Valkyrie Hikes

04/18/2026

The perfect food bag to hold all of your trail munchies and meals!

Someone had the munchies
https://hilltoppacks.com/

04/04/2026

02/28/2026

Dear friends and fellow hikers/backpackers,

Today I went for my first physical therapy session for my extremely painful Achilles tendon. What was initially diagnosed as Achilles Tendinitis, is a Grade 2 partial tear and actually Achilles Tendinopathy (which is what I suspected last year). It explains the lump of scar tissue on my tendon that my normal doctor should have recognized immediately when I showed it to him two years ago .

I’ve been walking, hobbling(off and on), and hiking the past three years with this, though it didn’t become excruciating until last spring, after I rested and recovered from my cataract surgeries. At one point, it was practically non-weight bearing. After limping around fo over one month , I asked my daughter Morgan if her friend Hannah (you’re AWESOME! Love you!💜) could put KT Tape on fo my to see if that would help. KT Tape and way too much Advil (seriously, I must have an iron stomach) have been the only things that made it possible for me to walk mostly pain-free. I became an expert at applying the KT Tape myself after the first two times Hannah did it for me.

Some days are better than others, some days are/were both good and bad. It was well past time for me to take matters into my own hands and not wait for my primary care physician to do something about it (which he hadn’t in over two years already). I made an appointment with a podiatrist in November and have been doing stretches since then. Sadly, it hasn’t helped with the pain, though I have killer flexibility in my ankles /tendons now, despite the pain. At the follow up appointment last week, when the podiatrist decided there were no improvements, he ordered physical therapy fo me. The deep tissue, torture kind.

Today’s first session included the initial evaluation and then deep tissue massage on my right calf (which the muscles are very tight). Anyone who knows me should be impressed that not one single curse word was uttered. Go me! My motivation to rehabilitate my Achilles tendon so I can hike, backpack, and move without pain outweighed my desire to claw my way off of the therapy table. I already have bruises forming on my calf, but part of that is because I bruise rather easily. But yes… it hurt like crazy.

I’m tired of the almost constant pain. I have big backpacking plans for the Sawtooths this summer. Which means I will put in the work and suffer through painful physical therapy in order to strengthen and heal my Achilles tendon.

If you’ve made it this far and read through everything, thank you.

Photos for inspiration (mine😉)

02/15/2026

I’m itching to get back to the Sawtooths. This past year was rough. My Achilles tendon injury prevented me from hiking as much as I wanted to. I’ve been rehabilitating it with a lot of stretching. KT Tape has been a lifesaver for me. Photo from Fishhook Creek Trail, September 2025.

02/06/2026

An update on Steven’s wife, Celeste, and his YouTube channel. Please help support him by watching his videos.

If you want to sign up for my email list I might send some emails. No Promises: https://geni.us/1KaUQbOriginal Cancer Announcement: https://youtu.be/cCzxNF9Q...

01/21/2026

01/19/2026

An absolutely amazing group of people make up Hilltop Packs. Support the cottage gear companies. Hilltop Packs makes great backpacking (and more) gear!

Cottage gear makers are the innovators of the backpacking world, but they don't have the massive advertising budgets of the big-box brands. In this video, we...

01/01/2026

Happy New Year to all! Here’s to getting outside and hiking/backpacking more this year. I was laid up most of 2025 with an Achilles tendon injury and only hiked a couple of times.

10/13/2025

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Aum4EL/

67 likes, 5 comments. “September in the Sawtooths. Went for a lovely little hike in the Sawtooths recently on the Fishhook Creek trail, near Redfish Lake.”