UK Car Rental Resource

A car rental comparison site for my next trip to England, Wales or elsewhere in the British Isles.

When I was in England last October, I confess to having done no advance planning for the rental car that I needed. Some travel writerm, huh! I showed up at Gatwick Airport, entered the car-rental building, walked up to the one with no line and asked for the smallest, cheapest car. I wrote posts about frustrating driving for an American without a navigator and my retrospective rembrances. My tales amused Emily Welch of Car Rentals U.K. who sent me the following message and gave me permission to post it here:

Dear Claire,
I have been browsing on your website and took particular interest your blogs about car rental. I was reading your blog about 'A long day in the UK' and saw you mentioned car rental and how you had got a good deal with Enterprise. As you said car rental prices can be very high and it can be very difficult to find the cheapest car rental deal amongst the many car rental suppliers. I work for http://www.carrentals.co.uk/ which is an online car hire comparison site, and we compare the prices of over 40 suppliers making it easy to shop around all the leading suppliers such as Hertz, Avis, Sixt and Alamo to find the best deal in over 4,000 locations world wide.

I feel carrentals.co.uk will be beneficial to your site readers, especially your American users looking to book a car in the UK or Europe, as we offer a top quality service which can save your users time and money.

I found your dialogue of the lost traveler very amusing and really enjoyed reading this blog. I live in Wales, which similar to Southeast England, is very beautiful and picturesque. Well worth a visit next time you come to the UK!

I would like to invite you to take a look at our site and see what you think; perhaps you would like one of our experienced travel writers to write you an unbiased review? Feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions, and thank you for your time.

Emily Welch, http://www.carrentals.co.uk/

I took her up on her offer and played around on the site, which was quite sophisticated. The first questions it asked was where I was from (choices were the UK, the Euro zone, the US, Canada and Australia). Since I clicked on the Stars and Stripes, the rate quotes popped in dollars with pounds as "subtitles." The site also defaulted to cars with automatic transmissions, I suppose because so many Americans can't drive a stick shift. When I indicated that I would pick up my car at Heathrow, the main gateway for transatlantic flights, the quotes for different categories came up for EasyCar, HireCars.com, Holiday Autos, Sixt and its own CarRentalsUK.com. Perhaps it was because of the dates I selected, but no Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Hertz or National appeared. Perhaps they do in some locations, but I'm guessing that travelers who favor those firms will probably book directly anyway.

If I can ever afford to travel to the UK in this lifetime (the dollar is at another new low against major currencies again), I'll do some one-stop shopping on the site and see what I come up with. So thank you, Emily, for introducing yourself and your company.

US Airways Charges $25 for Second Checked Bag

I recently posted one item about US Airways new chintziness in their frequent flyer program and an earlier one about United Airlines' policy to charge $25 per second checked bag for all but their most valued passengers. Now, in a convergence of unfriendly policies, US Airways has announced that it is also charging $25 for the second checked bag.

There are two categories of passengers who will not have to pay for the second bag. Active military personnel (in uniform with ID), unaccompanied minors and those checking assistive devices (presumably wheelchairs) are exempt, implying permanent "generosity" on the part of the carrier. The fee is waived for Dividend Miles Preferred members (Silver, Gold, Platinum levels as well as Chairman's Preferred, passengers), confirmed First Class and Envoy passengers at time of check in and Star Alliance Silver and Gold status members, which as I read it means that it could be "unwaived" at any time. Gee, thanks.

American Airlines Flying on Empty -- Oxygen, That Is

Passenger died when airliner's oxygen tanks were reportedly empty.

Carine Desir, 44, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 896 from Haiti, to New York died on Friday "after a flight attendant told her he couldn't give her any oxygen and then tried to help her with faulty equipment, including an empty oxygen tank, a relative said," according to a widely published Associated Press wire-service report, which continued, "Desir had complained of not feeling well and being very thirsty on the Friday flight from Port-au-Prince after she ate a meal, according to Antonio Oliver, a cousin who was traveling with her and her brother Joel Desir...A flight attendant gave her water, he said. A few minutes later, Desir said she was having trouble breathing and asked for oxygen, but a flight attendant twice refused her request, Oliver said Sunday in a telephone interview. After the flight attendant refused to administer oxygen to Desir, she became distressed, pleading, 'Don't let me die,' Oliver recalled."

But die she did, even though, "the flight attendant, apparently after phone consultation with the cockpit, tried to administer oxygen from a portable tank and mask, but the tank was empty. Two doctors and two nurses were aboard and tried to administer oxygen from a second tank, which also was empty, Oliver said." The report continued that one of the nurses tried CPR and "possibly a defibrillator, also was applied but didn't function effectively." The plane was ready to divert to Miami, but it was too late for Desir, who died in flight, so the aircraft continued to New York's JFK International Airport "with the woman's body moved to the floor of the first-class section and covered with a blanket."

According to a later AP report:

"There were 12 oxygen tanks on the plane and the crew checked them before
the flight took off to make sure they were working, Wilson said. He said at
least two were used on Desir.

"The Federal Aviation Administration requires commercial flights to carry no fewer than two oxygen dispensers. The main goal of the rule is to have oxygen available in the event of a rapid cabin decompression, but it can also be used for other emergencies. It is up to the airlines to maintain the canisters.

"'Flight attendants are trained not to automatically give oxygen to every
passenger who requests it but instead use airline criteria to judge when it's
needed,' said Leslie Mayo, a spokeswoman for the union representing American's
attendants.

"Wilson said Desir's cousin flagged down a flight attendant and said the
woman had diabetes and needed oxygen. "The flight attendant responded, 'OK, but
we usually don't need to treat diabetes with oxygen, but let me check anyway and
get back to you.'"

Antonio Oliver had nothing good to say about the aircraft's emergency procedures or equipment. One of the doctors on board who pronounced Desire dead refused to comment. A later Dow Jones News Wire report, "'We are investigating this incident...but American Airlines can say oxygen was administered and the Automatic External Defibrillator was applied,' the company said in a statement Monday. The airline didn't say in its statement whether the medical equipment worked, only that they stood behind its functionality." The lawyers will certainly soon be heard from too.

Two Wheeling Through California

Bicycle road racing is a vicarious two-wheel journey.


For three weeks every summer, my husband and I take a bicycle tour of France. Thanks to the magic of television, we cruise past fields, vineyards, castles, villages and cities. We struggle up impossibly steep mountain roads in the Alps and the Pyrenees and race down the other sides. We mingle with an international cadre of riders. In the world of sports, it's the Tour de France. In our world, it's a road vicarious road trip through France. This year, we'll be in France from July 5 though July 27, again, thanks to the magic of television.



Like the racers themselves, we've started training for the Tour de France by watching the just-concluded Amgen Tour of California. We covered 650 miles in eight days -- through vineyards and redwoods along the stunning California coast We encountered sun, rain and wind. We rooted for the young Boulder rider, Tom Zirbel, who led the stage alone for miles until the last lap -- and who blogs as well as rides very fast. Hats off to him, to race winner Levi Leipheimer and winner of the final stage, George Hincapie. And thanks, guys, for letting us ride along.

A Glorious Ski Day at Keystone

Colorado's epic snow season made for still another great ski day -- and something for the suggestion box.


Two friends and I took yesterday off and drove to Keystone for the day. A worthy destination resort in its own right and more so in conjunction with neighboring Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin (and a bonus of interchangeable lift tickets), Keystone is less than two hours from my door. We arrived before 10:00 and luckily found a close-in space in a very full parking lot.

Keystone just had received four inches of snow -- significant some years but just a dusting during this epic season, when the resort has already . The snow was silky, and not until the end of the day did we encounter any scraped-off spots -- and even then, only on a few vulnerable parts of busy runs and at that, they weren't bad. Places were cover is usually thin or even bare wore a mantle of snow. Temperatures were mild, and there was no wind. Despite the full day lot and the vacationers, we mostly skied Dercum Mountain and a bit on North Peak (above) and never encountered much of a liftline (but then, we didn't head to The Outback either).

Two of use are really enthusiastic season-upon-season skiers, but our friend had only been on skis once in the last 20 years, so we stayed on easy cruisers. She's strong, and she has more endurance and speed than most people who have been off the boards for that long, so we kept going at a pretty good clip. It was a great day to get back into skiing.

As a.m. turned to p.m. and the minute hand kept circling, we realized that we were hungry, so we rode the Outpost Gondola to from the top of Dercum Mountain to North Peak. The liftie told us to take our skis into the gondola car with us, which was a surprised and also awkward. The reason? The old external ski holders on these elegant forest-green cars are too narrow for the flared tails of modern skis, but people try to jam them in anyway. Skis slipped into the wider snowboard slot often fall out. Therefore, the gear gets to ride inside. Here's suggestion #1: a minor retrofitting of the gondola cars with new equipment racks. Considering that Keystone has announced plans to replace the existing six-passenger River Run Gondola (the second on on that line) with a longer, faster state-of-the-art eight-passenger model next year, this fix of the Outpost Gondola is small-potatoes indeed.

At the end of the day, we wanted to make sure that we ended at River Run and not at the Mountain House. Many lower-mountain runs meander, and at a couple of crucial intersections, we weren't quite sure how far down we had come and couldn't tell whether we were on Last Chance or Jackstraw or Schoolmarm or Dercum's Dash or Bear Tree. Suggestion #2: A little more signage near the bottom would be welcome.

I wish that I could take the entire winter off and do nothing but ski. A look at Colorado ski conditions explains why: Mid-mountain base depths range from "only" 31 inches at Echo Mountain, a snow park in exurban Denver, to an astonishing 147 inches at Wolf Creek in southern Colorado -- and that's packed, settled snow. Conditions elsewhere in the ski world have also been outstanding.

Color-Coded Airport Security Lines Tested

Salt Lake City and Denver are test sites for new system to speed up lines.

Skiers and snowboarders are familiar with symbols signifying relative slope difficulty: green circle for easiest (aka, beginner) runs, blue square for more difficult (aka, intermediate) and black diamond for most difficult (aka, expert). The Transportation Security Agency is now testing a system that it is calling the Black Diamond.

The idea is for travelers to select the level of security line that they believe is suitable for their level of travel experience. The TSA hopes that green will be chosen by families with children, stollers and infant seats; people with special needs, and infrequent flyers who are confused by the system and need some assistance. The agency also hopes that the blue line will be used by semi-experienced travelers, perhaps with multiple carry-on items, and that black will be used by experienced travelers who know the drill and arrive at the checkpoint with laptops out of cases; toiletries in appropriately small quantities in the regulation one-quart zip bag keys, coins and cell phones out of pockets, and shoes, jackets and belts off.

TSA is launching the Black Diamond test program at Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) and Denver International Airport (DEN), where presumably a fair number of passengers are familiar with the color coding. which makes the skiing references appropriate — if not readily understandable to nonskiers. Of course, as every skier knows, many people over-estimate their competence on the mountain, and there are always terrified beginners picking their way down intermediate slopes and over-confident intermediates stalled on black-diamond terrain. There is no reason to believe that people will be similarly optimistic at an airport security checkpoint.

Get A Horse? DIA Finally Did

Epically delayed mustang sculpture finally installed at Denver International Airport.

Flight delays are not unfamiliar scenarios at airports, but the 16-year delay in installing a monumental fiberglass sculpture of a rearing mustang has got to be a record-setter. When Denver International Airport was under construction, Luis Jimenez, a sculptor from Hondo, NM, was commissioned to make a 32-foot sculpture for the Peña Boulevard approach to the terminal. While it was a work in progress, a section came loose from a hoist, pinning Jimenez against a steel support beam. He died in June 2006, leaving a widow, two sons and a largely unfinished, very large fiberglass horse. Susan Jimenez and her sons, Orion and Adan who were children when their late father began the work, completed it, and New Mexico painters Richard Lobato and Camillo Nuñez painted it using Jimenez's color scheme. The mustang has finally been installed at DIA -- 16 years after the airport opened. The photo shows it with its "receiving blanket" still draped over its hindquarters.

US Airways Devalues Frequent-Flyer Program

US Airways is changing its frequent-flyer in ways that aren't especially good for its loyal customers. If you are a member, I draw your attention to Mark Ashley's piece called "Death By A Thousand Cuts: US Airways Edition" on his Upgrade: Travel Better site. The so-called loyalty program is called Divided Miles. Maybe they need to change it to Fewer Dividend Miles. Just yesterday I posted an item urging travelers to cast their ballots for the Freddie Awards honoring frequent traveler programs. I'm guessing that anyone who voted for Dividend Miles and gets the latest news will want to retract his or her vote.

Ready to Vote for Freddie?

Cast your vote for the Feddie Awards, honoring frequent-flyer and frequent-guest programs.

Have a favorite airline affinity program? Cast your vote to honor it with a Freddie Award. The Freddie's, named after the late Sir Freddie Laker, founder of Laker Airways. Join other frequent travelers in determining who in the 20th Annual Freddie Awards that recognized excellence among frequent travel programs in the airline, hotel and credit card industries.

Freddie voting is weighted to reflect quality, quantity. Winners are not determined by how many votes a program receives, but by the overall merits of each program which are rated between 1 and 10 for. The program receiving the highest average vote in its category with at least 1 percent of the overall popular vote wins.

Voting ends on February 28, 2008. Winners will be announced on April 24, 2008 during a tade conference. Last year, a record 439,000 frequent flyers cast ballots in hotel, airline and credit card programs in nine categories: Program of the Year, Best Award, Best Bonus Promotion, Best Affinity Credit Card, Best Member Communications, Best Award Redemption, Best Elite-Level Program, Best Customer Service and Best Web Site.

Valentine's Day Began in Ancient Rome

Rome and Dublin hold St. Valetine's relics.

Among those chronicling the history of the holiday we celebrate today, Dr. Elinor Garley wrote "How It All Began: The Origin of St. Valentine's Day," It started in old Rome in the time of Emperor Claudius, not in romantic Venice or Paris, or even to the Poconos known for their honeymoon hotels with heart-shaped beds and bathtubs.

Dr. Garley wrote that February 14 was originally a holiday honoring Juno, queen in pantheon of the Roman Gods and Goddesses, and also the goddess of women and marriage. She wrote, "Emperor Claudius II (268 – 270), also known as Claudius the Cruel, was fond of starting bloody and unpopular wars for which he needed lots of men. His recruitment attempts were unsuccessful war, for the men wanted to stay with their families and loved ones. To get them to 'man up' he cancelled all engagements and marriages." An emperor fond of starting bloody wars? How familiar in modern times.

In any event, she credits Valentine, a Roman priest (this was, after all, early in the Christian era) for marrying couples secretly, regardless of the Emperor's decree. This, to put it crudely, pissed off the emporor who had Valentine imprisoned and sentenced to death. The method of execution was to be clubbed to death and then beheaded, a martyrdom that was his eventual path to sainthood. How familiar in modern times when stonings and beheadings still make headlines.

The punishment was to be meted out on February 14. Dr. Garley continued, "During his incarceration, St. Valentine tried to stay cheerful and the young people he had married came to visit him in jail, showering him with flowers and notes. One of his visitors was the daughter of the prison guard who was allowed to visit Valentine in his cell. Sitting and talking for hours, this young woman encouraged St. Valentine to continue to perform marriages in secret. On the day he was scheduled to be beheaded, he left his friend a note thanking her for her friendship and loyalty, and it was signed, 'Love from your Valentine.' The date was February 14, 269 AD. Now every year on this day, people remember and exchange love messages on Valentine’s Day; Emperor Claudius is remembered as having tried to stand in the way of love."

Another essay put additional spin on the story: "At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honour of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.
The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavoured to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's Day for the celebration of this new feast. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way."

Since this is a travel blog, I feel obligated add a link to places where visitors can pay homage to the original Valentine. You can see an image of the relic of St. Valentine, a grisly flower-bedecked skull in a glass reliquary, in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome -- or you can visit the church. The Shrine of St Valentine in Dublin's Whitefriar Street Church is the site where the remainder of St. Valentine's remains, so to speak, are now interred. In addition to these ancient holy bones, a prettier object of veneration is St. Valentine's statue, carved by one Irene Broe, that depicts the saint in the red vestments of a martyr and holding a crocus in his hands.

Winter Olympics Start at Whistler Two Years from Now

A pre-Olympic look at Canada's Whistler/Blackcomb ski resort.

Two years from today, the first events of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games will take place in Vancouver, Cypress Mountain and Whistler. The opening ceremony will have happened two years from yesterday. There's a fascinating backstory to Whistler, the Alpine and Nordic skiing and bobsled luge venue.

Some 45 years ago, four Vancouver businessmen had what be considered a dream of Olympian proportions. They envisioned the sleepy summer resort region that is now Whistler as the site for a future Winter Olympic Games. This might have seemed pie-in-the-sky dreaming, because it had no road, electricity or sewer system (those came in 1962), let alone ski lifts (those came three years later).

Whistler is now a huge year-round resort community with three village centers, North America's two mightiest ski mountains, abundant summer recreational opportunities and city-quality dining, nightlife and lodging. And yes, that long-held dream has come true. Two winters from now (February 12-28), Whistler will host the skiing and sledding events for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Before and after the Games, the spotlight continues to shine on this mega-resort. Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains are North America's only ski mountains with base-to-summit verticals exceeding 5,000 feet, plus fully interchangeable lift tickets and direct lift access from Whistler Village.

With such enormous verticals, temperature and precipitation vary. Trails cut through the heavily forested lower mountains rely on snowmaking, even as cloud-light snow falls frequently into a dozen lift-served high alpine bowls and snowfields near the summits. In between are miles of cruising runs, mogul fields, tame beginner slopes and a flock of terrain parks and pipes.

Beginning next winter, the jaw-dropping, 2.73-mile Peak to Peak gondola will link the two mountains, soaring high over Fitzsimmons Creek via the world's greatest unsupported span between towers of any gondola on the planet. The lower section of the Fitzsimmons Creek drainage also harbors the new Olympic bobsled/luge track and a fantastic zipline winter adventure. Ziptrek Ecotours has subtly placed platforms and suspension bridges and 10 zipline cables through the old-growth temperate rainforest.

Other off-slope adventures include cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, skating on Green Lake, bungee jumping, dog sledding, sybaritic spa treatments and, of course, shopping. Guests can enjoy a full winter vacation without ever stepping onto skis or strapping on a snowboard.
Upscale and international Whistler is being further upgraded for the Olympics. The scenic but twisting Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver to Squamish on the coast is being widened and somewhat tamed, and new and renovated accommodations are legion.

Whistler now boasts large, serious luxurious hotels such as the Fairmont Chateau Whistler and the Pan Pacific Village Centre and also fine boutique properties such as the Adara Hotel or the First Tracks Lodge. It's more challenging to find budget lodging at Whistler these days, though Squamish on the coast offers some and Tourism Whistler promotes multi-day deals in all but the highest of high seasons.

The bottom line is that skiers, snowboarders, thrill-seekers and those who enjoy the mountain environment are already benefiting from the fulfillment of that long-ago dream of four Vancouver businessmen -- and will continue to do so long after the Olympic flame is extinguished.

Airport Security Reportedly Snooping on Computers

A respected blog called Upgrade: Travel Better" has a scary report about government security snoops lifting information from laptops, cell phones and other information-storing electronic devices. Called "Your laptop is a suitcase: How the U.S. government is searching computers, phones, and other electronics at the border," it gives an example of an alleged incident earlier reported on msnbc.com when "federal agents" copied passwords and files from a traveler's laptop at San Francisco International Airport. If there's even a shred of truth to this, it is appalling and frightening. However, I'm not impressed with msnbc.com's fact checking, as I posted in "A Wealth of Misinformation from a Noted Travel 'Expert'." On the credibility side, there is an indication that the Washington Post might originally have broken this story. Read it and judge for yourself.

February 11, 2008 Update: This issue is gaining traction. CNN.com just released "Suit: Airport searches of laptops, other devices intrustive," a report on a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus accusing the Customs and Border Protection arm of the Department of Homeland of "lengthy questioning and intrusive searches."

Rick Steves Coming to Colorado

Noted author and TV travel show host is on the American book tour circuit.

Rick Steves really is a guru. When he ambles genially about Europe on his Public Television travel program, viewers want to follow. And when Americans do pack their bags, they often take a Rick Steves travel guidebook.

He is on a book tour now to promote Europe Through the Back Door 2008 ($21.95 from Avalon Travel) and Europe 101: History and Art for the Traveler ($24.95 from Avalon Travel). He will be at the Tattered Cover in LoDo on Wednesday, February 27 at 5:00 to answer questions and sign books. Free tickets will be handed out at 4:00 p.m. Seating for the presentation prior to the book signing is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis to ticketed customers only.

Airlines: The Best and the Worst

The US Department of Transportation releases an annual Air Travel Consumer Report listing the best and worst airlines in terms of passenger complaints and performance records. Here's what I find the most interesting part of the 2007 list. In fairness, airlines' on-time records are sometimes a function ot the weather and traffic at airports they serve, but there really isn't much of an excuse to be made for chronically mishandled luggage or zealous overbooking that results in excessive involuntary bumping:

Lost or otherwise mishandled luggage (per 1,000 passengers)

The Top Five

1. Hawaiian Airlines, 3.41
2. Aloha Airlines, 3.88
3. AirTran Airways, 4.06
4. Northwest Airlines, 5.01
5. JetBlue Airways, 5.23

The Bottom Five

1. Mesa Airlines, 10.46
2. Skywest, 10.87
3. Atlantic Southeast, 11.24
4. Comair, 11.40
5. American Eagle, 13.55

Passengers involuntarily bumped or denied boarding (per 10,000 passengers)

The Top Five

1. JetBlue Airways, .02
2. AirTran Airways, .15
3. Hawaiian Airlines, .17
4. Aloha, .29
5. United, .71

The Bottom Five

1. Mesa Airlines, 1.54
2. Skywest, 1.69
3. Delta Air Lines, 2.47
4. Comair, 3.15
5. Atlantic Southeast, 4.50

On-time performance (measured in percentage of flights)

The Top Five

1. Hawaiian, 93.3%
2. Aloha, 92.2
3. Southwest, 80.1
4. Frontier, 77.6
5. Delta, 76.9

The Bottom Five

1. American Eagle, 69.1%
2. American, 68.7
3. US Airways, 68.7
4. Comair, 67.9
5. Atlantic Southeast, 64.7

United to Begin Charging for Second Checked Bag

$25 fee for second bag socks it to flyers -- fortunately after ski season is over.

United Airlines' newest surcharge will be $25 for checking a second bag on domestic and North American routes -- except for priority members of the carrier's MileagePlus program (that means flying a minimum of 25,000 miles per year). These privileged passengers still will be able to check a second bag for free. United pioneered charging for the convenience of curbside check-in and also led the way to adding fuel surcharges. Now this!

According to an Associated Press report, about one-quarter of United's passengers check a second bag. AP also quoted John Tague, United's chief revenue officer, as saying that the new policy "enables us to competitive fares to everyone." An argument could be made that extracting a mandatory extra $25 each way from one-quarter of their passengers is not exactly customer-friendly. Or maybe they are planning to buy some more pretzels with the $100 million additional anticipated annual revenue.

Unless passengers set up such a howl that the mighty United relents, recants and reverses itself on this, the new surcharge will kick on May 5 for tickets purchased after this coming Monday. The only small consolation for skiers flying United to Colorado or elsewhere in the Rockies this winter is that the surcharge will apply after the ski season is over.

Current airline policies count one ski/snowboard bag and one boot bag as one piece of luggage. If United continues this policy into the 2008-09 ski season, charging 25 bucks for each actual piece, that would add $50 each way, per person, to the cost of a ski trip. Now get this: In addition to the $25 to check a second bag, United will be charging $100 apiece for each additional checked bag. If the airline chooses to count ski/snowboards and boot bags as two items rather than one, that could add a total of $125 each way to each skier's cost of flying.

It could be a boon for equipment-rental businesses in ski country if visitors decide not to bring their own gear.

Snow, Wind and Sunshine on a Swiss Glacier

Skiing fresh snow on the Steinberg Glacier.

It was springtime in the Alps a few days ago when we skied Adelboden. Winter arrived in Engelberg yesterday. It blew in with a vengeance – low-slung snow clouds hung just over the valley floor, flattening the light and erasing the line between sky and earth on the slopes high above the treeline. New snow fell hard and covered old snow. Skiers and riders cheered.

The snow fell for hours covering the hardpack, the bare spots and the chop from earlier storms, but visibility continued to be non-existent almost all day. Because so much skiing is above the treeline, without definition, it is difficult, often impossible, to tell where the sky ends and the snow surface starts. Skiing by Braille, I call it. "Like skiing inside a ping-pong ball" added one of my colleagues. In the late afternoon, as the lifts closed, the clouds parted and the setting sun kissed the high peaks. Today carried great promise.

This morning indeed dawned with clear skies and radiant sunshine -- and high-mountain winds in the wake of the retreating snowstorm and in advance of the warm North African winds that are forecast. We formed up at 8:30, stood in a long Sunday morning line and, with dozens of our closest ski companions rode a succession of three lifts (one six-passenger gondola and two cable cars) from the village of Engelberg (1,050 meters, 2,445 feet) to the top of Klein Titlis (3,028 meters, 9,934 feet).

With a vertical of nearly 7,000 feet -- unheard of in North America -- the weather up high and the weather in the valley are vastly different. A mellow breeze whispered around the village of Engelberg, but the wind was howling, pluming yesterday's storm into cold white smoke at the summit. It raked yesterday's new snow off some slopes and packed it onto others. Even some places on the marked, groomed pistes were covered with machine-packed powder, while other spots were blown clean. Fortunately, temperatures were not too low, because that would have made for wicked windchill.

The highest of Engelberg's two-stage gondola and two cable cars is the Rotair. Its round cabin makes a slow 360-degree turn between its bottom and top stations. I don't know the dynamics at other times, but this morning, I found it to be a weird ride. The kind of adapted American pop music that Europeans favor for après-ski doodled through the sound system. People yelled and shouted to their companions. It got me to thinking about tram rides I've taken at Snowbird and Jackson Hole, where the obligatory American safety cautions are followed by reverential silence. Riders who speak at all do so in hushed tones. Not so this time, where random noise distracted from thoughts of the long glacier run we were about to ski.

Engelberg offers a bastion of off-piste opportunities -- glaciers, chutes bowls and couloirs lure strong skiers and riders. In the US and Canada, people who venture into the ungroomed, avalanche-vulnerable backcountry usually carry wear tranceivers and carry shovels. Like most visitors, we went with guides who know the way. Peter and Regula Reinle -- both locals and former ski instructors, intimately acquainted with the mountain -- led us down the Steinberg glacier, avoiding crevasses and known slide areas and out a tricky ski-out. In all, we skied 4,000 vertical feet of wild terrain in one run.

We ducked under the rope (permitted in Switzerland) and onto the glacier. The upper section is an enormous white bowl scooped out of the upper reaches of Klein Titlis. Today, it was overlaid with nearly a foot of new snow -- some windpacked, some loose. A few turns and we were in a rock-rimmed white world from which all signs of the hand of man had disappeared -- the cable car with its annoying music and loud riders, the huge summit structure where the cable car docks, its four restaurants, gift shop and more retail opportunities, and the microwave tower. On the glacier, the silence set in, broken only by the muffled gah-phumph of each turn.

Time is suspended on a run like this. Some skiers make swooping arc turns down the fall line -- steep at the head of the glacier, gentling lower down -- but I am a more deliberate skier. I prefer to traverse a bit between turns, because I like the feeling of first tracks through a patch of unchopped snow. I also like to take it easy to take in the jaw-dropping scenery and to savor the experience that we simply don't have in the US.

After a while, the glacier necked down between rock walls, falling into a short, steep drop at the foot of the icefield. Above us were vertical cliffs of bare rock. Our route opened again into another smaller snowfield, necked down once more into a natural halfpipe and skirted around some more rocks and the first few tenacious bushes and then small trees. A series of small drops, flats and rolls fed down into the flat, mid-mountain valley and the frozen-over surface the lake called Trübsee, the Iglu Village that I posted about yesterday and a horizontal quad that traverses the lake, ferrying skiers and riders from one the lift sector to another.

The sense of wildness was gone in an instant -- like flicking a switch from the deep backcountry to an extensively developed mountain. Was it the best powder run of my life? Not really. I liken Rocky Mountain powder to the lightest down comforter, while Alpine powder is denser and heavier, more like one filled with regular feathers. Was it the best scenically and experientially? For sure, it was one one of the top three ever.

We hopped into the transfer lift and wormed through another killer line to the middle cable car, and by then it was almost lunchtime. It was just before noon, and the wind had picked up to 60 kilometers per hour. The mountain company closed the upper chairlifts (the round Rotair can actually operate in higher winds than some of the other lifts). Lunch, a little more skiing in the mid-mountain gale and then down to the village on the long ski-out. It makes a long, looping detour -- windfree this afternoon -- around dramatic banded cliffs, through the forest, past a sheltered beginner area without sun or great views but no wind either. It ends up at the bottom station of the lowest cable car.

The new snow made me wonder what was happening at home. According to today's Colorado ski reports, Wolf Creek got 31 inches of new snow in the last 48 hours, Monarch 20 inches, Purgatory/Durango Mountain Resort 13 inches, Telluride 12 inches, the Aspen areas 9 to 11 inches and the areas closer to the Continental Divide along the I-70 corridor receuved new snow in the single digits. It would be lighter and more powdery than what fell onto, and blew around, Engelberg's mountains. But then, at home, there are no wild white glaciers to ski.

Home Sweet Dome of Snow

Spend a night or have a meal in a Swiss igloo.

Most European structures are built to last for centuries, but the four Iglu (German for "igloo") Villages in Switzerland and one in Germany are meant to last only for a winter season. Snow is packed on the outside of huge, inflated balloon-like forms, which are then deflated to create enormous semi- domes of hard snow. Several are connected to one another to form a "village" comprising bar, lounges, private and shared bedrooms, dining room/restaurant, kitchen, hot tub room and chapel. A hot tub in a building of snow and ice. What a combination!

The effort is enormous -- requiring about 2,700 hours to build each village. In keeping with the igloo/Inuit theme, the walls are etched with indigenous Canadian designs. Foam pads, thick fur throws and down sleeping bags are placed on snow/ice platforms. Candlelight and the opportunity to spend a night on the mountain -- or at least enjoy a drink (their white Glühwein is really tasty) or a fondue dinner (right) before heading back to town where you'll find accommodations all have central heating and running water.

In addition to here in Engelberg, locations are Davos, Gstaad and Zermatt in Switerland and the Zugspitze near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. There are four grades of accommodation, with per-person rates in all locations are CHF 149 for a standard (shared) accommodation on weeknights, CHF 179 on Friday and Saturady nights. Romantik, Romantik-Plus and Romantik-Suite (private whirlpool tub featured) rates are CHF 239-470 Monday through Thursday nights and CHF 279-510 on Friday and Saturday nights. A night in an Iglu doesn't come cheap, but the experience: priceless.