blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike
Long-distance backpacker Alison "Blissful Hiker" Young has walked over 13,000 miles on six continents including New Zealand's Te Araroa, Europe's Pyrenean Haute Route, Africa's Drakensberg Traverse and the Pacific Crest Trail in the United States.
In a series of personal essays coupled with found sound, this podcast explores her journey of self-discovery as a middle-aged titanium-reinforced cancer thriver, sharing the sometimes unglamorous but vital truth about empowerment, inspiring others to blaze their own trails in this journey we call life.
blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike
Appalachian Trail: you're only passing through
When seeing two Pileated Woodpecker parents up close, Blissful learns that she is only passing through and to savor the moment while it lasts.
- It's an easy enough day on the Appalachian Trail (AT) though rainy without any views.
- Blissful stops at a lovely campground on the banks of Lower Jo-Mary Lake surrounded by pink Lady Slippers, as delicate as crepe.
- These first days walking south through Maine have been hard and Blissful feels like an amateur muddling through.
- While she licks her wounds, two woodpeckers poke out of a snag, chittering to each other and seemingly planning who will head out for food and how will stay with the young; it's magical.
- The lesson that "we're only passing through" is made apparent as is that she will never pass this way again.
- And this realization makes her feel gratitude for being invited into this wild world.
MUSIC: Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
