I love winter resorts. Or, to be precise, I love the Platonic conception of such places. The reality usually leaves me not just cold but let down and irascible. Much as I'm enamored of snow, bracing clear air, crystalline views from mouuntainpeaks, tonic bouts of vigorous exercise, hot toddies in front of fireplaces and deep dreamless sleep under goose-down duvets, I loathe the crowds, the interminable lines at ski lifts, the annihilating snobbish competition that starts with clothing and equipment and ends with bruised egos or broken bones on the slopes. I especially hate the drop-dead chic of deafening discos and the paralyzing price of everything form a room to rubbing alcohol. After listening to this litany of complaints, friends in Eastern Europe suggested that I try uncharted territory and spend time in the High Tatras, the far northwestern region of the Carpathian range in the newly independent republic of Slovakia.

Traveling by train from Prague, about a seven-hour trip, I reached the city of Poprad late at night and caught a cog-rail car that climbed through darkness so impenetrable it might have been a tunnel. At Stary Smokovec, I got off at a station with cheerfully lighted lamps and loudspeakers playing a sprightly tune called "Suummer in Dixie," just what you want to hear when the temperature is 14 degrees. The information booth was shuttered, the ticket windows closed, and the waiting room deserted. Outside, there were no taxis and not a pedestrian in sight.

Directly above me, the Grand Hotel, a half-timbered monstrosity, hovered in the night. At that hour, and in my mood, it resembled the Addams family residence, and, as I trudged uphill over ice-slick streets, I could imagine myself slipping and tobogganing on my suitcase back to the train station. I could also envision the story of the next 10 days evolving into that nasty genre of travel literature known as The Bad Trip.

But once I was inside the lobby, my outlook improved. A pre-Communist-era relic dating from the turn of the century, the hotel wasn't nearly as forbidding as its initial appearance suggested, nor so stuffy or grand as its name implied. It had a warm, woodpaneled homeyness; children cavorted on the Oriental carpets and brocade couches, while grown-ups shot pool or sat in a reading alcove amply stocked with books in Czech and Slovak, Russian, German and even English, so long as your tastes ran to Sinclair Lewis and Howard Fast. The guest all appeared to be real people in the old Soviet world historical sense, not a collection of manicured, made--up, svelte starvelings such as you see at resorts where everybody's decked out in Lycra outfits that cling like a second-skin and glow like neon bulbs. Here in the High Tatras, the preferred costume of the apres-ski crowd, regardless of age, shape, or sex, was a sweatshirt, baggy warm-up pants, and imitation Nikes. Best of all, a double room costs about $75 a night, about what you'd pay for breakfast in a luxury Swiss hotel.