Harriet Wallis is a fighter, a writer, an avid skier, an optimist and so much more.

She’d tell you she’s led an “average” life as the girl who was the last to get picked to do any team sport in school. 

You would have never guessed her life would be what it is now given where she started in school—but she has been an active adventurer with a life full of outdoor activities and skiing the slopes.

Despite having two artificial hips and knees at the age of 84, Sandy resident Wallis continues to ski and maintain an active lifestyle, including walking daily, swimming weekly, participating in local bike club activities and working in her yard.

Skier

Her passion for skiing is really what started it all for her in her 30s when she first learned how to ski with her then-husband and two young children. 

“My husband said, ‘I'm going to learn to ski,’” Wallis said. “Now, I thought that was something crazy people on the other side of the planet did. So I'm processing that thought and then he said, ‘And you can babysit the kids.’ And I said, ‘Over my dead body, we're all going to learn to ski,’ and so we did."

Learning to ski was a game-changer for how she saw herself for the rest of her life.

“I didn't think of myself as being athletic with volleyball and team sports,” she said. “When I learned to ski, I realized, ‘Hey, I can do this.’”

She has been skiing recreationally ever since and so have her kids.

Eventually, Wallis worked as a ski instructor for two different ski resorts on the East Coast before moving westward. 

In Utah, even in her off years she still finds time to ski at least 40 days out of the season. Metal hips and all.

Among her many outdoor hobbies, Harriet Wallis is an avid fisherman in the summer months and often uses her inflatable canoe. (Courtesy of Harriet Wallis)

Outdoorswoman

Not too long after learning to ski, in 1974 Wallis and her family completed a challenge they’d accepted as members of the Appalachian Mountain Club to climb the 100 tallest mountains in New England.

“By world standards, they are not that high,” she admitted. But “the highest is 6,000-feet Mount Washington, but it gets some of the worst weather in the whole world.” 

For three years, she and her family would drive every weekend, hike 25 miles on Saturday and head home on Sunday, just to do it all over again the next weekend.

She added mountaineering to her growing list of hobbies, including fishing, camping and biking.

She also describes herself as an avid fisherman and goes camping and biking regularly with her housemate Laurie when the weather is warm.

“I am not macho,” Wallis said. “I'm an average person who enjoys doing things outdoors and being active.”

This past year, the housemates volunteered to be a part of the safety team for the annual Bonneville Bike Club's 3,000 all-women fundraiser for Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Harriet Wallis (right) does a lot of her activities with her housemate Laurie (right), even volunteering as part of the safety team for the annual Bonneville Bike Club's 3,000 all-women fundraiser for Huntsman Cancer Institute. (Courtesy of Harriet Wallis)

Writer

Writing was a pastime that stemmed from her love of pottery and shaping nearly five tons of clay into homemade goods each year while she lived in New England as her kids were growing up.

She lived in Connecticut and began writing for a local newspaper on different topics from the art she made and to how to cut costs on an expensive energy bill. Wallis worked her way up from a freelancer to a full-time paid writer for the paper. During her time there, she wrote on a “checkerboard” of topics including weddings, gardening and eventually skiing.

Wallis started writing for the City Journals when it was still the Valley Journals and still contributes to the online Cottonwood Heights Journal regularly.

Every year, she writes a year recap for friends and family.

Optimist

What’s driven her to keep going even when many people she knows have long given up on the active lifestyle she enjoys, is her optimism and willingness to adapt and change to her circumstances.

Harriet Wallis enjoys swimming in the Cottonwood Heights Recreation Center’s pool close to three times a week because it’s warm. “Artificial hips and artificial knees are heavier than the body, and my balance is completely different—and they have a warm pool, and I’m a wimp so I swim in the warm pool because I don't go very fast,” she said. (Courtesy of Harriet Wallis)

“It's thinking outside the box, finding ways to do things, and having a positive attitude,” she said. “It's much more fun to have a positive attitude than it is to be a downer. I think those are three things that make me tick.”

The health challenges that come with living a long life can’t stop her; she refuses to let them.

In recent years, despite a cancer diagnosis and difficult treatment, Wallis has continued to walk as she is able and adapt her activity to how she is feeling. But she doesn’t stop. She continued to ride her bike through the “agonizing side effects” of her chemo treatment.

Overall, Wallis strongly advocates for an optimistic, adaptable mindset as a key to overcoming challenges and continuing to live an active, fulfilling life.

“I think it's come about kind of as a lifelong thing,” Wallis said. “It's nothing that just popped up. But it's crucial to me now.”

Every year for the past few years, Wallis has chosen a new mantra she writes in her yearly Christmas letter which she plans to live by for the year to come.

Her 2025 mantra will be similar to those of years past—a positive one. She shares with family and friends a yearly letter stating 2025 will be a year in which she "expects the best—and works hard to achieve it.”

Her mantra for the year is “Quit looking back. You're not going that way.”

Wallis’s 85th birthday is on Jan. 7, and who knows what adventure she’ll be on. λ