Skiing at Sweden's top resort is a pleasantly chilly experience

A force of 10,000 Karolinernas (King Charles' men), under the command of the incompetent Gen. Armfeldt, was sent to attack the Norwegians at Trondheim in 1718.

Like Napoleon en route to Moscow, they lingered too long outside the city's walls. After Charles was murdered in the south of Norway, Armfeldt led his demoralized army -- wearing only summer clothing -- through the snows of winter back across the mountains to Sweden, and 3,000 perished just a few miles from the village of Are and shelter.

Map Today Are is Sweden's leading ski resort. The ghosts of the dead Karolinernas still haunt the streets in restaurant signs, monuments and friezes in the Lutheran church.

Skiing through the woods and over the rounded mountain passes of Are -- from where the Karolinernas set off -- it's easy to imagine their despair. Away from the prepared ski tracks, the going is heavy, even on lightweight touring skis, and the way pockmarked by dips and ridges tangled with thickets of moss-covered trees.

Even in modern clothing, the cold can be ferocious.

It's a hard country -- even for the animals that live here. Above the tree line it's harder still: great whaleback mountains covered with sparse vegetation, which in winter is hidden under a blanket of deep snow.

The first tourists to Are were British: rich Victorians who came to build their summer hunting villas in the Jämtland region. Now, the British are returning -- with skis, not rod and gun. Most come for the downhill skiing, but I wanted to try telemarking, a uniquely Scandinavian blend of cross-country and downhill styles.

It's the ultimate in retro-skiing, as far removed from ordinary downhill as snowboarding. With only the toes of the boots connected and the heels flapping free, turns are negotiated by dropping to one knee and dragging the trailing tip in a kind of reverse snowplow. Done well, it has a muscular and balletic grace, skimming the snow in powerful parabolas. Perfectly executed, it expresses a kind of Zen insouciance that snowboarders can only dream of.

Learning to ski has always been one of life's great humiliations. Learning to telemark is the ultimate challenge.

You begin by shuffling across the slope like a clown in giant shoes, before graduating to the single leftward obeisance, the right-turning bob and then . . . disaster: Both knees are on the skis and progress continues with a tangled forward roll.

On harder slopes, I found it easier to slip into ordinary parallel turns (even with loose heels) than to use my new-found skills.

Are is a fine place for old dogs to learn new tricks. Toppstugan and Mullfjället -- the mountains that service the resort villages of Are and Duved -- are covered with a network of downhill runs that favor beginners and intermediates as well as providing demanding expert and off-piste runs.

It's also a family-oriented resort. Children under 11 ski free if they wear a helmet, and the Snoligan children's clubs run a range of activities.

The Swedish mountains are nothing like the Alps. They rise from rolling, forest-covered hills and lakes where the Sami people keep their reindeer.

It's a country that could have been created by the White Witch of Narnia, with tangled frosty woods and frozen waterfalls like the one at Tännforsen, which rises in vast gothic organ pipes of ice, forming glacial grottos that are floodlit at night.

The downside is the cold. The freezing air pierces the lungs and nips at ears. Nighttime temperatures can be punishing.

Sometimes in Sweden you are overtaken by moments of unexpected beauty. After a morning of downhill skiing, we set off cross-country. In no time we escaped the crowds and were on our own.

Crossing a path, we heard a shallow rumbling and saw a whirlwind of snow. Then they started coming: 100 reindeer charging across our path, half-veiled by the snow blasted up by their hooves. It's not something you'll ever see in Aspen.