Feb. 19, 2014:  If ever there were a person not meant for skiing, it is I. But as a harried mother of four, the idea of getting the young'uns out, and, more important, in ski school, led me to subject myself to the rigors of the slopes in days of yore. My husband, with an unusual level of genius, always arranged to arrive a day after I took the kids on the plane, with 500 pounds of luggage, and over several treacherous mountain passes, to our week-rented condo, to the grocery store, and, finally, gasping from the altitude, to bed.

Then came the layered dressing of the twins, the trek to the slopes with our equipment, ticket purchase, ski school enrollment, and finally, freedom? Not really. Not for a low, low intermediate skier who only got worse with each passing year. "Why do you bother?" cackled various children at various times. But I stayed out there, freezing, dodging lines of three-year-old neophytes speeding by me, and otherwise making a fool of myself on at least an annual basis.

On one trip to New Hampshire, I got the bright idea of schussing with my oldest child from the top of Cannon Mountain. This necessitated taking a tramway halfway up, followed by a t-bar, which mounted the remaining peak at a heart-skipping, almost-90-degree angle. As I gripped the bar cable in fear, I realized that, if I fell off, I would take out the many, many expert skiers on the bars behind me. Abject shame allowed me to reach the top, where, as luck would have it, the exit chute, and I mean chute, would have made a downhill racer proud. Again, the fates were kind, but I was forever scarred by the adrenaline surge.

I also believe, while lacking any scientific proof therefor, that a long, sliding fall a few years later at Windham was at least partly responsible for the production of the aforesaid twins.

Fourteen years ago, I hung up my skis. I had become an empty nester. The horrors of skiing were behind me.

That is until my endless dreams of failing to find a college classroom and forgetting to do an entire year's reading for a final history exam were mysteriously replaced by far more terrifying ones of hitting the slopes.

I tried to analyze why this alteration had occurred and decided that it had to do with that negative stuff older people fall victim to when they admit to themselves that they'll never do a particular activity again. I wasn't ready to give in.

Flipping on my computer, I studied all the places where our family had skied, searching for the spot with the longest, easiest trails. Not only was I terrified to ski again, but also my gynecologist had informed me that I had osteoporosis, and, when I asked him what that meant for daily life, he replied in his charmingly succinct way, "Don't jump."

Deer Valley won the lottery. It also had the advantage of being the quickest resort to drive to from the airport, and, as you may have read in my last column, also offered, as I was to learn, the Sundance Festival if the skiing, as I anticipated, turned out to be a bust.

So out there I went. I booked into a resort at the bottom of the mountain, rented skis that were delightfully shorter and wider than the monstrosities I had used before, and spent the rest of my first day worrying about the next. You'd think I was preparing for the Olympics, but, seriously, I was scared.

After a somewhat fitful night, together with serious internal rumblings and expulsions as my organs adjusted to the 7,000-foot altitude, I woke up to meet the challenge. I found, however, that I was doing lots of things, e.g., Candy Crush, to delay the inevitable, but eventually commenced to don my multiple layers of clothing.

All was going well until I got to my ski boots. Middle-age spread, despite various cosmetic interventions, made it difficult to lean down far enough to fasten my boots. That, combined with continued maladjustment to the altitude, required that I take to my bed for 15 minutes after locking each boot. If I could barely do this, how could I ever ski?

Finally, completely clad and boiling from the effort, I staggered, shuffled RoboCop-like, to the hotel's shuttle bus, which whisked me all too fast to the slopes. Merely carrying my equipment to the starting point almost finished me off once again. But, skis on, I had to debate whether to take a very beginner's kind of magic carpet to the top of a 1⁰ hill or man up and take the big people's lift up a more normal precipice. Shame compelled the latter.

Of course, the entire ride was consumed with thoughts of whether I would be able to get off the lift without falling or continue merrily right back down to the base. Happily, I performed skillfully, if not smartly, and met the challenge.

I then found to my delight that my newfangled wider skis were, in fact, easier to manage. However, as I felt speed was not my friend, I made endless, messy turns on the way down. No crossed skis, no veering into the woods, no falls. By the time I got to the bottom, I was exhausted from all my efforts to fight gravity, but I was alive!

To make a short story shorter, I survived for four days, skiing longer and harder each day, and found by my final effort that I almost enjoyed it.

What did I learn? Well, yes, you have nothing to fear but fear itself (as long as you stay on the greens), and you shouldn't zip up your ski overalls until AFTER you've buckled your boots. An added bonus: my OCD dreams have reverted to those pesky missed classes and exams again.

Pictured here:  Adrienne Smith on the slopes of Deer Valley.

Photo courtesy Adrienne Smith