blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike
Long-distance solo hiker Alison Young knows hard-core backpacking as few people do. With footprints on six continents and memories from trails like Te Araroa and the Pacific Crest, she is a member of a very small and prestigious group.
In a series of personal essays coupled with found sound and her own flute playing, this podcast explores her journey of self-discovery as a middle-aged woman, 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: 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
