This summer, my son, Jim, and his best friend, Jesse, are hiking the Continental Divide Trail from Mexico to Canada.
They’re hiking for friends, also young, whose lives are threatened by blood cancers and who desperately need their second bone-marrow transplants (because the first ones failed to heal them). One is a doctor, the other a lawyer, both with so much to offer our country and whose lives are all too likely to be cut tragically short without the help they need. Jim and Jesse have raised more than $30,000, twice their original goal, in their quest to raise money and awareness for bone-marrow donations. (You can learn more about their progress at.)
Their trek has been full of challenges. As they left the Mexican border to hike across the desert of southern New Mexico, the weather heated up, testing their endurance. By the time they reached Colorado, our May storms hit, deluging the mountains with snow. They struggled for two days in a blizzard in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado, dug snow caves at night, and found refuge with strangers who took them in for the night.
Jim and Jesse snowshoed through Colorado until they reached Steamboat Springs, where they finally found spring. Frequently, they sank to their hips in deep snow. Nonetheless, they averaged nearly 25 miles a day, more than I can manage on a clear trail in the sunshine.
Along the way, they’ve encountered mother bears with their cubs, moose, elk, deer, foxes, herons and sage grouse. Although they met no grizzlies in Yellowstone, they are headed into grizzly country again. They are awed by the magnificent wildlife roaming the Rocky Mountains and annoyed by the smaller critters that bite and sting long into the night.
Last week, I joined them as they trekked along the northern part of the Continental Divide, which separates Idaho and Montana. We stayed in cabins so they could eat real food, sleep in comfort, take a much-needed bath and hike without heavy packs for a few days. Now, 2,200 miles into their trek, they have only 800 miles to go to the Canadian border in Glacier National Park.
As these two healthy young men are nearing the end of their great adventure, their friends are struggling with their diseases. One just learned his illness has become full-fledged leukemia. Both are undergoing chemotherapy as they search for the right marrow donor to give them a chance for a longer life. While Jim and Jesse face tired muscles and sore feet at the end of each long day, their friends endure the nausea and exhaustion of their cancer treatments and hope for another, better day.
Joining the bone-marrow registry requires nothing more than a cheek swab, supplied through a simple kit you can get in the mail. There are thousands of people, just like Jim and Jesse’s friends, whose lives could be saved by the right donor. If you’re between 18 and 60, you might be the one to give someone a full life.
Thousands of people die each year because they can’t find an organ donor. By simply signing on the back of your driver’s license, you could become an organ donor, perhaps giving the gift of life to someone less fortunate. It is so easy, and what an honor to give that gift.
Gail Schoettler (gailschoettler @email.msn.com) is a former U.S. ambassador and Colorado lieutenant governor and treasurer.
