SALT LAKE CITY — When Niki Bennet wakes up on Tuesday mornings, she is all smiles. Why? Because it’s the day she gets to spend with six of her best friends — sledding down a mountain.
That’s right, sledding.
Every Tuesday in the winter (weather permitting), seven Salt Lake County women, all over the age of 40, go sledding together.
Every Tuesday in the winter (weather permitting), seven Salt Lake County women over the age of 40 go sledding together. Pictured are Kelli Hansen,
Brooke O’Farrell, Amy Wilson, Syd Ure, Jenn Jones, Jen Picklesimer and Niki Bennett. (Photo: Niki Bennett)
“It makes you feel like a child again,” Bennet said. “It’s funny because people will see us all together, and you can just see them giggle and laugh. People can’t help but smile to see us up out there having fun as I’m coming down doing a 360 and backward somersault. It allows you to be a kid again, and you just forget about your problems.”
Brooke O’Farrell is another one of the sledding moms who moved to Utah from California seven years ago. She, too, said that sledding has awakened her inner child, adding that she does it for the exercise.
“Sledding was probably the best thing that I got introduced to when I moved to Utah,” O’Farrell said. “I was really just dreading the winter, and I thought I was going to get seasonal depression, but sledding has been good for me. It’s challenged me physically. And the way we squeal and scream, you would think we were a bunch of little kids coming down these hills.”
O’Farrell said that they go sledding in several (undisclosed) locations along the Wasatch and are always on the lookout for new places. She said they try to find places where they can hike a couple of miles up and sled most of the way down.
“We strap some small sleds to our backs and hike 1½ to 2 miles up the trails and then slide down,” she said. “It’s really fun, and you go down so much faster than you go up.”
The sledding moms said they often bring their kids to join in the fun, but just not on Tuesdays. In fact, between the seven of them, they have 28 kids total. And it isn’t just their kids and significant others who are left behind on this day they all call “sacred,” but many of the women take the day off from work.
“Tuesday’s my sacred day,” Bennett said. “Everyone knows — my clients, family friends — that this is my day. Most of us work outside the home. One of us is a business owner, one works full-time and takes calls remotely. One’s a dental hygienist, another is a coach, and I’m a therapist.”
Bennet said that as a licensed mental health professional, one of the best things for her mental health is having friends with whom she can go out in nature.
“I think personally and as a therapist, every person needs a group of friends like this,” Bennett said. “I do the (healing) work. I do meditation, breath work and therapy. I go to yoga. But this is just as powerful, if not more, than anything else. To have a group of friends like this is rare. I’ve lived in Utah for 16 years. Utah is a friendly-unfriendly place. Everybody’s friendly, but nobody wants to be your friend. I was a transplant from Seattle. It’s been such a gift to have friends like these. It’s my most sacred circle.”
Every Tuesday in the winter (snow permitting), seven Salt Lake County women, all over the age of 40, go sledding together. (Photo: Niki Bennett)
Both O’Farrell and Bennett said that friendships like these are not only hard to come by, but they take work. And to them, it is well worth it.
“I think that when your kids are a little bit older, like ours, sometimes it’s hard because you’re not as involved with their friends,” O’Farrell said. “When your kids are little, you go to the park together, but when your kids are older, you’re just dropping them off places, and you sometimes can lose those connections with other parents. For me, it’s been so important to find ways to maintain those connections.”
Those connections, Bennett said, aren’t built on like-mindedness but rather their differences and the need to connect to others while in nature.
“We were the most unlikely group of friends you’d ever meet,” Bennett said. “There is really something special about being in nature and with people who aren’t even like-minded. If you have the courage to open up to them when you’re having a hard time, it frees up permission for them to do the same. That’s how trust and connection are built in those small moments of courage and vulnerability and authenticity. That’s what this group has.
“It doesn’t take money to have friendship,” she continued. “It doesn’t cost us anything to hike and sled. You have to have the courage to start it. Be the one to initiate. Create what you want in your life. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Create it yourself.”
Even with a less-than-average snowfall this season so far, the friends have found ways to still get outdoors but say that they are sending out all the snow-filled prayers.
“We all just pray for snow because that makes the winter fun,” O’Farrell said. “I get so excited when it snows because I know that means we’re gonna go sledding.”
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