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: Magic at Moxie Bald Pond
Blissful makes it out of the 100 Mile Wilderness and receives a call from her doctor calling her home to have a bilateral mastectomy.
- It's wet and muddy but mostly road out to Monson, Maine, the first town in ten days.
- She has to go home, but not immediately, and can head back on trail for at least a few more days.
- And it's perfect timing in sunny weather at last and a long reroute around flooded rivers.
- But it's a gorgeous hike through forest loud with birds and frogs.
- And it takes her to lovely Moxie Bald Pond where the forest creatures enchant her even when distressed by her cancer diagnosis and the fact that she'll have to go home.
MUSIC: Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
