Hiking My Feelings

07/16/2026

🫐 What if your next trip to Glacier gave something back?

Next month, we’re returning to Glacier National Park with a new program format rooted in two things we believe belong together: stewardship and storytelling.

Across five days, we’ll move through a fuller experience of relationship with Glacier.

We’ll support the park through two hands-on service projects, including a huckleberry survey that contributes to citizen science and a second environmental stewardship project such as invasive species removal or trail cleanup.

Between those days of service, we’ll travel to the east side of Glacier to spend the day with Lailani Upham, founder of Iron Shield Creative, for an Indigenous-led storytelling hike through her ancestral Blackfeet homelands.

We’ll learn how these landscapes sustain local wildlife. We’ll show our love for the land and give our time to support the park. And we’ll listen to stories and ways of knowing that cannot be found in park maps, trail guides, or histories that begin with the creation of the national park.

This is reciprocity in practice:

Receiving knowledge from the land and the people who know it deeply.
Reflecting on our own relationship with the places we visit.
Returning our time and labor in service to the park.
Reconnecting with the responsibilities that come with experiencing a place this extraordinary.

This is a pilot program, and we want to show up strong for the park and for a woman-, veteran-, and Blackfeet-owned business.

By joining us, you’re helping demonstrate that people want a different kind of outdoor experience, one that supports public lands, invests in Indigenous-led businesses, and invites us to become participants in the care of a place rather than consumers of its beauty.

UPCOMING GLACIER PROGRAMS
August 24–28
August 31–September 4

Registration includes:
🏕️ Four nights of tent camping in Glacier National Park
🪏 Two park service projects
🫐 Huckleberry pancake breakfast
🥾 Indigenous-led storytelling hike with lunch
📝 Landscape-focused workshops and activities
📚 Program and project materials

Scholarships and payment plans are available, registration is open and spots are limited!

Learn more + register - link in comments!

05/25/2026

🥹 My body brought me to all these places, where will yours take you?

Today's the last day to save $8 on our new Guided Journals, so we figured we'd take you to some of our favorites!

📸 Receive = my first hike up Yosemite Falls, on our way to Eagle Peak. It was 2019, we were on the first tour around the US, and this was and still is one of the hardest hikes I've ever done. But when I came out of a tunnel of trees to this view? An actual rainbow in the mist, Half Dome all majestic in the background? I cried, took it all in, and once I had *felt* this moment beyond the photo I captured, I kept it moving.

📸 Reflection Inception = Columbine Lake in Sequoia National Park. Right before this trip, Barry's mom passed away. We got to visit her before she passed and she told Barry to "go climb those mountains" so we did. This lake reflected back to me all the ways she had supported what we're building. She'd be proud of these photos.

📸 Return = a crested saguaro in Tucson, Arizona. That morning, I was in a full panic attack and the exhaustion that follows. Grieving people who are still alive is one of the hardest parts of being human. I almost bailed on this hike because I didn't want to be "too much" for my friend who was picking me up. I went anyway, and it was everything I needed.

📸 Spreads = each landscape takes you through our 4Rs framework: Receive, Reflect, Return, Reconnect. It is designed to be taken into the landscape with you. You'll learn how (and why) to start to build a relationship with a place, receive the benefits each landscape offers us, reflect on your experiences, learn how to return that care right back to the land, and reconnect with the magic you find out there in your life, love, and work.

At the end of the day, it's really about relationships. How you relate to yourself, community, and the land. If you already have a solid relationship to place, this is a great practice in understanding how the places you love have held you. If you're craving something a bit different for your upcoming trips to natural areas, pick one up to fully immerse yourself in your surroundings.

HMF8BDAY at checkout. 🎂

04/26/2026

I didn’t have language for this when it started.

I just knew that being outside was changing me.

What began as daily walks turned into time on trail, then into stewardship, then into something deeper. Paying attention. Noticing more. Feeling more connected to the places I was in… and to myself.

Along the way, we met Indigenous leaders and community members who spoke about relationship with the land in a way that stopped me in my tracks. Not as a place you visit, but as something you’re in relationship with. Something you care for, and something that cares for you.

It wasn’t new. It was remembering.

For years through Hiking My Feelings, we’ve been creating spaces for people to experience that for themselves. Through stewardship projects, mindful movement, reflection, and coming back to the same places again and again. Watching what shifts when you slow down long enough to notice.

Then last year at the Public Lands Alliance conference, I heard Dr. Thomas Bryer share his research on volunteerism in our national parks.

And it was one of those full-body “ohhh, that’s it” moments.

He put language and data to what we had been experiencing all along. That people don’t just volunteer to help. They come to understand. They leave feeling more connected, more purposeful, more themselves. And that this kind of work doesn’t just support the land, it strengthens how we show up for each other.

Now, we’re working together to study this more intentionally. Looking at how stewardship, self-discovery, and mindful movement in nature support creativity and nature connectedness, and how those shifts ripple out into the way people live, work, and care for the places around them.

It feels like a continuation of something that’s always been there.

We’re just learning how to name it, measure it, and share it in ways that help more people find their way back to it.

More to come as this unfolds 💚

📸 A volunteer at George Washington Birthplace National Monument teaching Bryer’s son, Edward, about colonial-era gardens

💚 Stewardship projects from Grand Staircase Escalante, Sequoia, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Redwood, Glacier, Biscayne, and Virgin Islands National Parks

04/22/2026

Allow us to reintroduce ourselves. 👋

If you’ve been here for a while, you might remember Hiking My Feelings as a wild idea that turned into a cross-country tour after we sold everything we owned and hit the road to share how hiking helped me heal my mind and body. If you joined us along the way, you were part of something that started as a personal story and slowly became something much bigger.

What began on a trail in Catalina Island turned into 140 stops around the country, a community that hiked more than 54,000 miles together for diabetes awareness, and a growing body of work rooted in the idea that time outside can change the way we live, feel, and show up for ourselves.

And then something else happened.

We started giving back to the places that gave so much to us.

From removing invasive species in Sequoia to restoring trails, remediating graffiti in Grand Staircase-Escalante, learning from the seasons in Glacier, and experiencing interdependence in the redwoods, our work evolved from personal healing into something more relational. We started to remember that caring for ourselves and caring for the Earth are not separate practices. They are part of the same cycle.

So here we are.

What we’re building now is called Reciprocity Rx™, and it’s rooted in a simple truth: time outside helps us heal, and giving back helps the planet heal.

The Reciprocity Rx™ Community Challenge is our way of putting that into practice together.

It’s not about doing it perfectly. It’s about choosing to participate.

Spend time outside in whatever way you can. Volunteer where it feels meaningful. Pay attention to what shifts. Track your impact if you want to. Invite someone to join you.

We’re starting this grassroots, just us and the community, sharing our own hours and inviting you to be part of it.

If you’ve ever felt like you wanted to do something that actually makes a difference, something that feels good and does good at the same time, this is for you.

Join us at hikingmyfeelings.org/community

Let’s see what we can build together.

💚 Sydney + Barry

2026 COMMUNITY IMPACT (so far):
🌲 3,128 hours spent outside
🫶 618 hours volunteered
🙏 49 participants

04/15/2026

🌎 We are stoked to share that Hiking My Feelings is now an official environmental partner with 1% for the Planet!

This is a big one for us.

Because at the heart of our work is a simple belief: when people feel connected to the land, they’re more likely to care for it. This partnership helps us create more opportunities for that connection to happen — on trails, in communities, and through hands-on stewardship experiences that give back to the places we love.

If you’re new to 1% for the Planet, they’re a global network of businesses committed to giving 1% of their annual sales to environmental organizations doing the work. Since 2002, they’ve helped direct hundreds of millions of dollars to nonprofits protecting people + planet.

We’re so honored to be part of this community. Check out our profile (link in the comments) and see what we’re building!

04/13/2026

When was the last time you saw the Milky Way? How about a shooting star? 🌠

What is it about a starry sky that makes our problems feel… more survivable?Maybe it’s the quiet.Maybe it’s the way the world finally stops asking us to perf...

03/25/2026

We came to the Virgin Islands to give back to the trails, and the trails gave us something back, too.

For a week, we worked across Virgin Islands National Park with - Cinnamon Bay, Annaberg, Reef Bay, Europa Point - clearing brush, maintaining trails and cultural sites, moving through heat and humidity that asked us to slow down whether we wanted to or not.

This wasn’t a highlight reel kind of trip. This was hands in the dirt, sweat in your eyes, muscles talking back the next morning. And somewhere in the middle of all that effort… something softened.

Because this is the thing about stewardship: When we care for the land, the land has a way of caring for us.

There’s science behind that - lower stress, improved mood, stronger immune function - but you don’t need a study to feel it when you’re out there.

You feel it in the rhythm of working side by side, in the quiet moments between tasks, in the way the ocean resets your nervous system without asking permission.

We spent long days doing physical labor. We spent early mornings and late afternoons in and around crystal clear blue water. We spent time together, and time alone. And in that mix of effort, environment, and community - something clicked.

We shifted from healing in nature, to healing *with* nature.

That’s what Reciprocity Rx™ looks like in practice.

Huge thank you to everyone who showed up, rolled up their sleeves, and said yes to the work, seen and unseen.

And to the island… we’ll be back. 🌊

💚 2026 RECIPROCITY RETREATS
June 3-5: Yosemite National Park
June 24-28: North Cascades National Park (one spot left!)
July 9-12: Redwood National Park
July 24-26: Sequoia National Park
July 29-August 8: Trek to Tumanguya (Mt Whitney) - 75 mile backpacking retreat with .challenge
September 17-22: Glacier National Park

🌌 DIG DEEPER
Want to bring the 4Rs of Reciprocity Rx into your life and work? The Foundations program kicks off this week and runs through October, learn more at https://reciprocityrx.com/online-certification-program

03/22/2026

UPDATE: ONE spot left to spend five days in North Cascades letting the land love you back!

June 24–28, we’re gathering in one of the most awe-inspiring landscapes in the country to explore how different landscapes support healing in different ways.

Through Reciprocity Rx, we’ll experience the medicine of mountains, forests, water, and dark sky, give back to the park through a stewardship project, and gather in community around the practices, perspectives, and conversations that help us reconnect to the land, ourselves, and each other.

In North Cascades, we’ll experience:

🏔️ Mountains
Mountains teach pacing, perspective, and perseverance. They remind us that steady effort matters, and that clarity often comes from the climb.

🌲 Forests
Forests remind us that healing is layered, relational, and rooted in connection. Every step is part of something larger.

💧 Water
Water teaches flow, release, and resilience. It shows us how to soften, shift, and carry what matters without holding everything at once.

🌌 Dark Sky
Under the stars, the noise quiets. Dark sky invites wonder, reverence, and the kind of rest that helps us return to ourselves.

Registration includes:
- Airport transfers from Sea-Tac + transportation within the park
- All meals from dinner on June 24 through breakfast on June 28
- Double-occupancy lodging at North Cascades Institute
- Reciprocity Rx workshops in Water, Forest, Mountain, + Dark Sky
- Stewardship project supplies
- Optional add-on: Reciprocity Rx Foundations Certification Program

If this is calling to you, fill out the application and we’ll follow up to finalize your registration.

02/28/2026

Thank you !

We had an absolute blast sharing the 1-hour Mindful Morning format at the Public Lands Alliance Convention and Trade Show this week, taking folks through the 4Rs (Receive, Reflect, Return, Reconnect) on the beach each morning before spending all day inside the convention center.

An extra special thank you to everyone who braved unseasonably frigid temperatures on Tuesday morning - it was a brisk 36 degrees when we started but we warmed up quite nicely!

Safe travels, and don't forget to add a delulu walk to your team meetings and keep the good vibes flowing when you get back!

02/23/2026

We’re proud to be part of the Outdoor Girlboss Gear Giveaway 🥾

Hosted by Symbiosis Gear, this giveaway brings together women-owned outdoor brands supporting each other and the people who use our gear.

Three winners. Gear valued at over $5,000. First prize from us is a scholarship to our Foundations Program and second prize is a complete collection of the Reciprocity Rx Guided Journals! Good luck everyone!

Enter via the link in bio.
apparel .sportco