Swank Hotel Debuts at Base of Beaver Creek

Westin Riverfront brings Beaver Creek cachet down into the Eagle River Valley

Beaver Creek is an elegant, exclusive gated ski resort that was developed as an uptown place. Think expensive slopeside lodging, chic boutiques and pricey eating places. Avon, originally a lettuce farming center with a railroad depot for shipping the crop out of town, iss a downtown place. It grew a bit more organically with lower-priced lodging, service businesses and even (gasp!) a Wal-Mart.

The opening of the $500 million Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa in Avon last weekend represents the first Beaver Creek-quality resort hotel down in the valley. The lobby, restaurant, enormous 25-meter outdoor pool (bottom photo) and decks of the green-built condo-hotel are oriented directly up the Beaver Creek drainage providing guests with a perfectly framed view of the ski runs. Seen from the Westin, Beaver Creek and Avon seem a lot closer to each other than they do when riding a shuttle bus up the winding access road. Also pulling Avon into the Beaver Creek orbit is the year-old Riverfront Express gondola, which delivers skiers from the hote's doorstep to Beaver Creek's Bachelor Gulch sector in less than three minutes.

The gondola, which is free to all, is not a ski lift but public transportation both up and down from ski area to town, not just for Westin guests but also for guests of other lodging properties in Avon or day visitors parking at the free public lots along US 6. This is especially significant since the Town of Vail, just down the road, is considering raising fees in its parking structures this winter.

Back to the Westin, it is a 210-unit property featuring well appointed studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units, each with kitchen. The property's facilities and amenities comprise a long, imposing list: Restaurant Avondale run by local star chef Thomas Salamunovich, Spa Anjali (Earth, Fire, Water and Air theme), wine bar, convenience store, on-site sporting goods store/rental/storage, 24-hour business center, free Internet access, recycling stations on every floor, activity concierge, ski valet, meeting facilities and, best for skiers, that gondola conveniently right outside a back door.

I spent just a comfortable night there on opening weekend. The decor is tasteful, pared down and elegant. It's got green versions of popular luxury features, including in-room Internet access, well appointed bathroom, gas fireplace, flat-screen TV, kitchen facilities (my studio had a kitchenette) and Westin's ultra comfortable Heavenly Bed.

In summer, the Westin appeals to golfers (several courses nearby), anglers (it's located right on the Eagle River), cyclists (the bike path is right there too) and, of course, skiers (the gondola makes is a ride-in, ride-out to the slopes). As long as golf weather holds, there should be some interest in the High Flying Golf Package consisting of lodging for two, two rounds of golf at Red Sky Ranch & Golf Course, two 50-minute treatments at Spa Anjali, breakfast for two, complimentary valet Parking and a "welcome amenity" on arrival starting at $224 per person per night. Considerably less expensive is the Master the Mountain Golf Getaway, accommodations, two rounds at the Eagle Ranch Golf Course, breakfast for two, valet parking and "welcome amenity" starting at $99 per person per night. Rates rise during the ski season.


The Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa, 126 Riverfront Lane, Avon; 866-949-1616.

Wall Street Melt Down Hurts Airlines

Air carriers brace for downturn by (guess what?) cutting service

Viewed from a Wall Street-oriented buy/sell/hold point of view, Business Week commented that "High fuel prices are helping make airline travel a 'mid-priced luxury good' and could help the carriers by prodding them into restructuring, an industry analyst says... [Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Hunter K.] Keay said that U.S. airlines prudently responded to high fuel prices by aggressively cutting capacity, dropping marginal routes, and retiring older, fuel-guzzling planes without placing big orders for new ones. The result, he said, has been better pricing power even though traffic growth as been modest or nonexistent. And there's room for growth in ancillary revenue." Positive mid-term news for investors by 2010, assuming that the whole economy has collapsed by then and that fuel prices remain stable or drop, doesn't do a darned thing for travelers who want to visit Grandma at Thanksgiving or take a ski or sun vacation this winter.

Airlines -- especially international carriers (including US carriers that also fly overseas) -- have long cozied up to their "best" customers, with front-cabin comfort, service and amenities. Now, reports Brett Snyder on BNET, a business site, these carriers are "already seeing premium cabin weakness internationally as the economy softens, and now the financial crisis is only going to make things worse. All those rich bankers in New York spend a lot of money sitting up front . . . or should I say 'spent.' (Can you say New York - London?) And as we all know, premium cabins count for most of the profit in the international world. This could get ugly very quickly, especially for airlines that rely primarily on their international premium cabins to generate their profit. Airlines like British Airways with their large transatlantic presence can’t be happy right now, but while US airlines get a smaller share of their business from that type of passenger, they’re still going to be hit hard."

Among the short-term news -- some good, some less so -- affecting air travelers:

• Passengers traveling on premium tickets (i.e., business and first class), which ere on a positive growth curve for the first half of 2008, fell by 1 percent in July. That may be just one percentage point, but it hit airlines hard at a time when jet fuel cost way more than it did in 2007.
• Trying to drum up immediate transatlantic business, American Airlines is offering a free companion ticket the 2008 flyers for a 2009 US-UK flight. The deal is: book and fly roundtrip before Deccember 31, 2008, and earn a free companion ticket for future travel to the United Kingdom or to the Caribbean between January 15 and December 15, 2009. The offer is valid for First Class, Business Class or on "select" Economy seats. And of course, there's fine print.
• Alaska Airlines, which earlier reduced its schedule by about 6 percent. announced that it will cut its winter flying capacity by 8 percent systemwide, and even more on routes to Mexico and Canada.
• United Airlines, which was unprepared for the initial run-up in fuel costs, has taken a second financial hit that could total $500 million quarter. United embarked on some ill-timed fuel hedges it adopted as protect from sharp price increases that didn't materialize. In fact, price dropped. Perhaps feeling a weakness in the "best customer" segment, United has finally loosened requirements for customers to upgrade to Economy Plus. Many of these extra-legroom seats had been filled by elite-level business travelers. Now, with that segment weakening, United is democratizing this service -- not that most leisure travelers, already slammed with baggage check fees, will cough up the extra bucks these days.
• Virgin America’s Main Cabin Select, which offers "first class amenities" to passengers paying extra for "premium coach seats (i.e., bulkhead and exit row), has been delayed. Originally set to launch on September 15, it now won't be bookable until October 6. Reservations system "technical difficulties" are cited as the cause of the delay.
• British Airways, while not immediately paring transatlantic service, is suspending some flights to eastern Europe beginning October 26, backpedaling on new routes originally due to start that same day to Spain and Portugal won't take off after all, and a new route to Hyderabad, India, will be delayed until December 6. "Other changes in capacity come from reduced frequency on multi-frequency routes and have limited impact on our network," said BA.

Galveston's Tourist Zone Devastation Revealed

Hurricane Ike's legacy is a swath of devastation; popular Strand severely damaged

Even as hurricane evacuees were allowed back to hurricane-battered Galveston, TX, to survey the destruction, the Convention & Visitors Bureau website continues to chirp:

"Galveston offers 32 miles of relaxing beaches, superb restaurants, top
resort hotels, marvelous downtown shopping, numerous antique stores,
incredible art galleries, fabulous entertainment and one of the largest
and well-preserved concentrations of Victorian architecture in the
country.

"Galveston is a small romantic island tucked deep within the heart of
south Texas possessing all the charm of a small southern town and just 40
minutes south of the fourth largest city in the United States. At 32 miles long
and two and a half miles wide, most residents can't remember the last time they
visited the mainland and, if circumstances permitted, they would never
leave.

"The Island has seen its share of calamities, yet the worst natural
disaster in U.S. history could not erase the tranquility of a Galveston
sunset.

"From soft sandy beaches to famous 19th century architecture, the island
is surrounded with incredible history and unique beauty."

Sure, there's a donation solicitation from the Greater Houston Community Foundation on the site to "Help Bring the Island Back. Donate to the Hurricane Ike Relief Fund." But that doesn't begin to describe the devastation they found following the cataclysmic 12-foot storm surge and 110-mile winds that made landfall earlier this month. CNN cameras showed closed, flooded stores on The Strand, Galveston's popular 26-block tourist zone, once home to some 100 shops and restaurants. There is limited water (none of it drinkable), and residents and business owners are permitted in only to assess the damages and to undertake very preliminary clean-up but are required to leave the island again by 6:00 p.m.

Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas and officials from the Port of Galveston and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston met with an ad hoc Senate committee who said that the city is seeking $2.3 billion in emergency government assistance -- $1.2 billion for the city; $600 million for the hospital and $500 million for the port.

Ironically, it is US Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat who chairs the ad hoc Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Disaster Recovery Subcommittee, which held the hearing to examine the federal government's response to back-to-back Hurricanes Ike and Gustav -- ironic because the government was painfully slow to help New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina three years ago. And that was before the government was steaming full speed ahead to bailing out failed banks and insurance companies to the tune of $700 million.

Bottom line for travelers: don't plan to visit Galveston Island any time soon, unless you're planning to volunteer for some kind of rebuilding crew.

P.S. On September 29, Boulder blogger Alyce Barry put a post on her with links to additional photos of Galveston and conjecture about the future of the island.

Ten Terrific Terminals

MSN.Travel spotlights notable new terminals that recently opened or are about to open

"9 Amazing New Airports" is the headline on a story on msn.travel. The story itself proceeds to name 10 fabulous new structures. I guess the headline writers can't count very well, but the list is interesting. Indeed, nine of the 10 that writer Harriet Baskas selected, while amazing and dramatic, aren't entire airports but rather individual new terminals at existing airports. (The exception is Branson, MO's new airport, opening next year.)

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs when I should simply be grateful that there are inspiring spaces that we pass through by the millions every year en route to or from our aircraft -- or while we wait in security lines, wait for our flights to board or wait for our luggage. Of course, the waiting doesn't usually take place in the sublime soaring spaces that are the best parts of the terminals that Baskas identified. The website showcases them in a slide show. More likely, we're in snaking security lines or sitting in crowded departure lounges. (Baskas does include useful information on amenities that help us pass the time.)

The first architecturally significant terminal that entered my consciousness was the Eero Saarinen-design TWA Flight Center (top photo, right) at New York's Idlewild Airport (now JFK International Airport). Inspired by the wings of a bird in flight, the terminal seemed large and futuristic when it opened in 1962. It was a time when air travel was a glamorous adventure, and Saarinen's grounded concrete bird conveyed that feeling.

The last time I went inside the terminal was in the waning days of TWA. I was changing planes at JFK, checked in my bags for an international flight and with time to spare, walked back to TWA and wandered in. Once a busy and glamorous space, the terminal had become shabby with security screening facilities cluttering the middle of the space. After TWA went out of business, the terminal was threatened with demolition. Fortunately, it was saved, and has now been creatively incorporated into fast-growing JetBlue's new terminal (bottom photo), scheduled to open next month.

Of Baskas' list of beauties, three terminals (Changi, Heathrow, Beijing) opened in the first three months of 2008, and four have opened or should be opening during the last three months of the year. Here are her choices:

• Heathrow Airport's (LHR) Terminal 5, which stumbled into operation in March 2008
• Beijing Capital International Airport's (PEK) Terminal 3, also opened around the same time
• Singapore Changi Airport's (SIN) Terminal 3
• John F. Kennedy International Airport's (JFK) American Airlines Terminal, which opened in 2007
• JFK's Terminal 5 (Jet Blue), scheduled to open on October 22
• Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport's (DTW) North Terminal, which just opened last week
• Raleigh-Durham International Airport's (RDU) Terminal 2, scheduled to open October 26
• Indianapolis International Airport's (IND) new terminal, scheduled to open November 11
• Branson Airport (BBG), scheduled to open in May 2009
• Madrid Barajas Airport's (MAD) two-year-old Terminal 4

Delta and Northwest to Wed -- Maybe

Proposed merger clears government hurdle

The Federal Aviation Administration has reportedly accepted plans of a merger between Atlanta-based Delta Airlines and Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines into a combined carrier that will retain the Delta name. It is expected to happen, and the European agency that also had to sign off on this has already done so. Then again, as Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over till it's over." Remember that Northwest at one point was going to merge with Houston-based Continental, but that never happened -- although numerous other airline mergers have been consummated since then. In any case, if/when approved, combining daily operations will take 15 to 18 months to combine the carriers daily operations. Share holders are supposed to vote on the merger this Thursday.

The merger may be good for shareholders, it probably won't do a lot for the flying public (because nothing lately has been good for the flying public) and it will be another blow to employees, some of who would surely be terminated. Thomas Kochan, an MIT professor whose who studies the airline industry, said that US airlines eliminated 100,000 jobs between 2001 and 2005 alone, and that airline bankruptcies have also decimated 16 pension plans covering 240,000 employees nationwide. Northwest employees belong to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, while other than pilots, Delta is primarily a non-union carrier. The US Justice Department alone can block mergers on antitrust grounds, but Congress has the powder to protect pension benefits. The current administration and recent Congresses have seemingly been more sympathetic to corporations and their shareholders than to workers, retirees or travelers on common carriers.

Travel Thumbnail #3: Leadville is Fine Fall Destination

This is the third in a series of periodic reports on specific places I've visited -- and which you might want see to as well. Post a comment or let me know directly what you think of this Travel Babel feature.

The Place: Leadville, CO

The Story: Leadville was one of the greatest of all Western boomtowns. The first short boom followed the discovery of gold in California Gulch that lasted from 1859 until 1865. Leadville's bigger, longer boom began with discovery of silver in 1873, increased in 1877 when a smelter was constructed there, began tapering off in the early 1880s and was dealt a dreadful blow in the silver crash of 1893. In between, fortunes were made from mining (rags-to-riches-rags Horace A. W. Tabor with the Little Pittsburg and Matchless Mines), Charles Boettcher (hardware in Leadville, later banking), David May (clothing in Leadville, eventually May D&F, now part of Macy's) and Meyer and Benjamin Guggenheim (bookkeepers at AY & Minnie Mines, later banking). Margaret "The Unsinkable Molly" Brown, Doc Holliday Bat Masterson, the Earps and Oscar Wilde all have a place in Leadville history. At its peak, Leadville boasted a population of 40,000. It is is the highest incorporated city in the US and currently has about 2,700 residents.

My Trip: Kinfolk from Washington, DC, were in Breckenridge this past week using one of their timeshare weeks. By the time I was able to break away to spend a day with them, they had gone fishing and driven the gorgeous Boreas Pass Road on the route of the old Denver South Park & Pacific (DSP&P) Railroad between Breckenridge and Como. The road is not plowed and closes by November 1, so this was a good time for them to drive it.

Neither is a hiker, but both are history buffs, so I suggested an excursion to Leadville. If the weather was good, we could stroll along Harrison Avenue, the history-filled main street, and if it got cold, rainy, windy or even snowy, I figured that we could head for the fascinating National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum that provides such insight into the mining history of Colorado and elsewhere.

For most of out time there, the weather was lovely with bright sun and minimal wind. Such attractions as the Tabor Opera House and the Healy House were already closed, the opera house for the season and the house museum for the remainder of that quiet day. We sauntered along with the visitors' center walking tour map in hand, admiring the 19th-century buildings and talking about what once was there.


I couldn't resist a sweet treat from Hundley's (below left), the souvenir and gift shop where Charlotte Hundley has been turning out fabulous fudge since she and her husband, Keith, opened the doors in 1985. I shared! We stopped for a light bite at the Provin' Grounds Coffee and Bakery (right), a warm, welcoming, off-beat cafe. The two are roughly kitty-corner from each other -- Hundley's at 623 Harrison Avenue and Provin' Grounds at #508.








We then drove south on US 24, passing the imposing hulks of Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive, Colorado's two highest mountains, and then turned west onto Colorado 82 to Twin Lakes for some mountain and foliage views across the lake (below).








We retraced our tracks through Leadville and continued to the top of Tennessee Pass to pay homage to the imposing memorial (below) to the 10th Mountain Division troops who where housed at nearby Camp Hale and trained as ski troops at what it is now Ski Cooper, a small, snow-sure ski area at whose entrance the memorial stands.


Unsurprisingly, it did start to rain as we drove back over Fremont Pass, where the mammoth Climax Molybdenum Mine (below) is being readied for reopening. At the end of a satisfying scenic day, we stopped for dinner at FoodHedz World Cafe in Frisco before I returned to Boulder and they drove back to Breckenridge.

Cost: Visiting Leadville is, of course, free. Some attractions do have an admission charge, and some are seasonal.

More Information: Leadville-Twin Lakes Chamber of Commerce, 809 Harrison Ave., Leadville, CO 80461; 719-486-3900.

Leadville is south of Interstate 70, via US 24 from Minturn, Grand Junction and the west or Colorado Hwy 91 from Copper Mountain, Denver and the east. From Colorado Springs, Salida or the south, take US 24.

Learn-A-Language Resource

About.com site features links to lessons -- free lessons

I don't speak Spanish and I don't speak Italian, but I "have words" in both -- and I'm always confusing the few things I know in those two languages that I don't speak. And I'm always intending to take some lessons to un-confuse (de-confuse?) myself. In my regular perusal of about.com's Adventure Travel site, I was delighted to see "Find Free Language Lessons Before Heading to Remote Areas or Big Cities," a guide to resources for picking up some basics, for free, before traveling. The languages include the common (French, Spanish, German) to the exotic (Urdu, Romanian, Hindi). The way I see it, if I can pick up the basics for free, it will make that much more available for the trip itself.