True TSA Tale: Read It to Believe It

Does TSA stand for Transportation Security Agency - or for Totally Screwed "Ap"?

A few weeks ago, I posted my experience of having a mostly used-up tube of sunscreen confiscated because a Transportation Security Agency screener said that a 100-milliliter container is the limit for a carry-on item, not the 110 ML I had with me -- even though there was nowhere near 110 ML of lotion in it. That was only irritating. My more recent experience was amusing, astonishing or horrifying, depending on how you view the entire process of airport security.

Early on Thursday afternoon, I checked in at the Great Lakes Aviation counter at Denver International Airport for a flight to Telluride. I didn't really look at my boarding pass, and neither, evidently, did the TSA agent charged with comparing boarding passes with picture IDs. Because of heavy regional snow, I was eventually switched from the cancelled Telluride flight to one going to Cortez. In the process of changing flights, one of the several podium agents who looked at my original boarding pass finally noticed something odd and asked, "Who is Christopher Weber?" I had no idea who he was other than being an alphabetic neighbor, coincidentally with the same initials. Mostly, I was astonished that I had passed TSA's so-called security procedures and a couple of gate agents before anyone noticed that I could not possibly be Christopher Weber.

After that DIA underperformance, the screeners at Telluride Regional Airport (TEX, right), from which I flew yesterday, made up for it with excessive zeal. At this time of year, the only commercial service is Great Lakes' two daily flights using 19-passenger Beech 1800 aircraft. Four (4) TSA screeners were on duty for a daily passenger count that cannot possibly exceed 38. Of the 11 or 12 of us on my flight, three of us were "selected" for extra screening. Our checked bags were opened and riffled through, as were our carry-ons. Many items removed from our luggage were swabbed for explosives or some other lethal substance. We were all patted down. I guess that quartet had to justify their underworked existence at TEX at this time of year.

After we were all cleared and were waiting to board the Denver-bound flight, I started telling someone about the Christopher Weber mix-up at DIA. A fellow sitting within earshot said, "Was that on Thursday? I'm Christopher Weber, and when I got to the airport, Great Lakes told me that I had already checked in."

Season's First Turns in Telluride

My 2008-09 ski season has begun in brilliant sunshine and on well-groomed snow

Telluride is one of my favorite places in Colorado -- not just one of my favorite places to ski but one of my favorite places. Period. The downtown, a National Historic District, is an immaculately preserved jewel. Boutiques, restaurants, nightspots and way too many real estate office line the broad main drag of what was once a gritty mining town, but the beauty of the box canyon still eclipses the glitter of the businesses. The lifts serving the original ski terrain were strung right on the outskirts of town. Further ski terrain expansion began in a stellar glacier-carved basin where the new resort development called Mountain Village has taken shape.

A handful of runs above Mountain Village are currently open -- a very limited percentage of Telluride's expansive 2,000 acres of terrain. I don't usually travel this far to ski for a weekend, but I am happy to be here -- really happy. I know that resorts closer to Denver/Boulder have more terrain open and a deeper base, but I also know that weekend traffic along I-70 is horrific as snow-starved Coloradans head for the high country -- and back again.

This morning, I made my first turns of the 2008-09 ski season on Telluride's immaculately groomed runs under the big blue dome of the Colorado sky. The resort is making snow like crazy, and a storm is forecast early this coming week. During the first part of any winter, a few perfect runs that invite setting skis on snow are all I ask for. Later, I'll be looking for morem terrain -- and Telluride will soon offer it.

29 Lights is 28 Too Many

Hotels' excessive lighting isn't luxury -- it's wasteful



I am currently in a lovely small suite at the Inn at Lost Creek in Telluride's Mountain Village. Getting here (where it hasn't been snowing) from the Front Range (where it snowed a storm) was an odyssey that I might blog about some other time. Unfortunately, despite my constant asking about it after I had been reticketed to Cortez instead of Telluride, my checked bag is still in Denver and will (hopefully) join me tomorrow.



The folks at the inn could not have been nicer, more sympathetic and more dismayed at my luggagelessness, but when I opened the door to my room, I got annoyed. Really annoyed. The foyer, the living area, the kitchenette and bathroom have, among them, twenty-nine (29) light bulbs, and every single one of them was on -- and had been for who knows how long. Twenty-eight of these bulbs are incandescent, including five on a table lamp. Only one, above the kitchenette, is fluorescent. And the TV is turned on to an audio station.



The inn is a congenial boutique property with 29 suites. If every one is occupied, 29 x 29 = 841 light bulbs burning for countless hours when no one is in the rooms in this property alone -- and that doesn't count lights in the lobby, hallways, underground parking garage, restaurant, spa and elsewhere --to say nothing of Christmas lights that will doubtless appear soon . IMO, it is a misplaced notion of luxury. And the little refrigerator, which the inn had thoughtfully stocked to tide me over, was cranked down so far that the half-and-half and eggs were frozen, and the appl

and pear had the consistency of popsicles.




This is not the first time I've been appalled at excessive use of electricity -- and it's not the first time I have complained about it. I have been told that hotel rating services require some of this nonsense in order for properties to earn that extra star or diamond. This is a wasteful and outdated practice. I have a sign on my mantlepiece asking me to opt in or out of fresh linens every day in the interest of environmentalism. There should be something comparable when it comes to lights. I'm calling housekeeping tomorrow to ask them to restrain themselves.

Villa Trapp Derailed in Salzburg

Salzburg turns down plan to open the Von Trapp family's former Austrian residence as a hotel

After the 1965 "Sound of Music" film became a hit, so many visitors to Stowe, VT, came looking for the mountain property where the Trapp Family Lodge was located that local youngsters began sporting T-shirts reading, "I Live in Stowe and I don't Know the Way to Trapps." Perhaps taking a cue from the Vermont experience, the Austrian city of Salzburg denied permission for the former Trapp family residence to open as a small, 14-room hotel to be called Villa Trapp in what the Associated Press described as "a quiet, upscale Salzburg neighborhood."

Residents reportedly were concerned that tourists would cause traffic jams and become a neighborhood nuisance, which is quite astonishing considering that they film came out more than 43 years ago. Then again, Salzburgers are very away of the film's enduring appeal. Sound of Music tours to the sites where scenes were filmed remain among the most popular in Salzburg.

Reuters added another layer to the tale, reporting, "In Austria, visitors can get married at the villa, which was home to the real von Trapps from 1923 to 1938 before they fled the Nazi takeover of Austria. Nazi Germany's security chief Heinrich Himmler used the villa, just outside Salzburg, as a home close to the Austrian Alps until 1945. Some opponents of the hotel have accused the developers of wanting to build a memorial to Nazism." The developers reportedly plan to mitigate the traffic impact but have seemingly not addressed the concern about Nazi era glorification.

Winter is High Season for Stormwatching

Tofino is the best place for observing mammoth Pacific Coast storms in luxury and comfort

Here’s a wet and wild winter option to languishing on a tropical beach, swatting golf balls on a palm-studded course, cruising calm seas on a big ship or even skiing through down-soft powder snow. If you lust for a combination of excitement and raw natural beauty, think about heading into the teeth of wild winter weather. For a growing cadre of stormwatchers, nothing but nothing beats the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island off mainland British Columbia's coast.

There you will find the only stretch of the island’s central coastline with a year-round paved road. Between forested mountains and lakes to the northeast and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest stretches a sliver of Pacific Rim National Park Preserve, known for its fine-sand beaches, rocky headlands embracing scenic bays and coves, and rainforest hiking trails cut through thick old-growth red cedar and Western hemlock.

The Pacific Rim Highway, a two-laner flanked by these towering, moss-draped trees, runs right through the park with Tofino on one end and Ucluelet on the other. These funky hamlets just 25 miles apart enjoy some of western Canada’s mildest winter temperatures and experience some of its heaviest rainfalls and most potent storms. What the 3,000 or so locals endure has made these towns meccas for winter stormwatchers, who treasure this dramatic and remote area to watch Pacific storms roll in with power, fury and wild beauty.


More than 130 inches of average annual rain falls on this part of Vancouver Island, which is nicknamed the Rain Coast. Of that, 20 inches can pour from the skies in a single storm. Even in relatively tranquil periods between storms, impressive swells roll onto shore, crashing against rocky headlands, sliding over the wide beaches, littering the white sand with whiter oyster and clam shells, fringing the tideline with seaweed and rearranging the driftwood.

Eight-foot waves are not uncommon. Add wind and rising tides, and when all the elements of waves and weather converge to create the proverbial perfect storm, waves have been known to crest to 30 or 40 feet, occasionally more. Driftwood isn’t limited diminutive sticks and ordinary-size logs, but includes enormous tree trunks cast upon the beaches and piled into bayheads like spilled toothpicks. Beneath the turbulent waves lie nearly 250 shipwrecks, sunk over two centuries, in the so-called "Graveyard of the Pacific."

A dozen significant tempests, give or take, hit this coastline each month during storm season, which kicks off in late October or early November and shifts into high gear in January and February. In midwinter, you’ll see curtains of rain, buckets of rain, horizontal sheets of rain, sprays of rain shooting through the salt-kissed air – but rarely snow. It is improbably romantic, whether you prefer to share the raw and invigorating experience of the outdoors, protected by fetching fishermen’s slickers that lodges lend to guests, or to snuggle in the warm, dry coziness of one of the handful of inns and lodges that remain open. Even from indoor comfort, you will be mesmerized as wave after wave washes up on the beach below, crashes onto a nearby cliff, and sprays your double-paned window. You might also luck upon nature’s light show from a winter electrical storm.

During low tides and calm periods, there’s nothing finer than an invigorating walk, either on a trail or directly along the shore. Step onto a beach as the tide goes out and gaze out at the restless sea and down by your feet to examine what the water has deposited on the sand. Still, it is imperative to keep a cautious eye for changing weather, and retreat when the ride begins to change. Beaches can be especially hazardous during a true winter storm, when massive drift logs ride the waves and jumble onto land and pile up like Brobdinagian Pick-Up Sticks. Except during the most potent storms, when hoteliers and innkeepers caution guests to stay inside, you can don heavy-duty raingear and venture out into the weather, staying on marked trails and staying off wet rocks.

The best stormwatching spots include designated safe areas along the well-named Wild Pacific Trail that snakes along the top of sea cliffs and Big Beach, a relatively sheltered, horseshoe-shaped strand near Ucluelet. Radar Hill, crowned by remnants of a long-abandoned World War II installation at nearly 500 feet above sea level, provides a stunning panorama of coves, bays, breakers and clouds but can be terribly windy during a howling storm. Perhaps best of all is the Amphitrite Point Lighthouse overlooking with views of Barkley Sound, Broken Group Islands and the open sea. The operating Canadian Coast Guard Station (below), a squat, square signal structure, is a coastal a landmark at the tip of the peninsula below Ucluelet.

In late February and early March, gray whales begin migrating northward along the coast, and stormwatchers begin to give way to whale watchers. An estimated 20,000 gray whales – the entire North American population of this awesome species – pass close by on their 5,000-nautical-mile journey from mating and calving lagoons of the Sea of Cortes between the Mexican mainland and Baja California, to their summer feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. That’s one heck of a commute – and it happens just off-shore of Vancouver Island. Most grays are gone by May, but some spend the entire in Clayoquot Sound, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve just northwest of Tofino.

The rocky headlands jutting out toward the sea offer fine vantage points for spotting these splendid marine mammals, and during the Pacific Rim Whale Festival (Mar. 14-22, 2009), free public viewing stations are set up at Amphitrite Point Lighthouse, and charter boat and floatplane operators from Ucluelet and Tofino begin their season. The festival features 70 events, ranging from a seafood chowder cook-off to an art show.

Wildlife viewing is not restricted to whales. Bald eagles overwintering in this area can often be spotted in sheltered harbors, where they perch on trees or pier pilings in the harbor. The region’s black bears do not go into deep hibernation, so it is not uncommon to see bears even in the wettest weather. By March, you can often spot a bruin or two on skunk cabbage growing in roadside ditches or marshy areas.

Tofino was a fishing town, while Ucluelet’s economy was once based on logging. First Vietnam-era war protestors and later eco-activists added a layer of idealism to the pragmatic working-class popular, which still is only about 3,000 people spread between the two towns. Local business signs now indicate such enterprises as “Massage therapy,” “art gallery,” “fishing charters” and “whale watching trips” now form the base of the local economy.

These days, the economy is tourism-based. Of the several properties that stay open in winter especially for storm-watching and whale-migration season, the first among equals is the Wickaninnish Inn (above), an upscale Relais & Chateaux property that offers a polished version of down-home hospitality. In December, rooms starting at $200 a night -- less than half of summer season rates when there's much less excitement. With a first-rate restaurant and on-site spa, the inn's early storm-season pricing fits into the "affordable luxury" category. It closes Jan. 2-8 before reopening for high storm-watching season, when room rates are $100 or more higher per night. The reservations number is 800-333-4604.

Skiers Thankful for Thanksgiving Weekend's Big Snows

Serious storms begin rolling through Western mountains

Just a few days ago, I expressed cautious concern about early-season snow conditions, happy that snow was beginning to fall and hoping for more. This weekend, my wishes were fulfilled, and while Boulder received just a dusting of snow on Friday night and Denver a few more inches, some ot the Colorado mountains have been slammed. Other than the miserable Sunday night drive that home-bound skiers endured, the heavy snowfall, mostly in the central mountains, is putting a smile on skiers' faces.

Here are the 48-hour snow totals for Colorado ski areas that are currently open:

• Arapahoe Basin, 21 inches
• Aspen Mountain, 17 inches
• Beaver Creek, 11 inches
• Breckenridge, 8 inches
• Copper Mountain, 14 inches
• Crested Butte, 13 inches
• Keystone, 6 inches
• Loveland, 32 1/2 inches
• Telluride, 8 inches (right, Nov 28)
• Vail, 13 inches
• Winter Park, 9 inches

Utah had gotten those storms a day or so earlier, and Alta, a powder capital, has all seven of its lifts running and 74 or its 116 runs open. But the unrivaled US snowfall leader is way up north. Alyeska Resort, AK, measured more than 117 inches of new snow over the past week, pushing the snowfall total for the season over 200 inches. The mountain reports almost spring-like conditions that it says "are more reminiscent of early spring than they are in December, with several feet of deep soft snow covering all elevations of the mountain."

Note: A day after I wrote this post, Alta retreated and now has four lifts and 55 runs available. The operational rollback might be weather related -- or perhaps only because midweek traffic tends to be slow between Thanksgiving and the Christmas-New Year's holiday period.

Luxury No Longer Means Security

Upscale hotels in unstable places and luxury cruise ships at sea are obvious targets for attacks
There isn't a day that goes by without press releases appearing in my inbox about yet another luxurious, deluxe, multi-star hotel or resort in some picturesque and/or exotic place. The recent attacks in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, were just the latest high-profile targets that appeal to first-world travelers to developing nations. Reporter Keith Bradsher's New York Times feature called "Analysts Say It Will Be Difficult to Shield Luxury Hotels From Terrorist Attacks" began:

"For decades, luxury hotels have been oases for travelers in developing
countries, places to mingle with the local elite, enjoy a lavish meal or a dip
in the pool and sleep in a clean, safe room. But last week’s lethal attacks
on two of India’s most famous hotels — coming just two months after a huge truck
bomb devastated the Marriott in Islamabad, Pakistan — have underlined the extent
to which these hotels are becoming magnets for terrorists."

Left to my own devices, I'm more of a three-star traveler (OK, maybe four-star in third-world nations) than a five-star traveler. However, when I attend a Society of American Travel Writers convention or am on other tourism-related assignment or trip, I do find myself in unaccustomed luxury. A small part of me enjoys being treated like visiting nobility, but mostly, I am embarrassed by the ritzy glitz in places where so many people have so little. I know that tourism brings jobs (including jobs as security guards) and money into developing countries, but still, such opulence and extravagance are clearly an affront to many. When clashing political ideology or religious zeal are added to the volatile socio-economic mix, the result in these mean times is predictable violence. People die, property is destroyed and another door to international understanding and peace on the planet is slammed shut.

The Times piece discussed security precautions that hotels are taking, which should be of interest and some comfort to travelers heading for potentially dangerous places. Meanwhile, CNN reported that the 'Nautica,' an Oceania Cruises ship (left) en route from Rome to Singapore, outran pirates off the coast of Yemen over the weekend while in an area patrolled by anti-piracy craft. The cargo ships and oil tanker that have recently been seized by pirates were off the coast of Somalia. Smaller private yachts have also been seized.

"The 'Nautica' was in an area patrolled by international anti-piracy task forces when two small skiffs appeared to try to intercept it, Oceania spokesman Tim Rubacky said. The ship took evasive maneuvers and accelerated to its full speed of 23 knots or 27 mph. One of the smaller craft closed to within 300 yards and fired eight rifle shots at the cruise ship, he said, but the ship was able to pull away. . .'The 'Nautica' escaped without damage or injury to its 684 passengers and 400 crew, and arrived safely on schedule in Salalah, Oman early on Monday morning,' Rubacky said."

As disturbing as these reports are, personally, I don't want to stop traveling because "something" might happen. Last June, I visited Oklahoma City, the mid-America capital of Oklahoma where Timothy McVeigh, a US Army veteran and security guard, masterminded the massive explosion that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 2000. Also that month, my car was broadsided by a speeding motorcyclist on a rural highway in western Colorado. I just hope, in the interest of global sanity, that the attacks will stop and efforts to build a more peaceful, more tolerant world will recommence.