Healing is elusive when the ache of loss settles into the heart of a grieving parent. Grey days pass with deafening silence in the absence of a child’s laughter and the brilliance of his smile. Pain consumes the future without him, and it seems the light of living has been extinguished. Yet, one mother found herself committed to and cradled by a very personal source of healing that she so desperately needed. Such is the story of Olivia Heiner, whose toddler, Clyde, was taken too soon in the fall of 2020.

The summer after Clyde was born, Olivia and her sister, Tessa Call, who lives in Grover, determined that they would enjoy the beautiful hiking trails of Star Valley, and created a plan to hike once a week. They took Clyde with them and began exploring the natural beauty of their home. As autumn descended, they determined to continue the summer tradition into the fall.

Within weeks, Clyde passed away. Heartbroken, Olivia almost stopped hiking. “It was so hard to do it without him,” she shared in a voice thick with emotion. “I had carried him on the hikes that I had taken before.”  However, she renewed the commitment to hike despite his absence, and magically, “it has been the most healing thing for me, and that’s why I kept going. I didn’t end up seeing a therapist after he passed. I felt like the hiking was my therapy, my time once a week to meet with God. I just hiked and cried and let that be so healing for me. I have just kept going because it has been such a good experience for me.”

This week marks 282 hikes in as many weeks. Twice in the last 5 years, she has hiked immediately postpartum with her girls, Quincy and Goldie, strapped to her chest. She has hiked wherever she was staying, no matter the location, be it Hawaii, Moab or Casper. She has maintained her commitment and has never regretted a hike or felt that it wasn’t worth the effort.

Olivia’s absolute favorites on her list of hikes include the Intermittent Spring in the fall. “It’s just so beautiful and it’s always cool to see the spring.” She loves Lost Creek. “It’s close and it’s kid-friendly,” but offers a couple of different paths for variation. She enjoys the Green Canyon trail system on Star Valley Ranch where the trails are well groomed and, once again, offer many different options. “It has some south facing slopes, so it’s one of the first ones we can hike in the spring once we take off the snowshoes and cross-country skis because it has trails that get the sun a little bit sooner, and it is beautiful.”

One of her top winter hikes is a cross-country skiing venture in Grand Teton National Park. “They groom the road and it’s only open to walkers, skiers and snowshoers. There’s no crowd, and the beauty is unreal.” She loves skiing the loop on the south end at Salt River Pass and skiing the Cedar Creek Golf Course.

A longer hike that requires her to pack kids on her back or hike without the kids is Lower Palisades Lake in Swan Valley. “That is really pretty and a lot of fun.”

One thing that makes her choice to hike weekly more doable is the fact that she has not established a location, duration, distance or set schedule for her hikes. Some weeks, she has just walked out the back door and hiked the hill behind her home in Thayne, which is only about 1.5 miles.

“It’s just about getting out in nature and moving our bodies,” she clarified. “Right after I have babies, I just strap them on and go to one of my favorite trails and walk as long as feels good and then come back. It’s kind of empowering to be up there and exert yourself a little bit and get the fresh air.” Her postpartum hikes are gentle, but she keeps her commitment to herself to just get out.

Weather has never deterred her from keeping her date with nature. She has hiked in every kind of weather that Star Valley has thrust upon her, including rain and snowstorms, temperatures below zero and sweltering heat. Though hiking in extreme weather means hiking without her children, and is generally due to poor planning, she keeps her appointment and never regrets it.

Blessings beyond healing that have developed through her tradition include watching her girls learn about nature and come to love the outdoors through their hiking experiences.

“I love watching my kids. Quincy has grown from hiking bits and pieces, to now going two miles and she’s only three,” Olivia beamed. “It’s been so fun to watch her grow as a hiker and increase her love for the outdoors and the things she learns on the hikes about leaves and animals and watching and noticing the changing of the seasons. And now Goldie, I let her walk parts of it, too, and it’s fun to watch her toddle along or pick her up” when it’s more than she can manage.

When her father-in-law, Robert Heiner, was battling cancer, she clung to her hikes like they were air in her lungs. “I realized the importance of it when Robert was sick and we were helping him, and then when he passed. I was just like, ‘I have got to get on a hike.’ I went on a lot of solo hikes. I was really pregnant with Goldie, but I would just leave Quincy with (husband) Tre. I would just go and hike for a couple of hours and I just needed that little bit of time to myself, just feeling so sad, but it was so healing for me.”

She has loved taking her children and “the extra effort to bundle kids up and make it happen has always been worth it. When we keep commitments to ourselves, it’s empowering. It helps give us confidence that we can do hard things and that we can push through. I can make my self-care a priority. There have been lots of weeks when it would have been easier to do something different, but I have decided, NO. This is my thing. I am doing this and keeping that commitment to myself.”

Olivia invites others to join her by creating their own tradition of hiking. “It’s flexible. It’s once a week. All you have to do is start. There are so many beautiful places in Star Valley to go and to hike that you’ll love it. Every hike is beautiful. I have not been on an ugly one yet. At any stage of life, whether a grandma or a teenager or a mom of young or older kids, anybody can start at any time.”

Every human feels grief and seeks relief. If you find yourself in that difficult and dark place, consider embracing Olivia’s path to healing, and find yourself cradled in the most glorious and accessible peace by simply walking out your front door.

To learn more about Olivia’s hikes each week, visit her Facebook page or Instagram account.