Experts tout numerous benefits as interest wanes in winter activity
Pennsylvania’s rolling hills are prime for sledding. In times past, families congregating at favorite spots, such as “the knoll” in Danville, the Brown Avenue hill in Milton (with a pond at the end for ice skating), and the steep hill on Line Street in Sunbury, were reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting.
On a snow day from school, children scurried outside and careened down the snowy slopes, scarves flapping behind them and smiles frozen on their faces.
In recent years, the bustle of outside winter recreation seems to have dwindled, due perhaps to the lack of snow, liability concerns and the draw of electronic devices. Yet there are still those who cherish the Pennsylvania sledding season.
Tradition
Corey Waters, 61, of Selinsgrove, grew up in Shamokin Dam.
“Many kids couldn’t wait for the first snow to hit,” Waters said. He and others from his development would head straight for a nearby farm with a prime sled riding hill.
As he got older, his parents would take the family to Orchard Hills Cemetery and the country club, where there were popular big hills as well. When he was in college, Waters took his nieces sledding — and later his own two boys — on those same hills.
His son Thad, 35, of Camp Hill, remembers those times well.
“I remember flying down that (Susquehanna Valley Country Club) hill on an old wooden toboggan that was my grandfather’s, with a bunch of my friends. Even as a college student I would go there at night with my friends to sled.”
As a kid, sledding was one of the things he looked forward to the most.
“One of my favorite memories growing up was on those awesome snow days everyone would come to my house and we would sled all day long. We would build ramps for our sleds and we would race each other down to the bottom of the hill.”
They’d break for lunch and to throw their snow pants and snow jackets into the dryer to warm them up before heading out again.
“I remember being outside till the sun went down,” he said.
Changing trends
Debbie Reichard, 69, and her brother Bob Hoffman, both of Mifflinburg, grew up in the borough and remember lots of fun times enjoying some of the ideal sledding hills in town and in surrounding farm fields.
“We’d just put our snow clothes on, and boots, and be out all day long and not think twice about it,” Reichard said. She and her husband Dale later enjoyed going to New Berlin together, and later took their children there, to sled down a hill and end at the commons, where there was an ice skating pond. Reichard said they would also often take their kids out at night and pull them on their sleds down the street. Hoffman said his kids and grandkids have enjoyed sled riding over the bank at his house.
Other than the occasional children who have gone sled riding on a hill behind her house, Reichard said she hasn’t seen nearly as much activity as she remembers as a kid.
“Very rarely do we have enough snow,” she said.
Hoffman adds, “I don’t think (kids) go out as much. A lot are glued to their electronic devices. We used to do a lot of stuff with kids around the neighborhood.”
They both bring up some important things – climate and culture – to think about when it comes to sledding these days.
Lack of snow
John P. Booth, executive director of the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in Millersburg, grew up in Boston in the 1970s, with a neighborhood sledding hill ending in his backyard.
“Every night there was snow on the ground, we had all of the neighborhood kids on that hill,” he said. “Some of them were maintenance kids, building jumps, cleaning up wayward trails into the woods or adding snow back to that one bare spot that always came up. Others were the test pilots, some offered refreshments from one of the local moms, but most were just sled jockeys. There was also the occasional dad who really made it interesting by freezing trails with water or building ramps and banked curves. The fact of the matter was that the parents sent us out, bundled up, and said ‘Don’t come home until dinner!’”
But there was something especially different between that time and today.
“One of the keys to all of this was not the hill, not even the kids,” Booth said. “It was the fact that we had snow. The biggest deterrent to sledding for the past couple of years, at least around here, has been the lack of any significant snow.”
Mike Crowley, park manager of R.B. Winter State Park in Mifflinburg, has noticed the same. During the winter, the park doesn’t plow the back parking lot at the western edge, so that visitors can use the area as a sled riding hill.
“We have not had good conditions for that in probably three or four years,” he said. “Not enough snow, not consistent enough. It melts and turns to ice.”
He has to go back several years, when there were good sledding conditions, to remember how well used the hill was for sledding.
Lea Smith, natural resource program specialist with the Outdoor Programming Services Division of the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of State Parks, agrees that one of the reasons there is less sledding now is due to climate change.
“The earth has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last 100 years, and as insignificant as that sounds, it is enough to change snow into rain,” she said, adding, “I do believe nowadays we are seeing much less winter weather in areas where there used to be more.”
And that means less opportunities for outdoor winter recreation.
A move indoors
But even if and when it does snow, it’s gotten harder to encourage kids – or their parents – to get outside.
“I think (sledding) is a lot less popular than it once was, just like kids playing outside in general,” Smith said. “TV, tablets, cell phones, and other gaming systems make snow days stuck at home much more tolerable and warm.”
Even though it might require a fight to keep your kids off of the electronic devices, Smith said, “Parents have to be an advocate for less technology to encourage kids to do more meaningful activities.”
Like sledding.
“Yes, it is cold out, yes you need to spend extra time getting ready, yes you need to leave the technology behind, but it is so worth it mentally and physically,” Smith said.
Booth points out that younger parents today “are from the first generation of ‘screen junkies’,” so one of the reasons why fewer families can be seen outside sledding is the parents’ lack of enthusiasm.
Crowley sees one of the main benefits at R.B. Winter State Park is that there is no cell or wifi signal there.
“They have no choice but to unplug,” he said. “Their phone, or iPad is worthless.”
“I think it’s a great opportunity to stop looking down at your electronic device and look out and look up at the trees, the eagle flying overhead, the great view from the overlook – or just to realize there’s a whole world out there, and we’ve kind of forgotten that the world is more than just what’s on social media.”
According to Booth, technology just doesn’t compare.
“I am no expert, but heading down a hill at 72 miles per hour (that’s what it feels like) and living to tell about it is a heck of a lot more exhilarating than beating the next level on ‘Angry Birds.’ The fresh air, the exercise, the comradery, the exhilaration and the agony of defeat…it is all part of the experience.”
John Booth
Benefits
According to Smith, venturing outdoors is healthy, especially during winter.
“Sledding is not thought of as exercise, but if you have ever trudged up a hill in heavy, clunky snow boots and three-plus layers of clothes in a few inches of snow, it does indeed get your heart rate up,” she said. “It is the thrill of the ride that keeps you trudging back up the hill for more.”
But more than just the physical exercise, she said there are mental benefits – relieving of stress and boosting the mood.
“Sledding is an unstructured type of play to help with problem solving as well,” she said. “Sledding together with family, with undivided attention, is also emotionally connecting.”
Reichard, a nurse, agrees that being outdoors with friends and family is good for one’s emotional wellbeing.
“When you’re not around people, you become really depressed,” she said, adding, “Kids need to have that social benefit of learning the rights and wrongs, and being able to spend time with friends and family.”
Thad Waters agrees.
“You get good quality time with family without the distractions of everyday life,” he said. “You can unplug for a few hours from your work phone/computer and give your children 100 percent of your attention. You can have fun together and make memories that will be really special to you for the rest of your life.”
The future
To this day, Thad and his younger brother Matthew are still outdoor cold weather enthusiasts. Thad enjoys hiking, fishing and skiing.
“A lot of Sunday afternoons growing up were spent hiking with my dad in Weikert,” he said. “I still drive up on some weekends to hike with him, and I have now shown him some new hiking areas down in the Harrisburg area. He is also the reason why I found my love for skiing.”
He currently works at a ski resort.
“I can honestly say it’s the best job I have ever had,” he said, adding that what he loves most is “giving people who have never skied that opportunity to try something that I really enjoy doing. You never know – maybe the child I am giving skis or a snowboard to could grow up to be an Olympic athlete.”
His dad, Corey, said he suspects his future grandchildren will be spending time outdoors in the snow, as well. He said he will “definitely” do what he can to keep the tradition going.
COVID has encouraged more outdoor recreation
While in recent years, it seems fewer families than in years past can be found sledding down Pennsylvania’s snowy slopes, we have COVID – of all things – to thank for a renaissance of outdoor recreation this year, which is likely to continue into these winter months.
According to Mike Crowley, park manager for R.B. Winter State Park in Mifflinburg, the shutdowns have brought people to some extremes.
“Some folks have become more sedentary, some have become more active,” he said. “Some folks have gained weight, some people have lost weight.”
At the park, he has seen many people responding to COVID with more outdoor activity.
“This year, we have seen record attendance,” he said, “the busiest it’s been since the 1970s – because you couldn’t do anything else. You could come out here and as long as you social distance you wouldn’t have to wear a mask.
“Everybody went out and bought new bicycles, boats and kayaks, and came out here and used them, and rode them,” he said, adding, “I think parks have been one of the healthiest places to be this year…hopefully that continues.”
While currently state park programs led by park staff have been canceled for the immediate future, Crowley said there are plenty of those “passive recreational opportunities” to still enjoy through the winter months, including sledding, ice skating, cross country skiing, and hiking.
According to John P. Booth, executive director of the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in Millersburg, throughout the COVID pandemic, “We have seen the use of our trails and Discovery Play Area more than double,” he said. “Folks are using the outdoors more.”
Will that continue through the winter? He said it is likely, as long as the winter brings enough snow. The Ned Smith property boasts plenty of great hills for sledding, and also regularly draws cross country skiers, snowshoers and hikers.
Bill Davenport, of Ski Valley Ski & Board in Danville, said he too has seen families looking to get outside and recreate even more during the COVID shutdowns. As of early December, he was already seeing an increased interest in cross country skiing picking up. However, the irony is that because a major factory that manufactures skis in Europe burnt down, the supply of skis for sale as decreased. In addition, over the spring and summer months, while the demand for bicycles rose, the supply was not there to meet it fully because many of the components for bicycles were from Taiwan and China and were difficult to get into the United States. However, as we move into the winter months, Davenport said he does expect to see people continue to sled – as long as we get sufficient snow. He expects to see children who are already into athleticism, to again descend on the region’s popular sledding hills.
