Getting to the mountain without frying the planet usually comes down to this: avoid driving your vehicle. Until recently, the alternatives were pretty much limited to...

 Train and bus, hitching and rideshare. Now, there’s another option — car share. Instead of owning, you share.

You won't be the first. More than 40,000 Canadians and 280,000 Americans do it, along with Swiss, Germans and other Europeans. Car sharing began in 1989 in Switzerland and, in 1993, came to North America via Quebec.

Today, a host of companies provide the cars, including the well-known Zipcar www.zipcar.com. If you live in a city or near a university, odds are you can share one for a ski trip.

For my last ski trip, from San Francisco to Northstar, I joined Zipcar. This very green, very nice and very hi-tech car-sharing operation let me choose a vehicle, then choose where I wanted to pick it up and drop it off. The pretty modest price included free gas, and because I was heading for snow country, a free shovel and chains.

Here's how it works. 1. Sign up (and pay) on zipcar.com. 2. Receive card. 3. Reserve car. 4. Using card, unlock car. 5. Go skiing. 6. Return car. For next trip, repeat 3 through 6.

And here's how Zipcar says you're saving the Earth: “Each and every Zipcar takes 15-20 personally-owned vehicles off the road. Multiply that by the more than 5,000 cars in our fleet and you've got a really big number.”

And a greener way to the white.

--JULES OLDER