Footprint of a Heart with Shayla Paradeis

Join thru-hiker, author, and singer/songwriter Shayla "Kiddo" Paradeis as she walks the Appalachian Trail for a third time. With stories from her recently published book, Footprint of a Heart, she shares the trailside moments of 5 thru-hikes. Venturing through barren deserts, windy ridges, thick woods, estuaries, swarms of bugs, knee deep mud, and every kind of precipitation imaginable. In a journey full of heart and raw accounts of human experience, she exposes the true north of a walk in the woods: The need to connect.

Shayla Paradeis identifies as a wild animal. Though she looks a bit out of place in civilized settings, she’s generally well-behaved and has walked across entire countries without using technology to navigate. Her hiking resume includes the Appalachian Trail 2011 and 2021, the Pacific Crest Trail 2013, the Continental Divide Trail 2015, the Walker’s Haute Route across the Alps 2017, and the Te Araroa across New Zealand 2017/2018. Above all things, she is a lover. Of trees, of people, and of being alive.