The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 97

am 1 section Sunday, July 1975 Ron Smith 3 Jane Morse 6 Travel Notes 9 What's Doing in Brasilia 10 'or Slfei Try? i Summer, fjravel 17 a Glacier 1 -I-'-. 'f -VhJ By JACK SMITH Special to tht Imjulrer "So you think you can ski," snorted the Graf von Hals und Beinbruch. "Zee Andes, zee Rockies, Tuckerman's Ravine piffle. Tomorrow ve shall see how you do on zee glacier." The next morning my travelling companion Natasha and I were skimming the forbidding peaks of the Schlag-sahne, a range of frozen monoliths inaccessible to all but the hardiest mountain goats, a handful of yeti, and of course, the helicopter-borne guests of the count. Setting down on a summit above a series of precipitous icy chutes we strapped on our skis, radio equipment, and flares, and pushed off gingerly towards the foot of the ice sheet.

Once accustomed to the razor-sharp bite of the ski edges into the glassy piste, the slopes didn't seem much different from frozen late-afternoon ski trails back home until I heard Gungadin, our host's doughty, Sherpa mountain guide and golf pro, yell out "Evasscray!" This, the count grinningly explained as they lowered a rope to me, was the term for "crevasse" in Gungadin's native tongue. Later that evening back in the count's cozy mountain retreat, a quaint hideaway resembling the control tower at Orly, only larger, the assembled guests amused themselves over the X-Rays of my spinal fracture and generous pourings of the whiskey which proved to be as fashionable in the mountain fastness of Eurasia as in our own native shores v-- A'- v'-r 1 fit t. -uj dulge one's taste for risk, expense, and foreign settings, how much more costly, how much more hazardous, and the true criterion of the jaded sophisticate how much more exclusive must glacier skiing be? Suffice it to say that the exhilaration of summer skiing along the 11,000 ft. high Stubaiglacier in Austria isn't diminished in the least by the fact that it has become as convenient, and, in many respects, less expensive than skiing in most winter resorts abroad and in the United States. The careful reader will note that we have, for the time being, glossed over the hazards.

"It's no more than two hours' drive from here," smiled the young lady behind the Lufthansa Information Counter at Munich Airport," just past Innsbruck and over the Euro-peabrucke. But I didn't know many Americans go there." That's just what puzzled me. Back home I could count perhaps a score of hot stovers who will pontificate on snow conditions, lift facilities, hotel accommodations in resorts from Portillo to Dravograd. But any familiarity with the qualities of the Stubai Valley was as limited as the Blesto-VIII line on a wide receiver (SeeSKIonl3-H) Along with ostrich racing, high altitude ballooning, and caber tossing, glacier skiing had always seemed the province of those intrepid bon vivants depicted as jetting from continent to continent in the highest of spirits about 86 proof. In settings varying from tundra to rain forest, highland to Sahara, their adventures are recounted with the predictability of a medieval morality play.

To synopsize: at the Insistence of his host, a genial sort whose sense of hospitality falls somewhere between the Marquis de Sade and W. C. Fields, the unwary traveler is shortly up to his epaulets in some fiendishly esoteric form of athletics, one which unfailingly requires lavish ministrations of Canadian Club to mollify the sensibilities and restore his self-esteem. Obviously, sports involving the ele- ments of risk, great expense, and exotic locale make for better copy than pastimes of a more mundane nature. A bowling junket to Trenton, for instance, may offer as much good fun and cameraderie as running with the bulls in Pamplona, but, by definition, it doesn't get off the train at West-port.

And if the most popular form of skiing affords the opportunity to in ill 1 lV Travel by Canoe And Paddle, noeing Is picnicking, fishing, sightseeing and hiking On the Upper Delaware, you sioji' below the. majestic Gan I 1 1 i I i i i i 11 'v V- A -i' x- By ROD NORDLAND and CAROLE JACOBS Special to Inquirer STERNSMAN: We'd like to bring you a few words. about the that oldest American-made boat, and the sport of canoeing, from our unique vantage point right here at the water line. Below us tm probably shaped, jdemle'f ITitle craft invented by-ome forgotten Indian who somehow foresaw its potential for navigation. And up front, intrep-idlypcouting for rocks, is my rater and bows man.

-m BOWSMAN: JTey; make lhat Bowswomam i STERNSMAN: -Watch the" rocks, THE ROCKS! Ow, BOWSWOMAN: I said "port," so and climb' an' hour 'if, relatively easy trail to a perch a feet above the river's course. Or you can. beach.i,tgulaia-4fcerBatsto "TIIvergetut' SBdirla recon-" structed colonial iron-makhg village. Or in Pine Gsek tJorge you can stop in one the occasional 'calm pools, drod a line and wait for one of the reputed two-foot long trout or drowned canoeists), or; get Out and hunt the wild turkey trails. 'M BOWSWOMAN: Anpther reason for canoeing's popularity is' that it's an 'easy sport to some of the really rough whifewater streams in the state can be dangerous, for an unguided novice, there are plenty of gradations of difficulty 'for all ca-' noeists.

For those in the Which-End of-the-Paddle-Do-I-Hold category, the good old SChuylkUl River here in Philadel-. phia is a handy place to at the $3.50 an hour hobat rentals on East River Drive." The Schuylkill in Fair-mount Park is mild and wejl-patrolled by the city's Marine Police, When the oil isn't running, the-worst danger a-capsized canoeist faces is cutting his feet on submerged beer cans. The Public Canoe, House, located just above the Strawberry Mansion Bridge on the drive. Is- open from April to 5 canoes, 20 rowboats and li sailboats at your You can even K-cent cartons of juice for 65 cents, There's a beautiful island in the middle of the river nearby, but it's against the law to land on it. STERNSMAN: A much more pleas--ant beginner's trip can be had in the New Hope aga on the ancient, wil- Harry and Jeanne Ilarman: Even they don't agree on the Caribbean.

Most Feared Couple in the Caribbean! whv'd you go left? STERNSMAN: Ob dear. Like I was saying, that oldest American craft is on a rising riffle of popularity these -days. It's inexpensive and Tionpollut-: ing, relaxing and-or exciting and-or calming. And you don't have to go to the to do it. There are i at least a dozen good places within an easy day's' trip of 1 Philadelphia where even If you're an unequipped beginner you can be on a river for as little as six bucks a day.

BOWSWOMAN: Besides, there's a mystic xjua ti ty to canoe tripping. The tug of- a mild river, the wild fight against a torrential one: 'ever. thAre always sens of par- Jtacipation, sort "of 1 marriage with the element Canoeing is a matter of matching with the pacing hopefully with your partner--- like oM Differ-edt-Strokesl or -Different-Folks behind me the. STERNUM And the canoe is a versatile crft, capable of carrying Iceboys full of beer, spare kids, and julder killing packs. Ca watch, can tell you down to the sec-ond.

How big are the hotel rooms? Harry paces them off, or with a tape. Does the management keep the grounds clean? The Harmans1 will even leave a piece of toast outside a hotel manager's door to find ont. (At one posh Caribbean inn, Ute toast was still there 48 hours later.) Their modus operandi is simple. On each island, they arrive unannounced. She checks out the shops and restas-rants, he the hotels and sporting facilities.

Only aerward, if they need spe-(See HERMANS on By JOHN DORSCHNER Kmgit Nmptptn Vrittr No one is neutral about Jeanne and Harry Harman. On Puerto Rico, the director of tourism has biamed them for his island having a bad year. On another Caribbean isle, a hotel-owner became so enraged he gave a New York writer a two-week vacation, just so the man could get in the mood to write the perfect letter of complaint to the Harmans' editors. And on Jamaica, the owter of a homey little restaurant showed iegp of happiness he was inaltyldtroduced to the couple. "You've made my restaurant," he told them.

"You've made my life." Is this the most feared couple in the Caribbean? "I don't think that's true," siya Jeanne Karman, who then relates that her St. Thomas postman once told her, 'Oh, Mistre v-tr-nf you're so And," adds Jeanne, "he knew the difference between 'notorious' and Then reason for all this notoriety or fame is Fielding's Guide to the Caribbean Plus the Bahamas, a witty, unflinchingly frank description of the good, the cad and the ugly in the sunny Antilles. Now in its sixth edition, the book has become so successful that it has driven out 12 competitors, by the Harmans' own estimate, and now remains as the area's only major guidebook. Though it bears the Fielding imprint, the book is written and researched solely by the Harmans, who attack their work with a single-minded determination. Is a restaurant slow in serving a meal, or a hotel operator dawdling in answering a phone? The Harmans, thanks their ever-present stop- (See CJNOE on 8-H).