Redwood National Park Retreats

August 14-17, 2025

Hike + Heal Redwood National Park is a Wilderness Wellness retreat facilitated in support of Redwood Parks Conservancy, the official nonprofit partner of Redwood National and State Parks.

Healing with the land through environmental stewardship.
Mindful hiking through a diverse and breathtaking landscape.
Guided self-discovery activities to help you
reconnect with yourself.
Adventures to
help you remember what you’re capable of.
Making memories with
friends who feel like family.

📍Yurok and Tolowa ancestral territories include land and resources now contained within Redwood National and State Parks. Tribal Councils and Park management work together on myriad of government to government programs like habitat restoration, the returning of California condors, protection of archeological sites, the use of prescribed fire, and the beneficial sharing of staff and agency resources. Curious about the history of the land where you work, live, and play? Native Land is a great starting point for additional research.

Redwood Parks Conservancy

RPC’s mission is to foster understanding, enjoyment, and stewardship by providing support to their partner agencies – the National Park ServiceCalifornia State Parks, Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Forest Service – who are entrusted with the care of northern California’s public lands. 

Registration: $750

Click the button below to complete your registration information form. We will followup via email to collect your registration fee. We have 15 spots available for this event and participants will be contacted in order of applications received.

If you are unable to pay the full fee up front, we require a non-refundable $250 deposit to hold your spot and will set up a payment plan for your remaining balance. If you are seeking a scholarship, please let us know in your registration form.

What’s Included?

  • Since 1979 Howland Hill Outdoor School has been providing curriculum-based environmental education programs for students between grades Kindergarten and 5th grade, as well as education related rental groups. Howland Hill Outdoor School is located in the northern district of Redwood National and State Parks (near Crescent City, CA) and is one of two outdoor schools within the park.

    Participant Cabins: Four spacious sleeping cabins--Tan Oak, Alder, Redwood, and Hemlock--nestle in the deepshaded forest on top of Howland Hill. Each shelter can accommodate 10-12 students and their gear. A fifth cabin, Spruce, is available as a wheelchair-accessible sleeping shelter. Cabin windows are unscreened and open directly to the forest, but are high enough off the ground to provide protection from animal intruders. Cabins are not heated. The HHOS cabins are basic cabins with elevated platforms for you to set up your sleep system on (sleeping pad, sleeping bag, pillow). There is no electricity, so be sure to bring a flashlight or headlamp for night trips to the bathroom as it is a short, level walk away.

    NOTE: If you’d like to reserve a private cabin for your group, please let us know on your registration form

    Restrooms: There are four unisex ADA-compliant toilet facilities. The building contains four individual restrooms with flush toilets and hand-washing sinks; one of these units also houses an emergency shower. When on the school campus, all individuals are expected to use the designated facilities. When in the field, proper bathroom etiquette and locations will be identified by the rangers and facilitators.

  • Everything tastes better outside, especially when someone else is doing the cooking! Since everyone has different needs when in the field, you are encouraged to bring your own snacks (and a way to store them). We’ll take care of breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the following schedule:

    THURSDAY: Dinner
    FRIDAY: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
    SATURDAY: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
    SUNDAY: Breakfast

    NOTE: All meals are vegetarian (can be made vegan by request) and served family style. You can specify additional requests, allergies, and preferences in the registration form.

  • The research is clear, spending time in nature is beneficial for the body, mind, and spirit. On our guided hikes, you will learn techniques to turn any outdoor activity into a mindful experience. Experience the healing power of nature via guided self-discovery activities all weekend long on and off the trail. Participants will be provided with a small journal to take notes in as they hike, and we infuse self-reflection into all aspects of the event.

    NOTE: Hikes during this event will be selected based on participant capabilities. Our hikes are supportive, affirming, and enjoyed at a meandering pace. This isn’t about bagging peaks and aggressive elevation gains - we’re here to get our bodies moving in nature and see how much we can notice within us and around us. Typically we walk between 4-6 miles per day depending on the hikes themselves and the walking required during our stewardship projects.

  • THEME: Reciprocal Resilience
    Redwood trees are resilient, and so are you. Join us for guided self-discovery workshops throughout the event to connect the dots between the wilderness within, and the wilderness of Redwood National Park.

  • While our healing journeys are deeply personal and unique to our lived experiences, we all have at least one thing in common: we’ve survived everything life has dealt our way so far. Healing in community reminds us that we are never alone in what we’ve experienced and that together, we rise.

  • We’re providing everything you need for the stewardship project.

FAQ

  • Howland Hill Outdoor School is located within the northern district of Redwood National and State Parks, near Crescent City, CA. Plan to arrive anytime after 3:00pm.

    AIRPORT: The closest airport is Rogue Valley International Medford Airport (MFR) in Medford, Oregon (109 miles from Crescent City)

  • In August, we can look forward to highs around 61° F and a low around 54° F.

  • For this event, you will want to bring:

    • Snacks for your hikes

    • Sleeping pad or cot

    • Sleeping bag or blankets

    • Pillow

    • Headlamp

    • Appropriate footwear (hiking boots, trail runners, other shoes you feel comfortable hiking in)

    • Socks

    • Weather-appropriate clothing (we recommend long sleeves, long pants, and a hat for our stewardship projects)

    • Backpack to carry water, journal, snacks, etc while in the field

    • Capacity to carry 2L of water

    • OPTIONAL: camp chair

    We will send a detailed packing list in advance of the event.

  • Our wilderness wellness events welcome individuals from all walks of life who are seeking connection, healing, and growth. Participants include busy professionals, caregivers, and changemakers looking to recharge, as well as adventurers, nature enthusiasts, and those navigating life transitions or recovering from trauma. United by a desire to deepen their relationship with nature and themselves, our community thrives on shared experiences, mutual support, and a commitment to creating meaningful, lasting change in their lives and the world around them.

Event Pillars

Environmental Stewardship

We include environmental stewardship projects in our wilderness wellness retreats to foster a deeper connection to nature, empower participants to give back to the landscapes that inspire their healing, and cultivate a sense of purpose and responsibility for preserving these spaces for future generations.

Mindful Movement

We center mindful movement in our wilderness wellness retreats to help participants reconnect with their bodies, enhance their presence in the moment, and deepen their experience of nature as a source of healing and restoration. We move at the speed of our breath and no hiker is left behind!

Self-Discovery

Each retreat has a theme to help you connect the dots between the wilderness within and the wild areas we are exploring and conserving - for this retreat we are exploring Reciprocal Resilience. We will draw inspiration from our surroundings in Redwood National Park and take the wisdom of the wilderness home with us.

Retreat Facilitators


  • ABOUT SYDNEY
    When former collegiate athlete and competitive skydiver, Sydney Williams, unexpectedly found herself on the receiving end of a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, while grappling with unresolved trauma from a decades-old sexual assault, she set out on a mission: turn her pain into power. Two hikes across Catalina Island and 80 miles later, she founded Hiking My Feelings® to help others tap into the mind-body connection and healing power of nature that helped kick her self-limiting beliefs and disease into remission.

    Having more than 15 years of communications experience with Fortune 500 companies and emerging brands, Sydney serves up her “truth juice” style of storytelling to break wide open tough conversations with practical, powerful content and experiences. Over the years, she’s been featured on the SXSW stage, as well as in BBC, Health Magazine, Diabetic Living Magazine, San Diego Union-Tribune, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, US News & World Report, and numerous other publications. Today, she is the author of Hiking My Feelings: Stepping Into to the Healing Power of Nature (2019) and Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self-Love (2024), and she travels across the country empowering others to summit their personal mountains on their way to becoming Well Beings.

    Sydney is a certified Wilderness First Responder, an instructor at the Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park, and the Field Institute at Sequoia National Park. Sydney facilitates guided self-discovery exercises, and is here to help you blaze your own trail to self-love.

  • ABOUT BARRY
    Barry was living in the Upper East Side of Manhattan selling technology to banks and working with Fortune 100 companies when he had the opportunity to skydive the first time. That first jumped changed his life, and within 18 months, he went from living in the same building as Derek Jeter to living in a trailer in the backwoods of Maine, pursuing his instructor ratings in the skydiving industry. After a 16-year career as a professional skydiver, Barry was all-in on Hiking My Feelings.

    Hailing from New Hampshire, he spent his life hiking and backpacking in the White Mountains, where he also earned his Wilderness EMT certification. Barry lives by Bruce Lee’s recommendation; “be like water” and finds inspiration in the works of Alan Watts and Jiddu Krishnamurti. When he’s not leading hikes for Hiking My Feelings, producing content for our weekly videos, or driving the van, you can find him on his paddleboard, at a local reggae show, or cooking up an incredible meal.

Contact Us

Contact Us

Have questions about the event? Interested in sponsoring a spot for someone on the scholarship waitlist? We’re here to help!