It was my first time skiing in Europe and my first view of the Swiss Alps at Gstaad. My last visit, decades earlier, included hitchhiking, youth hosteling, and a picnic with locals on a slope near Appenzell in eastern Switzerland, the last bastion of open-air, male-only democracy in Europe. Women were only given the vote in this canton in 1991 - 10 years after my visit. I had enjoyed the eccentricities and regional differences in Switzerland - four languages, including the unique Romansch - and hoped I would still experience them on a ski trip.

The exchange rate of Swiss franc to dollars had improved, in the dollar's favor, and there were many package deals to fly and ski and stay that made a European ski trip as feasible for a resident of the eastern U.S. as one to Utah. Hotel costs in Switzerland often include half-board, which means a buffet breakfast and a choice of lunch or dinner so as not to interfere with skiing. I went as an intermediate skier with several skiing friends, and the new Alpine Lodge, five minutes by taxi from Gstaad center, had been recommended. This lodge has it all. The themed- rooms include mountain biking and rafting. We had the rock climbing room, complete with a textured climbing wall with hand holds and an iMac computer supported from the wall with red climbing ropes. As a plus, the computer actually worked and was online all the time, no extra charge. Checking e-mail overseas was an unexpected delight.

The lodge has its own restaurant and bar, an indoor/outdoor heated pool, sauna and steam room, and a ski rental shop. In the bar in the evening, I watched a local Swiss tradition. The game was called "nageln" and consisted of a tree trunk on the floor around which men stood in a circle. It was a lumberjack's game that tested hand-eye coordination. You took turns hitting nailheads down into the trunk with the narrow end of an actual hatchet. The last man with a nail head sticking up had to buy drinks for the rest. I couldn't imagine a bar game with a hatchet catching on back home.

As a further incentive, since my visit last January, the exchange rate has gone from 1.59 to 1.66 Swiss francs to the dollar. At Alpine Lodge a double room at half board comes to $70 per person - and the food's excellent. A four-bed room is $58 per person - with breakfast buffet and lunch or dinner included. The breakfast includes fresh breads and pastries, cheeses, cold cuts, boiled eggs, fresh fruit, and fine coffee. One dinner offering is a wine-imbued cheese fondue simmering in a communal pot.

On our first morning of skiing, we climbed above the village of Saanenmoser via gondola to the summit where the full scope of downhill possibilities appeared. The surrounding heights of the Bernese Oberland Alps were sharply peaked, deep in snow, and crisscrossed with trails. We were looking across the Gstaad Saanenland ski region that includes six interlinked skiing areas, with 69 lifts and 155 miles of trails. The lift ticket included access to all of them but that would take weeks to cover and we didn't have the time.

We kept to the lifts out of Saanenmoser, which included the Hornfluh and Saanersloch peaks, and those rising from St. Stephen town to the summit at Parwengesattel. I stayed on blue and red-marked trails and avoided black expert ones. The days were sunny and snow conditions ranged from moist corn to a half-foot of fresh powder. There were small log huts off the runs nearly hidden in snow and marvelous wide trails with gentle slopes where I could pick up speed and still catch the scenery.

There were also two-storied traditional Swiss mountain chalets on the slopes that offered dining and overnight rooms. How could you beat a morning of great skiing and a mid-slope lunch of “Berner Teller,” which included roast beef, Canadian bacon, local sausage, smoky preserved green beans, and roasted potatoes in a cheese sauce flecked with bacon? Threats of “mad cow disease” from a fellow American circulated the table in an attempt to spoil my appetite, but vegetables alone can't support my ski legs. And cold drafts of Swiss beer had the effect of keeping thoughts of illness far from consciousness. Needless to say, vegetarian plates are available all over today's Europe.

There's an interesting sideline to skiing in Switzerland. The T-bar lift, the kind where you use the bar as your seat while a line pulls you uphill, is mostly confined to beginner slopes in the States. Not so around Gstaad. Amazingly, long T-bar lifts are employed to get skiers above the runs. And they don't just go up. They slip down little crevasses and into riverbeds, jerk suddenly up steep inclines and cross active ski trails. Teenage snowboarders slide in front of you as you wonder about safety. But, with practice, I learned to enjoy the T-bars. Daydreaming on them is rewarded with sudden ejection so it keeps one on edge.

The next day we tried the slopes of Parwengesattel by taking the Saanerslochgrat gondola to the end and skiing across the higher valleys. At one point, the gondola stopped for a short fury of a snowstorm and we meditated in the whiteout and sway for a good 20 minutes. This interim of blind anxiety was rewarded with the finest of powder snow at the summit. One slope was wide enough so you could veer from the main area and ski on a reasonable grade through untouched powder such as this intermediate has never experienced. I keeled over in a harmless pile of glorious fresh snow.

We used mostly T-bars on the Parwengesattel side and I lost a friend to one. Dick didn't die, he just fell from a jerking T-bar in a valley without ski trails where he burned so much energy getting out that he retreated to the lodge for an early drink.

I was getting my ski-legs back and loved the meandering trails leading to Lengebrand, halfway down to the small village of St. Stephen. It was mid-week, ski hordes were nowhere to be seen, and I could relax while attempting to parallel ski. Beside the trails, Restaurant Chemi- Stube was the main draw on the slope in Lengebrand, where you could have a drink or a meal under antique tools of the lumberjack's trade. The German word for lumberjack was “holzfaller,” “wood faller,” and a house specialty was “holzfallerkartoffeln,” or “wood faller potatoes.” It was a meal in itself.

After a day's skiing, the town of Gstaad was perfect to walk around in while keeping leg muscles loose for more skiing. Cars weren't allowed in the town center so it was a fresh air pleasure. The shops were high end, with windows gleaming in treasures. Not being a shopper, I headed for a deli opposite the village fountain at Gstaad Platz. Shopping for food wasn't the same as shopping for jewelry or clothing. If you were hungry, chances are not much would be carried home.

There's also an interesting walkway zigzagging up to the Palace Hotel, which overlooks town. At night, the Palace is regally lit and Disco GreenGo is open to all - for a $28 cover. Steep, but you get a drink with that and the chance to mingle with old world society and a possible celebrity or two.

Not having any interest in celebrity, I stuck with winter sports. Gstaad catered to me. If I tired of downhill, I could use miles of cross-country trails that wound along riverbeds and crossed rural bridges. There was a tourist map of cross-country trails that extended in area nearly as far as the map for downhill runs in the Gstaad Saanenland ski region.

There were toboggan runs open to the public at Eggli and Wispile, the closest slopes to Gstaad center. With skates, you can use either indoor rinks at Gstaad or outdoor rinks in Saanenmoser and Schonried. And, if you use no special winter equipment at all, the region maintains over 30 miles of walking paths cleared of snow. I was surprised to see the walking paths. But then, things were closer in Switzerland, and there was a tradition of walking. Most Swiss mountain huts weren't built with the internal combustion engine in mind. Walking in winter was another of those old time customs I was looking for.