blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike

Mar 06 2024 15

blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike Podcast artwork

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 as a bad-ass woman who doesn’t need permission to blaze her own trails in this journey we call life.

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Breast Cancer Trail: You're done!

Mar 06 2024 7 mins

Blissful is given the "all clear" by her surgeon and gets ready to step into the rest of her life. Surgery for breast cancer has completely changed Blissful's body, but has given her a new power of bravery and knowing herself better. One friend calls her a "sur-thriver" facing down the situation directly, and trying to do what St. Paul said, to "rejoic

cancer thriver

Feb 28 2024 12 mins

Blissful takes her first hike on a trail after surgery for breast cancer and decides she prefers to be described as a "thriver" – or even "aliver" – rather than survivor. It's a hot, humid summer day at Lebanon Hills, a region carved by glaciers with kettles and eskers, plus the singing of numerous birds. Blissful's surgeon tells her it's tim

Inhabiting the Vulnerable Space

Feb 21 2024 8 mins

As Blissful heals from a bilateral mastectomy due to breast cancer, she reflects on the person she wants to be going forward. Blissful is incredibly lucky in only having to undergo a radical surgery to rid her body of cancer. Step by step walking through her neighborhood, she slowly recovers back to her hiker self. The American writer Joyce Carol Oates speaks of the moment we reali

Good Luck, Bad Luck

Feb 14 2024 11 mins

When Blissful is diagnosed with breast cancer, she undergoes a bilateral mastectomy to save her life and secure her future.A friend tells Blissful she has it easy because she has a partner in her husband Richard. Indeed, she is incredibly grateful to be part of a team because it's helped her navigate some very tough times in her life. Blissful's view of life is that it ca

Breast Cancer Trail: Bye, Bye Boobs

Feb 07 2024 12 mins

Blissful begins her cancer journey looking back at her life as a woman. Blissful spends the days before a bilateral mastectomy gathering together a team of supportive women who have been through the procedure.She also walks, hikes, bikes, swims, kayaks all in an effort to calm herself – or running away from panic. In looking forward to being flat-chested and "ultra-light&quo

Appalachian Trail: going home

Jan 31 2024 15 mins

Blissful wraps up her hike of the Appalachian Trail in Maine to head home for cancer treatment. The two days between Monson and Caratunk are rain-free and magical with a winter wren, hermit thrush, northern parula plus warty frogs and a curious snake. It's two big mountains with views including Moxie Bald and Pleasant Pond with glorious views of humpy green forested peaks like

Appalachian Trail: Magic at Moxie Bald Pond

Jan 24 2024 15 mins

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

Appalachian Trail: gratitude for hiker and creature alike

Jan 17 2024 12 mins

The trail is hard in rain, mud and cold, but Blissful gets the boost she needs from hiker and creature. It's mountainous now in the 100-mile Wilderness, revealing only misty views of distant lakes enveloped in thick forest. The "Sibs", two thru-hikers also from Minnesota, plus "Shoes," a barefoot hiker, meet her and offer encouragement.As does Fourth Mounta

Appalachian Trail: White Cap Mountain

Jan 10 2024 14 mins

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. Ev

Artist-in-Residence | Porcupine Mountains Wilderness

Jan 03 2024 11 mins

Blissful creates an audio narrative as an Artist-in-Residence at Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in Upper Peninsula, Michigan. During her artistic residency, she immersed herself in the vividly sonorous landscape , collecting sound as she hiked. Birds, falls and the wind spoke to her about spring’s message – a message of renewal and rebirth.It's such a fleeting