blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike

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 Febr...

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 roc...

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 rev...

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 sme...

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 hik...

Send us Fan Mail "You can think your way into a new way of acting, or act your way into a new way of thinking." Sometimes we can’t wait for the right mindset to show up. Sometimes we have to step into the behavior first, and trust that the mindset will follow. Credit is due James Loehr the author of "Mental Toughness Training for Athletes."  He says we tend to reside in three e...

Send us Fan Mail The trail—like life—may not always be what we want it to be, but it offers us the opportunity to choose how we respond to whatever it doles out. In the hiking world we have a saying, "Embrace the Suck!"  It's a reminder that the trail doesn't care what we want it to be and is not there simply to meet our expectations. But we always have a choice to accept what...

Send us Fan Mail Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between is a great mindset when planning a major thru-hike – or any major life endeavor. Blissful is planning a thru-hike of the Great Divide Trail, a rugged and remote route that winds through the Canadian Rockies, tracing the continental divide between Alberta and British Columbia. In getting ready, the...

Send us Fan Mail I didn’t expect much when someone asked to closely examine my deformed fingers —but the moment ended up teaching me about what truly matters – and what doesn’t. I may be a Blissful Hiker , but my body is twisted and deformed from severe osteoarthritis. I’ve learned to ignore their appearance and carry on with life, focusing on what they can do rather than how they look. When someo...

Send us Fan Mail Let the Day Unfold! Let its gentle voice guide you toward unexpected surprises and open your heart to the lessons it holds. The lowly New Zealand sandfly teaches us about impermanence, to keep moving forward and to stay open to possibility. Letting the Day Unfold is a refreshing counterpoint to the classic carpe diem mindset.  Rather than gripping the day tightly and trying to con...

Send us Fan Mail Blissful's Great-grandma Emma used to say, "Life may be short, but it’s also wide." It’s a shift in perspective – from focusing on limitations to exploring possibilities, from dwelling on obstacles to finding creative detours. It would take walking the entire length of New Zealand on the Te Araroa for her to understand what Emma was talking about.  The first lesson...

Send us Fan Mail When everything goes sideways and you’re having a bad day, repeat the mantra to not quit today but instead give yourself the self-love, the break, the reset to get back on track. We have a saying in the hiker community, "Never Quit on a Bad Day." It’s a reminder that it’s a good idea to hold off on making major decisions when things get tough and instead give yourself sp...

Send us Fan Mail Walking through woodland ephemerals in early spring reminds us to embrace impermanence and stay present in the here and now.  We have a saying in the hiker community, “Be Where Your Feet Are.”   It’s all about staying present in the moment and not dwelling too much on the past or worrying about the future. To “be where your feet are” quite literally encourages us to stay grounded....

Send us Fan Mail Hiking has a way of making us more resilient, not so much manifested as strength and persistence, but in developing trust and embracing the unknown. We have a saying in the hiker community, “The Trail Will Provide.”   It signifies the aid and assistance hikers encounter on trail, encouraging trust and faith that things will work out. On a section hike of the Continental Divide Tra...

Send us Fan Mail On October 10, Blissful gave her first TEDx talk , “How do you find your bliss? Take the long trail!” Blissful shares the loss of her flute career due to a neurological disorder called dystonia.  It was on trail that she began to heal – and her greatest teacher on learning to live with her loss and move forward into the unknown.  Blissful's talk is about resilience in spite o...

Send us Fan Mail WATCH TEDx On October 10, Blissful gave her first TEDx talk about Resilience as part of TEDX AmoskeagMillyard in Manchester, New Hampshire.   What is a TED talk?? TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and was founded in 1984 to showcase the "most interesting people on earth and let them communicate their passion." The tagline is "ideas worth spreading....

Send us Fan Mail Taking a class this weekend, Blissful learns about the key skills of a good teacher .    This was especially important when she needed to face down an irrational fear of falling out of her kayak and being upside down in the water.  Here are some of those skills: Positive Learning Environment.  Encourage Risk Taking.   Provide Feedback and Guidance Promote a Growth Mindset  Just wa...

Send us Fan Mail On the Teton Crest Trail in Wyoming, Blissful decides to go for an "SKT" (Slowest Known Time) and surprises abound. 1. John Muir (and Henry David Thoreau) hated the word "hike" and preferred to saunter, entering beautiful natural places with reverence. 2. Physiologists tell us that walking at a turtle's pace releases endocannabinoids a kind of "persis...

Send us Fan Mail On the Pyrenean Haute Route, an oafish American hiker questioned Blissful's ability to manage a route of this difficulty.  “Even YOU?” he asked, his lip curling in disdain. “I haven’t seen many old people hiking this.” It shook her confidence, for sure, but here she was, backpacking while old .  We don’t tend to bounce back the way we did when we were younger. That’s why we h...

Send us Fan Mail Have you been wanting to do something a little wild and out-of-your-comfort-zone but were afraid to take the first step?  When it comes to dreams, don't let them become a broken record of something you'll do "someday."  In this episode, Blissful shares three reasons why we fail to act and keep our dreams to ourselves – rules fear  shame Take your dreams for a s...

Send us Fan Mail Blissful  feels plenty of fear and anxiety before a thru-hike, but she manages her fears by asking, “If the worst happens, then what?”  The answers to those questions helps us think more rationally rather than being paralyzed by anxiety, and thus live a more zesty and adventurous life. All of us feel fear at least some of the time that can hold us back from action. The trick is no...

Send us Fan Mail 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 "re...

Send us Fan Mail 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 i t's tim...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Oate s speaks of the moment we...

Send us Fan Mail 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...