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

Author: alison young

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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.

154 Episodes
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Send us Fan Mail “It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” —Charles Dickens Part four in the series takes us on a late-winter hike through Lake Maria State Park, a meditation on seasonal transition and the quiet resilience of a landscape poised between winter’s hold and spring’s emergence. 1. Late February in Minnesota is often a slippery in-between. 2. Sun, sleet, and shadow trade places on glaci...
Send us Fan Mail "Fall is audacious, even if it marks an ending, a last celebration as everything prepares for the long winter, and the Sioux quartzite escarpment that makes up Blue Mounds, bear witness." Part three in the series brings us to far, Southwestern Minnesota for a day of rock climbing at Blue Mounds State Park. The day unfolds as a contemplative journey through ancient rock, shifting seasons, and the resilient rhythms of prairie life. 1. A mile-long wall of Sioux quartzite rises n...
Send us Fan Mail “Portage” means carrying a boat and its cargo between navigable waters. Thick forests once made overland travel in Minnesota and lands north slow and punishing, so lakes and rivers served as superhighways of the north. But moving from one lake to the next required hauling everything, canoes included... Part two in the series takes us on a short hike in Grand Portage State Park revealing the forces that shaped the land as well as the enduring human respect for that land which ...
Send us Fan Mail “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” —Margaret Atwood Part one in the series highlights a night of near-solitude at Lake Itasca State Park. The moment is a reflection on spring’s renewal and the fragile, hard-won legacy of preservation that allows this landscape to remain alive and vibrant today. 1. Camping alone at Floating Bog Bay amid the rich smell of earth, Alison listens as frogs, birds, and insects erupt in raucous celebration. 2. The epi...
Aliveness

Aliveness

2025-07-0308:37

Send us Fan Mail “The goal of life … is not happiness, peace, or fulfillment, but aliveness.” —Hubert Dreyfuss 1. Sometimes curiosity about what’s around the next corner is enough to keep us exploring and moving forward. 2. Life doesn’t end once you’ve done “enough.” It keeps unfolding. 3. I hike because I am curious and because I can. 4. Here's a mantra I'll take with me on my next hike of the Great Divide Trail: You’re not hiking for records, for ego, or for others. You’re hikin...
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