When I first saw the words Gunstock, Wildcat and Cannon, places I was due to visit in New Hampshire in the US, I felt a twinge of fear. To me, they sounded like the kind of rides you find in the so-called "fun parks" I had always avoided due to a lifelong and chronic fear of rollercoasters.
Of course, there is no reason why a grown woman would spend her winter break at an amusement park; these places are all ski resorts in the White Mountains in the north of America's Granite State. Given that I hadn't seen proper snow for several years, let alone skied on any, my plan to visit eight of them in just six days was destined to prove something of a physical challenge.
The attempt to bring my inner ski bunny back to life began at Gunstock Mountain. Suffice to say, it wasn't easy. As I was preparing to disembark from the chairlift on my first run of the day, I realised that my bum bag had become wedged between the bars of the chair. I couldn't wrench myself free, and had to suffer the humiliation of the attendant stopping the lift so he could unhook me and lift me down.
Then, when I strapped my skis on and tried to ski nonchalantly away, I found my legs didn't seem to be working. I realised later that this probably had something to do with the fact that New Hampshire was in the middle of its warmest winter for 138 years. The snow cover, generously described as being "loose granular", seemed mostly to be made up of tiny particles of ice: not the best surface for even the most hot dawg of skiers. Almost wishing I'd gone to that fun park after all, I snowploughed grimly on.
That evening, spirits dropped further with a shower of rain. Things did not bode well for the next day; a shame, as we were to be skiing at Cranmore, which was built by Hannes Schneider, the father of the Arlberg downhill skiing technique. Hannes fled his Alpine home of St Anton am Arlberg for New Hampshire after Hitler occupied Austria in 1938, and his son, who is well into his 80s, apparently still skis at the resort.
But I was not to have the pleasure of meeting Hannes Jr that day. The snow was gloopy and virtually unskiable. I decided to give it a go anyway, foolishly imagining that it couldn't be any worse than the day before, but as soon as I hit the slopes - skiing at a snail's pace and on almost flat ground - I fell over. Wet, cold and disgruntled, I was almost glad that the afternoon's skiing at Black Mountain was cancelled due to the rain.
Fortunately, just as I was about to concede defeat and spend the rest of my holiday in a jacuzzi, I had an epiphany. At Wildcat Mountain the following day the sun was shining, the snow had been groomed overnight and, most significantly, I booked myself in for a private skiing lesson.
It was the best thing I could have done. My instructor, a wonderful grizzly bear of a man and pure grace on skis, had been teaching at Wildcat for 30 years and clearly loved every second of it. In between giving relaxed and instructive pointers on how to make the most of the less than ideal conditions, he pointed out cherry, maple, ash and golden birch trees, the tracks of coy dogs in the snow and the darting play of chipmunks. I suddenly remembered that skiing was supposed to be fun.
With hardly anyone else around, we skied Polecat, New Hampshire's longest run at 2.75 miles. I sailed down it without a care in the world, admiring the beautiful view of the surrounding forest, fairly whooping for joy. That afternoon at Attitash Bear Peak, it was easy to remember how nice it is to be in the pure air, away from traffic and noise and people. During several hours of skiing, I was often the only person on its typical New England-style winding trails, moving in big sweeping curves through the trees, hearing nothing but the swooshing of my skis.
About an hour's drive from Attitash is the Mount Washington Hotel. A huge white Spanish Renaissance affair, the hotel crouches in a valley opposite Mount Washington itself, and almost appears to be trying to stare it down. It reeks of opulence: Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison and Babe Ruth all stayed there, and in 1944 it hosted the Bretton Woods International Monetary Conference, the meeting that established the World Bank and the IMF.
The nearby resort, Bretton Woods, has lots of gentle runs and wide open spaces and is a great place to barrel along all day. Filled with confidence after spending a long time doing just that, I did something I would never have contemplated before this holiday: I skied my first ever slalom race. And, although I had absolutely no finesse and took an age to finish (much to the amusement, I'm sure, of the hotshots who were using it for serious practice), I came away with the second-fastest time! I sure couldn't wait to tell the folks back home - they always said a silver medal was nothing to be ashamed of.
Neither is a gold of course, as was made clear at our next stop, Cannon Mountain, which was once the stomping ground of gold-medal slalom winner Bode Miller. Cannon is a favourite with more accomplished skiers, and is known in the area as the "bold" to Bretton Woods' "beautiful".
The people of Franconia, the town near Cannon, are very proud of their local champion and you hear his name a lot - a poster advertising a local beer has the slogan "No Bode does it better" - but several of the resorts I visited seemed to be able to boast that someone famous skied there. At our next stop, Waterville Valley, people were so pleased about the fact that the Kennedy family used to visit that there was even a run - a bumpy double black diamond - called Lower Bobby's, which allegedly had been renamed in Robert Kennedy's honour after his assassination in 1968.
Contemplating the possibility of my own future fame as a slalom champion, I spent quite a while at Waterville standing on the edge of True Grit, a steep trail which looks like it would be lots of fun in good conditions. But, seeing how much it was "skied-off", where people making sharp turns had built up the snow in piles at the sides of the run, exposing large clattering sheets of ice down the middle, I opted for a much easier run called No Grit instead.
Further proof that Bode's crown was safe came on the last day of my trip, at Loon Mountain, when my overworked calf muscles cramped up every time I put my boots on. The resort seemed nice enough, but in the end I was more than happy to climb into the van and head for Boston, achingly anticipating lots of blessed sleep on the plane home.
Getting there
Amalie Finlayson flew with Icelandair (020 7874 1001) from Heathrow via Keflavik to Boston. A comprehesive guide to resorts, conditions and tour operators can be found at Ski New Hampshire, tel: 00 800 937 54930.
Resort links
Gunstock Mountain
Cranmore Mountain
Black Mountain
Wildcat Mountain
Attitash Bear Peak
Bretton Woods
Cannon Mountain
Waterville Valley
Accommodation
Inns at Mill Falls
North Conway Grand Hotel
Royalty Inn
White Mountain Hotel
Mount Washington Hotel
Mountain Club on Loon
