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: White Cap Mountain
Blissful crosses a high, exposed peak in fog and rain then discovers she needs to go further than she thought.
- Hiking south on the Appalachian Trail, it's the first high mountains since Katahdin, but the weather is manageable.
- And there are small surprises like twisted and stunted "krumholz" trees, wildly fluorescent fungus and wildflowers heavily laden with damp.
- Even high up, the birds are loud including a new bird t Magnolia Warbler.
- When Blissful discovers she needs to go further than expected, crossing a river and steeply up, she goes for it.
- The "Sibs" – a pair of siblings also from Minnesota – give her courage as well as spotting her first Red Spotted Newt as orange as a gummy.
- The river crossing is easy and the uphills go one and on finally ending in a rock fall to climb up Chairback Mountain to a shelter shared with a barefoot thru-hiker named 'Shoes.'
MUSIC: Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
