blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike
Long-distance backpacker Alison “Blissful Hiker” Young has logged more than 14,000 miles across six continents, tackling iconic routes such as New Zealand’s Te Araroa, Europe’s Pyrenean Haute Route, South Africa’s Drakensberg Traverse, Nepal’s Great Himalayan Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail in the United States.
An award-winning professional musician and syndicated American Public Media host, Alison approaches storytelling through a deeply attuned ear. Her series of intimate personal essays — coupled with field recordings gathered on trail — trace a path of self-discovery as a middle-aged, titanium-reinforced cancer thriver. They reveal the often unglamorous but essential truths of empowerment, inviting listeners to find the courage to blaze their own trails on the journey we call life.
blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike
Appalachian Trail: one fine day
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Blissful is ill-prepared for the constant damp, but discovering an inner fierceness to solve her problems and keep moving ahead.
- The summer of 2023 on the Appalachian Trail (AT) is the wettest in memory.
- But this one day in Northern Maine is thankfully dry with big wind off Rainbow Lake where Blissful is able to dry out her gear.
- It's all easy trail lined with wildflowers from one shelter at Hurd Brook to the next at Rainbow Stream with a delightful site right above falls through a gorge.
- New friends of fellow hikers give Blissful courage and she makes it to the next site now with dried out gear – only to survive yet another night of soaking rain.
MUSIC: Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
