Footprint of a Heart

18,000 Miles of Stillness that Moves

By: Shayla Paradeis

Narrated by: Shayla Paradeis

*This Recording Includes Five Original Songs*

Imagine having all of you needs reduced to the things you can't live without; food, water, and shelter.

In Footprint of a Heart, Shayla Paradeis, whose trail name is Kiddo, ventures off the path of musical theater at age 21 and moves from Manhattan to Montana. Trading tap shoes for hiking boots, she sculpts a life outdoors as a long-distance hiker. By age 34, she hiked the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide Trails, the Haute Route in the Alps, and the Te Araroa across New Zealand. As well as thousands of joyful miles running across the land of her dreams, Glacier National Park. All without a smart phone.

Kiddo shares the trailside moments of five long journeys, including barren deserts, windy ridges above tree line, ocean tides in estuaries, narrow spaces between the painted lines of highways and guardrails, and countless peaks, passes, meadows, and valleys. Her ventures take her through swarms of bugs, knee-deep mud, every kind of precipitation imaginable, and the threat of rattlesnakes, bears, charging bulls, and one angry mama turkey.

Journeys are often more internal than external. As she walks, she learns that counting miles can be a self-measurement as dangerous as body-image or money. The need to connect is the true north. With an openness taught through the trees, she experiences a fulfillment she never dreamed possible. Trails are no longer a thing to do, they're a place to be.

©2023 Shayla Paradeis (P)2025 Shayla Paradeis