented costumes that seem based on medieval man's garb -- green velvet pants with wide lace-up leather cuffs, white collared shirt that laces up at the neck and sleeves, bright brocade vest and long coat fastened with metal buckles. We wandered from square to square, listened to bands, watched a stage show and stopped at a bar/restaurant for hot schnapps and coffee. All before sunrise.

Switzerland being Switzerland, buses headed for the railroad station squeezed their way through the throngs to stick to their schedule. Right now, I'm in my room at the Hotel Schweizerhof (which has a temporary banner declaring it to be the Fritschihof). It is 10:00 a.m., give or take, local time. Bands have been playing nonstop for five hours. Later this afternoon, I'll head out again for the main Fritschi parade (I guess the early-morning processions were just a warm-up), where Fritschi, Fritschene and the rest parade along the lakefront, through the Old Town and around Löwenplatz and for some reason whose symbolism I don't yet know, fling oranges out to carousing onlookers.

Festivities stretch into the weekend and beyond. Saturday is “Rüüdig.” Monday is "Güdis Määntig" or Fat Monday. What we call by its French name, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), is "Güdis Tseeschtig." Sorry that I won't be here --assuming that I would be sufficiently recovered from today's festivities to keep on partying, Lucerne-style.

Adelboden: Sunshine, Spring Conditions & a Cute Ski Instructor

Spring skiing in January -- with Switzerland's Best-Looking Ski Instructor

The first ski schools in Switzerland were established in Mürren and Wengen, both in Switzerland's Jungfrau region. More quickly followed, and the Swiss Ski School Federation was established 75 years ago. Coincidentally or not, Switzerland Tourism launched a promotion this year to select the best-looking ski instructor in the country. Every member ski school nominated a candidate, and the public was invited to E-vote.

I am currently with a small group of writers, in Adelboden, being shown around by a couple of instructors. While we are the mountain, the younger of the two, 27-year-old Andreas Belser, got a phone call informing him that he had been voted the best-looking ski pro in the land. Word got out quickly, and his phone kept ringing -- a radio station from here, a newspaper from there, it was a small-scale, on-mountain media circus. We weren't regular clients, so he took the calls -- giving quick interviews. It was kind of fun.

It turns out that Andreas I have a few things on common. My son's name is Andrew (different language, same name), who is 25 and who teaches skiing at Purgatory/Durango Mountain Resort in Colorado. It also turns out that Andreas has Boulder in his past. He spent the three months in the fall of 2001, studying English at the International Languge Center at the University of Colorado.

One difference right now is Andreas's Adelboden and Andrew's Purgatory. Here, for today at least, spring has come to Switzerland in January. We skied in warm sunshine, with the morning's hard snow softening to corn as the day progressed. There, Purg reported 22 inches of new snow yesterday. Both snow conditions have their own appeal -- soft Rocky Mountain powder or soft corn snow in the Alps. As long as the ground is white in January, skiers and riders can't go wrong. And since I wasn't skiing with my Andrew, it was fun to ski with Andreas, the best-looking ski instructor in Switzerland.

In Paise of Swiss Fly/Rail Convenience -- and a Caution

The ease of luggage-free intermodal travel in efficient Switzerland.

Swiss International Air Lines wins my heart with its Fly/Rail program. When you check for any SWISS flight, you can check your bags through to any Swiss railway or bus station or even have them delivered directly to your hotel. Having already flown from Denver to Los Angeles for my SWISS flight to Zurich, I was happy that I wouldn't need to deal with my big, heavy rolling duffle and my ski bag on two trains and one Post bus to Adelboden. In fact, I checked my luggage all the way through to my hotel. The cost was just $8 per bag.

Nothing like that exists in the US or elsewhere, but stay with me and imagine a ski trip to Aspen. Imagine flying to Denver, boarding a train directly in the terminal, changing trains say, in Eagle (that's not Amtrak's route, but we're imagining here) and then changing to a bus in Glenwood Springs for Aspen (we're still imagining, so we're pretending here's no airport in Aspen). Now, imagine that you haven't touched your luggage the entire way. And, then, when you're ready to go back home, you can have your bags picked up at your hotel or check them in at the bus station in Aspen, and you won't see them until you reach your final airport. Every connection will be seamless, because 10 minutes between trains or between the train and the bus in Switzerland is ample time.

The other thing that you need to imagine is that those bags won't get lost. I expected that when I arrived in the resort town of Adelboden at around 6:00 p.m., my bags would be on the same bus. They weren't, but since I was in Switzerland, I was confident that they weren't lost either. It's just helpful to know the system. It turns out that there is a cut-off time for the aircraft's arrival in Zurich (ZRH) or Geneva (GVA) in order for bags to make it to small mountain towns the same day. It turned out that in order for me and my bags to have arrived in Adelboden on the same bus, the SWISS flight would had to have landed before noon. We got later, so my bags were slated to arrive the next day -- and they did.

I enthusiastically recommend Fly/Rail, but if you use the service, check with tourist office of you destination to see what the cut-off time is if you need your things at your destination the same day that you arrive. I would not count on every counter agent at every SWISS gateway around the world to have this information at hand, which is the reason I suggest checking with the tourist office at your first destination.

If your flight's scheduled arrival time doesn't make the cut-off for that particular resort, take what you need in a carry-on -- being sure to put liquids and gels (no larger than 3 ounces) in a one-quart plastic zip bag, as the Transportation Security Agency's rules require.

The Internationalization of Switzerland's Airline

Swiss International Air Lines is more cosmopolitan than its predecessor --but just as efficient.

Until the demise of Swissair in October 2001 (having nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks but with terrible financial decisions and surprising accusations of malfeasance by the former airline's management), everything about the national airline of Switzerland was and felt 100 percent Swiss. Its successor, Swiss International Air Lines (which calls itself SWISS in literature and on the aircraft fuselage) is less Swiss and more international.

In the Economy section of the Los Angeles-Zurich flight, I was surprised that the splits of wine were not Fendant and Dole but rather a nameless Australian blend bottled for SWISS, and that the packaged cheese was Tillamook, the butter was Land o' Lakes, the packet of salad dressing was Heinz and the dessert was a brownie from Love & Quiches of Long Island -- of all places. This in the airline of a country known for its cheeses and chocolates. There was a time when only Swiss products were served aboard the national airline of Switzerland, regardless of where the flight originated.

But then, today's SWISS is not 100 percent Swiss. It is part of Germany's Lufthansa Group. But it remains a bastion of Swiss efficiency. The flight not only left LAX on time but actually arrived in ZRH almost an hour ahead of schedule. Perhaps the German and Swiss combination demonstrates the new airline math: punctual + punctual = early. OK. So it was the tailwind -- but it was still pretty impressive!

Ski License Plate in Colorado's Future?

If Colorado Ski Country USA collects enough names, Colorado drivers could get a ski-theme license plate.

Themed license plates that communicate a state's motto (e.g., New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die") or individual vehicle owners' personal beliefs (e.g., "Save the Manatee" on Florida plates). Colorado Ski Country USA is sponsoring a petition effort to win approval by the Colorado Department of Revenue for a "Ski Country USA" plate -- joining plates with such themes as "Firefighter," "Colorado Pioneer," Honorably Discharged Veteran" and "10th Mountain Division." The plate shown here is a prototype design -- but if 3,000 residents register online indicating they would be interested in such a plate, we could be seeing on the road -- hopefully soon.

If might want a plate, you can go to a special website and sign on to indicate your interest. Signing the petition is not a commitment purchase these special plates once they come out. Colorado plates once had "Colorful Colorado" on them. Utah's "Greatest Snow on Earth" find favor among Beehive State skiers and snowboarders. I'd pay extra to have a plate like this on my car -- a snow-worthy Subaru.

The Power of the Blogosphere

MSNBC.COM corrects worst error in recent online travel column; Travel-Babel discovered it.


Last week, I wrote a long post called "A Wealth of Misinformation from a Noted Travel 'Expert'," documenting the appalling errors in an online travel column by a well-known writer on non-ski activities at ski resorts that was published on msnbc.com.

The story of David (me) and Goliath (the columnist) came to mind when I discovered that msnbc.com had removed the most egregious error -- the one describing Nordic Walking a winter activity -- in the badly flawed column. The revised version is better but still remains a poster child for sloppy journalism and lack of editing. I didn't slay Goliath (nor did I want to), but perhaps a ping on the noggin will serve as a wake-up call to him and his editors to be more careful.

Elliott on Finding Cheap Air Fares

Where to get the cheapest air fares -- and why price is not always the only reason to book.

Christopher Elliott, in his debut as a podcaster using the (small) screen name of The Armchair Traveler, provided three suggestions for getting the very lowest air fares. You can see his podcast for a bit more info (and check his website for a steady stream of consumer-oriented travel information), but here are his three favorite online sources for the best air deals:

• Kayak, an aggregator that assembles info from other sites
• Expert Flyer, a subscription service that compares all possible air fares for a specific routing. This service offers a five-day free trial in case you want to check it out.
• Airlines' own websites, specifically citing Southwest Airlines

Sometimes, of course, cheap is not the only criterion. I checked airlines' own websites when I recently booked flights between Denver and Los Angeles to connect with a Swiss flight. Only the two airlines that hub in Denver made any kind of sense. Frontier had the cheapest roundtrip fare ($209), but outbound, I would have had to endure a seven-hour layover at LAX -- on top of reaching DIA, waiting for my domestic flight at DIA, flying to LAX, making my way through LAX, a long overnight flight on Swiss International Airlines (albeit anticipating a good night's sleep on the plane), going through light-touch Swiss immigration/customs procedures, waiting for a train and taking three trains to reach a small Swiss resort. Needless to say, I didn't book that itinerary.

United had convenient connection on the way out and not excessively expensive ($289 reoundtrip) considering that it spared me that killer LAX layover, but the my return, I would have arrived at LAX too late for the last non-stop to Denver. I would have had to fly between LAX and Denver via San Francisco or spend a night in Los Angeles and come home the next morning. I ended up booking two one-way fares -- $269 DEN-LAX on United and $109 on Frontier (LAX-DEN). Was it the cheapest? Not at all, but it is the only combo that made sense in other respects. Sometimes, a traveler's gotta do what a traveler's gotta do -- even if it is a little more expensive.

Free WiFi at Denver International Airport

DIA drops wireless fees, adds workstations and opens new parking garage.

The first airport where I ever lucked into free wireless was Boise, but at other airports, when I've had time to kill and work to do, I've swallowed hard and pulled out a credit card to buy access. Since I use Denver International Airport more than all other airports combined, I was delighted to learn that DIA now offers free WiFi on all the concourses. I'm flying out again on Friday, and I'll check the electrical outlet situation, which is also important for those of us who tote laptops to work when traveling and who find ourselves with a lot of time at the airport. Since Denver is a key hub from United and Frontier, I'm guessing that not only local travelers but also those with connecting flights will happily be using the new free WiFi .

And travelers for whom plain old WiFi isn't enough, DIA now boasts kioks called Zook Worx on the concourses and in the main terminal. They offer word processing, spreadsheet, presentation applications, high-speed laser printers, media drives, USB ports and laptop charging equipment. These workstations feature a traditional office keyboard and mouse, and a 17-inch flat panel monitor. For confidentiality, the workstations features an enclosed booth design and privacy filters on the screens. Unlike free WiFi, the workstations do cost; users can charge the fees to a credit card.

Other news at DIA is the new, 1,800-car parking garage on the southwest corner of the Jeppesen Terminal (that's the first section you get to on the United side). With the new facility, which has been under construction since May 2006, DIA has just under 41,000 public parking spaces. The daily rate is $18, like the older garages. I wouldn't dream of paying that much. In fact, I try to take RTD's SkyRide at $10 one-way from Boulder. I can ride to and from DIA for just a couple of dollars more than one day of parking in a garage there.

Rockin' & Rollin' on the QE2

Convergence of Cunard's three Queens in New York stirs up memories.

As every New York-based travel writer and photographer, cruise journalist and much of the local and national media have documented, Cunard's three liners were in New York Harbor at same time -- a morsel for maritime history. It was the first and only time that the three Queens -- the flagship "Queen Mary 2," the about-to-retire "Queen Elizabeth 2" on her farewell voyage and the glamorous and enormous new "Queen Victoria" on her maiden voyage -- were in the same port at the same time. In fact, not even the QE2 and the QM2 were ever in port together. Both sailed between Southampton and Brooklyn, one going east as the other sailed west.

On January 13, the three Queens sailed together out of New York harbor, passing the Statue of Liberty with thousands of people on shore watching the regal procession with Grucci fireworks overhead, despite freezing rain. Hale and farewell!

The huge and well-deserved media buzz spread even to land-locked Colorado, reminding me of my first and only transatlantic sea voyage. It was October 1986, when the Society of American Travel Writers held its annual convention on the QE2, and as a new travel writer, I was thrilled to be traveling across the Atlantic on such a storied ship, no less, and meeting James Michener, who was given honorary membership in SATW.

As we sailed out of New York Harbor, most people were on the port rail, looking at Manhattan, but I was on the starboard side, waving to my little boy who was at Elysian Park in Hoboken, where we lived at the time. The ship glided smoothly past the Statue of Liberty and under the Verrazano Bridge before heading into open water.

The ship was full, not just with SATW delegates but also with aficianados of ocean travel, because this was the QE2's final crossing under steam. After this crossing, she was going into a shipyard in Bremerhaven to be retrofitted with electrodiesel engines. The new powerplants gave her another two decades of useful life, and as she approaches retirement, she is the longest-serving liner in the Cunard fleet. this is quite appropriate, since she shares a named with Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch.

We had been at sea for less than 24 hours when the winds picked up, the rain started and the ocean began to churn. The fierce storm, which would last for a bit longer than three days, turned out to be a Force 9 gale, one click short of a hurricane. The QE2 was not really prepared for such rough conditions, which was surprising, because she had been built for year-round transatlantic crossings, not for cruising tropical waters.

Depending on whose report you listened to, either two or three of the ship's four stabilizers were not functioning, so we had a real rock and roll ride. In the dining room, waiters moistened the tablecloths to provide some traction on the varnished wood tables. Unlike every sailboat I've ever been on, the QE2's tables did not have little fold-up rails to hold the plates. When the cooks put full plates on the pass-through, one out of every four or five crashed to the deck before a waiter could grab it. Clean dishes were stored in stainless steel cabinets and slid back and forth with every roll of the ship. Every cheap diner and luncheonette in those days stored plates and bowls in spring-equipped wells, but not the QE2. We dined to the symphony of crashing crockery.

Passenges who were prone to sea-sickness retreated to their cabins, which presented an extra layer of unpleasantness. There were no hooks on the closet doors or drawers (at least not in the cabin I shared with a friend), so when the ship rolled one way, everything would open, and when it rolled the other way, everything slammed shut. One colleague said he placed a glass of water on his nightstand. The drawer opened, and the water glass slid right in, soaking everything. Another said she woke up sharing her pillow with her telephone.

Passengers who don't get seasick (and I'm lucky that I don't) carried on as usual. I didn't miss a meal (or any of the live dinner entertainment of breaking crockery). I had a great time drinking and dancing in the disco (a few of us managed to do that, dancing near the bar so that we'd have something to grab in an emergency). I met James Michener and, in fact, had a long conversation with him.

On the last day, the weather cleared and seas calmed. As we approached England, we could finally go out on deck and watch as the famous white cliffs of Dover came into view. Geoffrey Weill, a British-born, New York-based public relations man with a nice singing voice, broke into "Doing the Lambeth Walk." The song stuck in my mind during my few days in London. The QE2 is now on her last round-the-world voyage, after which she will become a floating hotel in Dubai. She won't need stabilizers there, just air conditioning -- and "Doing the Lambeth Walk" mostly likely will not enter into the mind of anyone surveying the Dubai skyline from her deck.

Winter Getaway to Vienna

Prices from New York start at $599 for a few days in Austria's lively capital -- including air.

Austrian Airlines is offering an economical package of roundtrip air between New York's JFK Airport to Vienna (VIE) and three nights in the Hotel Albatross (including breakfast) starting at $599 per person from New York. The price includes fuel surcharges (I suppose it isn't really a surcharge since it is included), but airport taxes and other fees are additional). You need to add $80 from Washington's Dulles International Airport (IAD) or Chicago's O'Hare (ORD).

This package is available Febrary 7-28, so the airline is promoting it as a Vienna Valentine. Still, there's a single supplement of $110 quoted. Some Valentine! Extra nights are, of course, available. The three-star Hotel Albatross is a 10-minute subway ride from the city center and not far from the airport either. For details or to book, call 800-790-4682.

If you are an opera buff, this is the time of year to enjoy the Vienna State Opera -- and if you've never been, this is a perfect opera house to set the standard for you. Last-minute tickets are available at the "standard price" of € 30, offered on the day before the performance at the ticket office between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on weekends and until 12:00 noon on weekdays and holidays. You can also get them by phone (+43 1) 51444/2950. If you can't stand the thought of opera, can't afford to go or just want something else, know that winter is high culture season in Vienna and other European cities.

British Airways Jet Crash Lands at Heathrow

The crash landing of a British Airways Boeing 777 coming in from Beijing leads the international news. With typical English understatement, the airline's website had just one calm sentence: "A British Airways flight has been involved in an incident at Heathrow today" -- on the screen in very small type. But the puprose of this post is not to compete with the networks or web for breaking news, but to note that this blog featured an item about Europe's congested airports just yesterday and three involving London's Heathow last fall, one about the general Heathrow-centered congestion in the English air transport system, a second on my own travel miseries through Heathrow and one about a no-injury ground crash there.

A Wealth of Misinformation from a Noted Travel "Expert"

The celebrated Peter Greenberg spews misinformation about non-ski activities at ski resorts -- and at non-ski resorts.

I'm a journalist who tries to be factually accurate, so it bugs me big-time when a high-profile travel expert -- probably with a couple of assistants to help him sift through the mountains of material he must receive -- managed to include so many erroneous facts and misleading implications in one small article. I also wonder whether his editors were asleep at the wheel. Why else would they have run the article I'm about to skewer because it contains as much misinformation as information?

What first caught my attention in a piece called "What If You Don't Ski? Cool Winter Alternatives," by travel "expert" Peter Greenberg (The Today Show, msnbc.com, USA Today, his own website, etc.), was: "At Stoweflake in Stowe, Vermont, up in the Green Mountains, they get back to basics with a nordic walking program — a great outdoor snow activity which works out the entire body. A three night program that includes breakfasts and dinner, some spa activities and the nordic walking program, starts at $1446."

Nordic Walking -- a great snow activity. Huh? Nordic Walking, about which I have written a book and therefore a topic I know quite well, is not a "snow activity." Au contraire. Its roots are as an off-season (i.e., summer) cross-training activity for Finnish cross-country ski racers.

But wait. There's more. Not only did he get Nordic Walking totally turned around seasonally, but he wrote about non-ski activities at the Broadmoor. Get a clue, Peter. Every activity at this Colorado Springs resort is a non-ski activity, because the closest skiing is at Breckenridge (about 105 miles) and Monarch (about 125 miles).

Ditto at Montana's Paws Up Ranch, which was renamed the Resort at Paws Up. It not near any ski resort worth traveling to for a ski vacation. It's an hour or more on a good day to a couple of strictly local areas, one of which is not even operating. Marshall Montain Ski Area, a small ski hill, is not too far by Montana standards, but it is closed (a new owner hopes to reopen it eventually), and a bit farther is Montana Snowbowl, also a largely local area and not a ski destination by most measures. Assuming that guests would go to the Resort at Paws Up for activities other than Alpine skiing, note that it also offers snowmobiling, winter bird hunting, winter fly fishing and winter ATVing, none of which Greenberg bothered pointing out.

Other "suggestions" are also off the mark. He wrote, "If you want to ice skate, try the resort at Squaw Creek, in Olympic Valley, just minutes from California's North Lake Tahoe. It's also the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics and the resort just completed a $53 million renovation." In fact, the Resort at Squaw Creek was not yet built when the 1960 Olympic Winter Games were held at Squaw Valley. In fact, Olympic Valley is essentially the postal addess; Squaw Valley is the real place. OK, that's a hairsplitter that wouldn't be worth mentioning on its own, but it is yet more sloppy reseach and writing.

Greenberg suggested a costly scenic gondola ride at Heavenly, CA/NV, and in the next paragraph, suggested, "At nearby Northstar at Lake Tahoe, the resort offers winter paddle wheel boat rides from the north shore to the south shore of Lake Tahoe between January and April." Squaw Valley and Northstar-at-Tahoe (not Northstar at Lake Tahoe) are both on the North Shore, and Heavenly is on the South Shore, so describing Northstar and Heavenly as "near" one another is misleading. Furthermore, the "Tahoe Queen" indeed connects the two shores, but the paddlewheeler is not specifically associated with Northstar.

He wrote, "there the ... Zorb... It's offered at a number of ski resorts around the world (and in the U.S., of all places, in the Smoky Mountains in Pigeon Forge, Tenn." What on earth does Pigeon Forge have to do with skiing? It's even father from ski slopes than the Resort at Paws Up, which at least is in the snowbelt, or the Broadmoor, which at least is in Colorado and right at the foot of the Rockies

Greenberg also used every negative cliche he could dredge up about skiing itself. I am a long-time skier and snowsports journalist, so even his lead got my hackles up when I read, "Each year, almost all ski resorts boast the best powder, the best runs, the infamous black diamonds with thrill-seeking turns and extra fast downhill speeds. That's great if you're a skier — or you have strange hopes of orthopedic surgery."

Wrong again, on virtually all counts. "Almost all" ski resorts do not boast about the best powder. A few do, but most boast of their powerful snowmaking systems and superior grooming. No, most don't boast about their infamous black diamonds. Most boast about their outstanding intermediate runs, great learn-to-ski and snowboard programs and excellent family-friendly terrain. What are "thrill-seeking turns"? I didn't know that a turn could seek anything. The orthopedic surgery line is a cheap shot at a snowsport that Greenberg clearly knows nothing about.

And then, there's what's missing from his misguided, misleading laundry list. Other than kids' snowmobiling at Vail (on Adventure Ridge, which he didn't bother mentioning), he didn't suggest it at all. Snowmobile tours are available at many resorts and are really popular, especially among vacationers for whom it is an opportunity to experience the beautiful winter backcountry. However, as noted, he wrote about the weird activity of Zorbing and about an as-yet-to-be built zipline (at Heavenly). And he didn't mention snowshoeing either. This fabulous outdoor option, either on-mountain or nearby, is available all across the snowbelt. Easy to learn and easy on the budget, it is a number-one non-ski option. In the expensive world of Peter Greenberg, however, it was number none.

It pains me that travel writers have great credibility issues. Many people believe that travel writers only have favorable words about any travel provider that has given them complimentary transportation, lodging and the like. That perception of travel writing is evidenced in the hot topic raised by the publication of Chuck Thompson's Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer and the online responses to reviews of it. Greenberg's piece in such a major outlet as msnbc.com bears every sign of being a payback to resorts that have hosted him and reinforces the perception, compromising the credibility of every travel writer out there. In the end, his errors not only mislead readers but hurt all of us who try to write honestly, objectively and accurately about travel.

European Air and Road Congestion Makes the Case for Trains

For a more relaxed, more satisfying European trip, take the train.

When I began going to Europe shortly Noah got off the Ark, Europeans traveled by train. So did legions of Eurailpass-equipped American students. To Europeans, flying from one country to another seemed prohibitively expensive. Autobahn, autoroute, autostrada and other freeway construction was ongoing and networks were incomplete, and while there were not yet high-speed trains rail travel, which was already in steep decline in the US, was frequent and reliable.

Now, along with the adoption of American junk-food chains, more and more Europeans have acquired our plane-addiction and our auto-addiction. Traffic is appalling around major cities and to popular weekend and holiday destinations such as the Mediterranean beaches in summer and the Alpine region in winter. And, as Elizabeth Rosenthal noted in a piece called "Congestion and Other Terminal Illnesses" in the New York Times, "While passenger numbers have skyrocketed in the last decade, airports have expanded in a makeshift fashion, leaving travelers to hike longer distances...Add to the fact that air traffic and security procedures have grown exponentially, and bad airport experiences seem to far outnumber the good."

She related her own experience, stuck on the tarmac for an hour after landing in Rome, recalling, "After the 50-minute flight, we waited an hour to get off the plane and would wait another hour standing around a dirty carousel before receiving our luggage." Let's do the math: However long it took to reach her departure airport from wherever she was and then one hour clearing security and to board the plane. Her 50-minute flight was followed by that hour on the tarmac before deplaning and another hour waiting for luggage to arrive. Then, she still had to get from the airport to wherever she was going. Even without the travel time to and from two airports, she was en route for four unpleasant hours. If her plane's departure had been delayed, her journey would have taken even longer.

Rosenthal's interviews with other frequent travelers about airports they particularly detest are enlightening, and so is her reference to Skytrax, which reviews and ranks airports and airlines. In this evaluation system that is still under development, world airports are rated from five to one star (plus unranked). Here are the top 15, only three of which are in Europe:

5 Star Airports

Hong Kong International
Seoul Incheon
Singapore Changi Airport

4 Star Airports

Amsterdam Schiphol
KLIA Kuala Lumpur
Sydney
Zurich

3 Star Airports

Abu Dhabi Int'l Airport
Bahrain Int'l Airport
Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport
Doha International
Dubai International
Johannesburg Int'l Airport
Kuwait Int'l Airport
Madrid Barajas

Bottom line in my opinion is that it is stilk better to take

Planes That Go Bump in the Night

"Minor" collision occur at a rate almost one a day in the U.S.

On Sunday night, the trail section of a United Airlines Boeing 757 backing out from a gate bumped into the tail assembly of a SkyWest Regional Jet 700, damaging both aircraft but causing no injuries. SkyWest, with 54 passengers plus crew, had been cleared for departure for Boise, while the large United plane was moving to a maintenance hangar and was back out with the aid of a tug.

The incident occurred at San Francisco International Airport's domestic Terminal C on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. Passengers evacuated from the SkyWest plane, which was headed to Boise and walked back to the terminal. As noted, there were no human injuries. The planes, on the other hand, were both hurt. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "both had part of their tails sheared - specifically the vertical stabilizer assembly - and both had damage to their engines."

SFO duty manager Lily Wang was quoted as explaining, "The 757's tail basically went on top of the regional jet. It is dark out there. It is nighttime. It could be [United] not seeing that other airplane because it is very low."

The Chronicle also noted, "The crash will be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration, and is certain to raise new questions about safety at the airport. In a report released in October by the FAA, SFO was declared one of the nation's riskiest airports in terms of near-collisions on runways or incidents in which pilots get confused while taxiing around the airfields."

According to that FAA report, there were 330 reports of crashes, near-collisions and other potentially serious incidents nationwide from October 2006 to September 2007 -- that's almost one a day. Such little "love taps" on taxiways and elsewhere the ground where aircraft move slowly are worrisome even when there are no injuries. After all, SkyWest is a United partner -- its main one on the West Coast, in fact -- and therefore use the same terminal. One would think that flight crews on large aircraft would be just as conscious of smaller planes nearby as truck drivers should be of passenger vehicles on the road.

Airline Fuel Surcharges All Over the Map

Air fares are up and fuel surcharges are being added to domestic air fares.

Since the first of the year, air fares are up, and carriers have tacked on fuel surcharges that are understandable from the airlines' operational viewpoint are irritating at best and shocking at worst to passengers on a budget. United Airlines started it earlier this month by raising fares by $5 for trips under 1,500 miles and $10 for those over 1,500, according to a Reuters report, and adding a $25 fuel surcharge, according to a report in AirWise News. Since United made the first moves, six major domestic airlines have raised fares and/or added a fuel surcharge. In fact, United reportedly increased its surcharge. However, today, Continental Airlines eliminated it. I can't begin to keep track of this fluid situation, but I thought I'd alert you to the little I know in the event that you are soon booking air travel.

Amtrak Expands Dining Options

Breakfast, lunch and dinner now served on trains with sleeper cars.

Unlike rail travel elsewhere, boarding an Amtrak train is an act of faith. The train you are traveling on might arrive at your station on time, or it might not. Even if it arrives when it should, it might depart on time, or it might not. It might depart on time but mysteriously stop somewhere en route, delaying its arrival wherever you are going.

So the announcement that Amtrak is enhancing its on-board food service is good news, because you might be on that train for more mealtimes than you anticipated. A new breakfast, lunch and dinner menu with a greater selection of items and theoretically higher quality is in effect on trains with sleeper car car service, which means 10 or its 14 long-haul routes. Meal service is included in sleeping car fares and is available for purchase by all passengers, so better is, well, better.

According to an Amtrak press release, which is heavy on capital letters, breakfast offerings include "Old Fashioned Railroad French Toast, a variety of freshly prepared Omelets, a Chef's Marketplace Special, such as Blueberry Pancakes or Belgian Waffles, and a Continental option featuring fresh fruit, all of which can be accompanied by a choice of Grits or Breakfast Potatoes, Bacon, Chicken Apple Sausage or Pork Sausage." For lunch, passengers have a choice of "Build Your Own Burger" option, with a choice of Angus beef, Turkey or Gardenburger, specialty salads, freshly prepared sandwiches and a hot rotating Chef's Special."

And it dinner, it's "a selection of appetizers for the first time, including Chips and Salsa, Chicken Wings and Dip, and and Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail. For entrees, passengers can choose from a cooked to order Flat Iron Steak, a Seafood selection, Oven Roasted Half Game Hen, enhanced Vegetarian Selections, and a rotating Chef's Marketplace Special such as Slow Cooked Braised Beef, Italian Meatballs, and Roast Pork Tenderloin. A rotating variety of scrumptious Sweet Street desserts including cakes, pies and tarts will be available. Haagen Dazs ice cream will also be featured."

What of the other four trains with sleeper cars? Amtrak reminds us that "the trains not receiving the new menu are those that already have a specialized food service or have introduced an expanded menu in the past year." Whew! I was worried.

For Amtrak reservations, click on their website or call 800-USA-RAIL.

Backcountry Ski/Snowboard Perils

With high avalanche danger, smart skiers and riders stay inbounds.

The snowy, untracked backcountry is a potent magnet for skiers and snowboarders, especially in a winter like this when snowstorm after snowstorm has buried Western mountains in record or near-record snows. With heavy snow accumulation comes the threat of avalanches -- and that threat has become fatal reality for skiers, snowboarders and high-lining snowmobilers this winter.

Today, another Colorado backcountry skier died in a slide, according to reports that lead this evening's television news. A skier buried in a mammoth slide in the East Vail Chutes died, the second to be killed there in the past week. (Note that these chutes are near the Vail ski area but not within its boundaries.) He was skiing with a friend, who was also caught in the slide but was able to self-rescue. Two snowboarders have been missing at Wolf Creek Pass for a week.

Proper equipment (including beacon, probe and shovel) and avalanche awareness and training are required, but even those are no guarantee of survival. Groups venturing into the backcountry should be self-sufficient, because even cell phoning 911 to report an accident very likely won't bring rescuers in time to do anything more than recover a body. It takes rescuers -- whether professional ski patrollers, sheriff's officers or volunteer mountain rescue teams -- time to reach the site, and the longer a victim is buried, the less chance there is of survival.

The most sensible way to experience the thrill of deep-powder adventure while minimizing the risk is inbounds at a ski area, where snow safety personnel minimize danger by triggering slides in hazardous areas before opening the terrain to skiers and riders. In addition, while some people prefer to earn all their turns by climbing, others like to ride lifts, make more turns -- and live to ski or ride another day.

About.com:Adventure Travel's "Top 9 Inbounds Backcountry Experiences for Extreme Skiing" identified and described eight ski areas offering such challenging, snow-packed yet relatively safe terrain, with #9 being "Learn About Avalanche Dangers Before Going Off-Piste Skiing and Snowboarding". In a year like this, perhaps that ought to be #1. To that site's excellent eight ski areas for inbounds adventure skiing, I would add at least another nine. The combined list is:

• Aspen Highlands' Highland Bowl, CO
• Heavenly Resort's Mott and Killebrew Canyons, CA/NV
• Silverton Mountain, CO
• Jackson Hole's Corbett's Couloir and The Hobacks, WY
• Blackcomb's Gemstone Bowls, BC
• Park City Mountain Resort's Jupiter Bowl and Pinecone Ridge, UT (above right)
• The Canyons' Red Pine Chutes, Fantasy Ridge and Murdock Bowl, UT
• Keystone's Independence Bowl, CO
  
• Telluride's Black Iron Bowl, CO
• Crested Butte's North Face, Teocalli Bowl and runs below Crested Butte peak, CO
• Wolf Creek's Knife Ridge and Alberta Peak, CO
• Alta's Rustler area, UT
• Taos Ski Valley's Highline Ridge and West Basin Ridge, NM
• Big Sky's Lone Peak, MT
• Squaw Valley's Palisades, CA
• Panorama's Taynton Bowl, BC
• Sunshine Village's Goat's Eye, AL

British Airways to Launch Premium Transatlantic Airline

British Airways offers bargain London getaway now and new premium airline in June.

OpenSkies, a new British Airways subsidiary named to honor the US-European Union treaty that permits non-US airlines to fly passengers from a third country to US airports, is set to inaugurate Paris-New York or Brussels-New York beginning in June. OpenSkies will start with one Boeing 757 configured with 82 seats in three cabins: 24 seats that convert to flat beds in the business cabin, 28 in premium economy and just 30 in economy passengers, which will eliminate that cattle-car ambience usually found in the back of the plane.

BA has not yet decided whether Paris or Brussels will be first, but when they put a second plane into OpenSkies service, the other will be added. BA also has not yet announced whether Newark or JFK will be the New York airport. BBC reported that BA hopes to have six 757s in the OpenSkies livery flying by 2010.

Meanwhile, for those Americans who want a cheap London getaway now, regular old BA offers a bargain getaway, starting at $579 per person for seating in regular old economy seats, three days of lodging sightseeing in London and a choice of tours to three destinations in the countryside. The package must be booked by January 31 for travel between February 1 and February 18. Special (but not that special) package pricing continues through March 12. This package can only be booked by calling 877–428–2228 (not available online).

Southwest to Increase Denver Flights

I try to make this travel blog national, even international, in scope, but self-interest causes me to pay more attention to what happens in Colorado than anyplace else -- especially when it comes to air service. Southwest Airlines announced that starting May 10, it will add 18 daily nonstops from Denver International. These include six new destinations (Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Raleigh, San Antonio, San Jose and St. Louis) and one additional daily flight between DIA and three others (Albuquerque, Austin and Chicago).

Possible Conversion of Wide-Body Jet to Hostel

You can sleep in an Ice Hotel in Quebec City or the original one in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden -- but only in winter. Now comes a report from Sweden that visitors to Stockholm might have a new option for an unusual (and inexpensive) year-round accommodation at Arlanda Airport.

Businessman Oscar Diös from the university city of Uppsala has been granted permission to open a youth hostel in a Boeing 747 (top right) that has been parked at the airport's third runway for years. Among other mind-blowing aspects to this story is that Arlanda has a spare runway to begin with.

Diös plans to replace the 500 seats in the main cabin with 80 beds and turn the cockpit into a suite, while preserving some of the equipment.” The scuffed-up, engineless 747 was once flown by a Swedish charter airline, Transjet, which lost its license in 2002 and has been marooned at the airport ever since. No date has been given for the transformation from jumbo jet to youth hostel. If this scheme succeeds, Diös has said that he would like to start a chain of similar airport hostels elswhere in the world and call them Jumbo Hostels.

It might seem like a loopy idea, but so did the Ice Hotel when it was launched in 1990, but it has been wildly successful in Sweden and Canada, and there are also ice hotels in Finland, Norway, Scotland and most recently (since 2005) an ice and snow in China (bottom right).

Travel Bought Online More Than Half The Time

According to the most recent PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey, 51 percent of domestic US travel was booked online in 2007, and within two years, that is expected to increase to 60 percent. The value of these online travel bookings: $136 billion and growing. According to the survey, "multiple component" trips, including vacation packages, are purchased less frequently online, while such simple arrangements as air tickets are purchased more frequently. None of this, except perhaps the specific numbers, is a surprise. It is interesting to know that the report is finding that more travel websites are getting sophisticated enough to offer such features as group travel planning and booking. Also on the rise are sites with content generated by a community of readers and users. I wonder whether that includes blogs like this.

'Post' Reporter Compares Travel Guides to Italy

Denver Post reporter Ricardo Baca, who usually covers Colorado beats, spent a month in Italy last summer, heroically hauling around nine travel guides to compare them in situ. Today's travel section feature called "By the Books" is his compare-and-contrast commentary. Since the whole idea behind guidebook series is consistency, you can extend a similarity between the Italy book and that of other countries in any of these series.

For each book, Baca evaluated the "Reader Demographic" (age group, level of travel experience, budget), "It's All in the Name" (what users expect from that particular series, both in terms of information and illustrations), "Known For" (why they expect what they do), "Map Quality," "Usability" (organization, readability, graphics and design), "Depth" (level of detail, backstory, history, local recommendations, practical info) and "Price." There's a bit of blurring between "Usability" and "Depth," but since each is covered in one paragraph, it's no big deal to read both.

The Italy books that Baca compared are Lonely Planet Italy, Rick Steves' Italy, National Geographic Traveler: Italy, Let's Go: Italy (the cheapest at $15.99), The Rough Guide to Italy, Fodor's Italy, Frommer's Italy, Italy: DK Eyewitness Travel Guide (the glossiest and, at $30, the most expensive) and MTV Italy (like Frommer's guides, published by John Wiley & Son but for a younger, hipper travelers).

If I had been doing this story (or, in fact, if I were going to Italy) the book that Baca didn't take but that I would is the appropriate Michelin Green Guide. There's one that covers all of Italy from boot toe to cuff (right), plus separate books to Rome, Sicily, Tuscany and Venice. I don't know of another series that is more concise, more accurate and easier to stick in pocket, purse or pack than these tall, skinny books that focus on thumbnail history, museums and other enduring attractions and natural sights. The maps are good and clear -- not surprising since the books were created to encourage people to drive around Europe on Michelin tires. Since they don't cover hotels or restaurants, theaters or nightspots, rail or air transportation, they don't really become obsolete -- other than in identifying specific highways and roadways between cities and towns. I still use my tattered, taped-together Green Guide to Austria and the Bavarian Alps that I bought new a lifetime ago for $3.50 -- a student-budget travel investment that has lasted into my middle years.

Book Stirs Up Debate About Travel Writing

Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer by Chuck Thompson is a self-styled exposé about the real state of travel writing and the magazines that publish travel features. He "reveals" the link between publications' reliance on revenues from travel advertisers (airlines, hotels, resorts, car rental companies plus entire cities, regions or countries) and the sunny, positive, cliché-ridden prose in said publications. Well, duh! Does he really think that even the most innocent reader believes that those Publishers' Clearing House subscription deals keep magazines afloat?

In my opinion, magazines fall into two main camps when it comes to covering travel. Those that cover accessible places that real people actually visit -- including the high-end glossy publications that cover places that rich real people, or really rich people, actually visit. They do make every place from DisneyWorld to Denmark, from Honolulu to Hungary, form Miami to Moscow sound interesting, enticing, safe and manageable. They also tend to include a lot of nuts-and-bolts service information on how to get there, how to get around, where to stay, where to eat and what to do. Call it tourism. Other magazines go for the exotic, dangerous, remote and adventurous. The articles focus on the courageous, adventuresome writer, not on the reader and the experience s/he might ever have. Since relatively few publications support this approach, this kind of tale usually ends up as a book. Call it armchair travel. Special-interest publications are a sub-genre of tourism writing, with the occasional fantasy/armnchair piece. Such niche travel articles appeal to, say, skiers, golfers, scuba divers, anglers, spa-goers, art or music lovers and so on -- and to the advertisers who want to attract those people.

The first camp is of that idyllic dream travel, where everything is beau-ti-ful and wo-o-o-onderful. William Grimes, a present or perhaps now retired travel staffer at the New York Times, wrote in his review: "Somewhere out there, right now, everyone’s dream vacation awaits. It is a collective dream, created by travel journalists who describe, in a cascade of clichés and superlatives, a world of white-sand beaches, quaint villages and smiling locals eager to share their secret knowledge. It is a world in which all places, regardless of location, history or culture, embody a 'bewitching blend of the ancient and modern.'

"Chuck Thompson demolishes the dream in...his acidic take on travel journalism and the multitudinous horrors that lie just beyond the airline check-in counter. As a longtime freelance travel journalist and the founding editor of Travelocity’s short-lived magazine of the same name, he knows the score and he tallies it accurately."

The other magazine camp likes to demonstrate its hipness by writing about the high adventure and even danger that some trips bring -- and how its contributors stare down death and disaster every time they travel to research a story. Writer Bronwen Dickey started her San Francisco Chronicle review with this anecdote: "While Chuck Thompson was features editor for Maxim, he traveled to Colombia as a photographer for an article the magazine was running about a soft drink made from coca leaves. The story he and the piece's author pulled together was one pulsing with drugs and danger, a familiar vision of Latin American lawlessness that the magazine was only too happy to perpetuate. The problem was that he saw no drugs and felt no danger. Out of the dozens of countries Thompson had visited in his tenure as a travel writer, Colombia was perhaps the most beautiful and hassle-free of them all. 'But,' as Thompson notes in his darkly humorous collection of essays, Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer, 'who buys magazines to read that?'"

Thompson's revelation is neither the total idyll nor the total riskiness described is necessarily true. What interested me a lot have been the responses to these and other reviews, in print and online, from other writers (including travel writers) and readers (including those who travel). Noted writer Rolf Potts wrote a long, insightful review on World Hum, a website offering "Travel Dispatches from a Shrinking Planet."

Potts notes early on that Thompson's book "purports to skewer the travel writing industry from the inside," and later observes that "Thompson does indeed write candidly and honestly about his travel experiences in places like Thailand, Alaska, Latin America, and the Caribbean—as well as his stint as editor of the short-lived magazine Travelocity. In its better chapters, “Smile When You’re Lying” thus reads like an engaging (and often hilarious) travel memoir. At other points it comes off like a hyperbolic and unfocused blog entry, with occasional moments of insight buried amid strange digressions...

"What is oddly missing amid the personal yarn spinning and opinionating, however, is a compelling, well-rounded analysis of why so much modern travel writing is so bad. And, in this way, Thompson’s book unintentionally reveals how most broadly stated travel-writing criticism ultimately ends up as a weird vessel for venting personal obsessions on the part of the critic."

I think that Potts gets to the crux of the travel writer's reality when he writes, "Indeed, the trouble with modern travel writing is not simply the result of lazy writers, compromised editors and dastardly corporations: It is the cold demographic spawn of magazine consumers, who—in greater numbers than not—happily buy into the illusion of 'on-time departures, courteous flunkies, sugar-white beaches, fascinating cities, charming locals, first-class hotels, golden days, purple nights, and ‘an exotic blend of the ancient and the modern.’” If readers snapped up magazines to read insightful 8,000-word essays on Eritrea with the same enthusiasm they devour inane 500-word sidebars on 'Honolulu’s Hippest Hotels,' the state of modern travel writing would probably be a whole lot healthier. Unfortunately—as any experienced travel editor will attest—they don’t."

Potts's entire review is worth reading, and so are the comments that follow his analysis, including mine. Some comments agree that most travel writing is banal drivel. Others look to it for useful information for their own trips rather than deep insights into other cultures.

In my view, Thompson's book is a bit disjointed but is zippy and snappy, makes compelling reading and puts most of us travel writers (the Pico Ayers, Bill Brysons and handful of bestselling authors aside) and the editors for whom we write in less than a flattering light. It also explains why some of us have staked a claim in the blogosphere to write what we want, when we want.

Another List of Must-See Places

1,000 Places to See Before You Die is an intimidating number, especially for travelers getting on in years who may be confronting their mortality before making too much progress on the list. Now from Smithsonian comes a shorter list, the 28 must-see's on "The Smithsonian Life List."

We all love checklists, don't we?, so I've checked off the ones I have visited. Even this modest list tells me that I still have a lot of traveling ahead of me just for these must-see places:

√Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings (Colorado)
Pompeii (Italy)
Tikal (Guatemala)
Petra (Jordan)
Pyramids of Giza (Egypt)
Taj Mahal (India)
√Easter Island (off the coast of Chile, right)
√The Great Wall (China)
√Aurora Borealis (northern latitudes)
√Serengeti Plains-Wildlife (Tanzania, Kenya et al.)
Iguazu Falls (Brazil)
Machu Picchu (Peru)
√The Louvre Museum (France)
Zen Garden of Kyoto (Japan)
√Uffizi Gallery (Italy)
Fallingwater (Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home; Pennsylvania)
√Yangtze River (China)
√Antarctica
√Mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania)
√Grand Canyon of Arizona
Pagan (ancient temple site; Myanmar, formerly Burma)
The Parthenon of Athens (Greece)
Angkor Wat (Cambodia)
√Ephesus (Turkey)
√Venice (Italy)
Amazon Rain Forest (Brazil and seven other South American countries)
√Great Barrier Reef (Australia)
√Galapagos Islands (off the coast of Ecuador)

That's 15, a hair more than half. And I haven't just seen them. When feasible, I've experienced them in some way: Climbing Kilimanjaro via one of the more difficult routes. Hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, wilderness camping on the other side and hiking back out, and on another trip, rafting it. Renting a car on Easter Island and seeing the moai at sunrise. Visiting the Galapagos on a small sailboat and Antarctica on a small passenger ship. Taking a boat up the Yangtze before the Three Gorges Dam was completed and returning once it had been. What about you?

A Getaway to Snowy Snowmass

First the good news. This has been an epic December for skiers in Colorado. With 118 inches, the Aspen/Snowmass area, where we just spent five days, has broken the all-time record for the most snowfall in the month of December, according to the Aspen Skiing Company, which released this photo taken on December 30. In fact, the mountain company nicknamed December "DEEPcember" -- and so it was.

The bad news was how all that snow affected travel to or in Colorado this past week. It was a crap shoot. We won! We left Boulder for Snowmass on December 26 (blue skies, sunshine, dry roads, gorgeous snowy scenery, only heavy traffic and slow going on I-70 from Golden/Morrison to west of the Empire/US 40 exit). We returned on January 2 (blue skies, sunshine, dry roads, gorgeous snowy scenery, only heavy traffic and slow going from Summit County to about Downieville). In between, we skied on truly great snow that fell intermittently, the only downside being the continous and relentless cold. The outdoor thermometer never rose above 10 degrees, and for a while, I thought it might be broken or stuck.

Here's what else happened in Colorado while we were happily alternately skiing and warming up. On December 27, United Airlines canceled 145 of its 840 it operates daily at Denver International Airport. The snow at DIA was not extreme, but United was still trying to clear up the mess from an earlier storm in Chicago that gummed up its route system for days, sometimes because aircraft and crews were not where they needed to be to maintain a reasonable schedule. Frontier canceled only seven flights, but many carriers experienced delays. Both carriers reportedly waived some fees for flight changes, but that was a small consolation to travelers whose ski vacation plans were messed up.

Drivers heading into the mountains on Interstate 70 didn't fare much better. Also on Thursday, the highwas was closed for more than three hours after a Greyhound bus and an SUV collided near the Genesse exit. But the worst was yet to come.

On Sunday afternoon, the 30th, officials closed 75 miles of I-70 westbound (Floyd Hill to Vail) and 60 miles eastbound (Vail to Georgetown) due to blowing, drifting snow and concern about avalanches. Wind in the Eisenhower Tunnel itself was reported at 70 mph -- literally a wind tunnel. The highway reopened on Monday afternoon, but US 6 over Loveland Pass (which the Eisenhower Tunnel was built to bypass) and US 550 over Red Mountain Pass between Ouray and Silverton remained closed. For a time on Sunday, US 40 over Berthoud and Rabbit Ears Passes, as well as sections of other secondary highways were closed as well.

More than 2,000 travelers, perhaps as many as 2,900 -- were stranded, mostly in Summit and Eagle Counties. Emergency shelters were opened on Sunday night, and generous residents opened their homes as well. Some people just hunkered down in the cars, while truckers stayed put at chain-up areas along the highway.

And today (January 2) an early afternoon crash at the westbound approach into Glenwood Canyon closed that stretch of I-70. Travelwise, it was tough week indeed, but we dodged the bullets -- and the sking was oh-so sweet.