Jeff Alt - Four Boots - One Journey: A Story of Survival, Awareness & Rejuvenation on the John Muir Trail

Reviews from the original paperback, A Hike for Mike:

A GREAT DIARY of their trip, in which marathon runner Beth, a camping and hiking novice, encounters bears, lightning and freeze-dried food sheds light on a common condition affecting millions of Americans
Anne Stein, The Chicago Tribune

His descriptions capture the magnificence of the varying vistas, the travails of the trail, and the camaraderie of hiking. Alt candidly shares the joys and challenges of a long-distance trek and the positive discoveries that both he and his wife have made about each other. Reading about their journey is itself a reprieve from the frantic pace of everyday life. Indeed, Alts conversational writing style makes one feel like a participant rather than an observer. Recommended for public libraries.
Jo-Anne Mary Benson, Library Journal

What happens when a marathon runner marries a hiker? In Jeff Alts case, you get what NBC might dub Xtreme Honeymoon
Matt Bergantino, Cincinnati Magazine

This book follows Alt and his wife Beth across the 218-mile John Muir Trail Encountering bears, lightning storms, rugged scenery, and fascinating people Non-hikers will enjoy the authors vivid descriptions of natural beauty and encounters in the wild
LA Metro Book Review

An amusing, stirring, true-life adventure
Adventure Journey: The Extreme Vacationers Handbook

They encountered hungry bears, dangerous lightning storms, tricky creek crossings and a sick hiker who needed emergency evacuation by helicopter; when their supplies ran low, Jeff and Beth even learned how to mooch for food and toilet paper
The Fresno Bee

Four Boots-One Journey

Copyright 2005, 2012 by Jeff Alt.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means, without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and articles.

E-Book Edition July 2012

Cover design by www.KarrieRoss.com

Printed in paperback, under the title: A Hike for Mike, in June, 2005

For information, please address:
Dreams Shared Publications; P.O. Box 18188; Cincinnati, Ohio 45218.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9679482-8-7
ISBN-10: 0-9679482-8-2

A Story of Survival, Awareness, and Rejuvenation on the John Muir Trail

Jeff Alt
author of the award-winning A Walk For Sunshine

To my amazing best friend and wife, Beth

Four Boots One Journey/A Hike for Mike, the journey and the book, brought together a mix of family, friends, and countless professionals, all of whom played a special role making this book possible. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to: Mary Richards-Beaumont, my editor, for diligently and eloquently refining my manuscript into this book. Mary provided necessary changes while maintaining my style of telling a story. Im especially grateful to my wife, Beth, for picking up my slack around the house and with our daughter as I focused on this project. I would like to thank my entire family for providing counsel on this book. I really heeded their advice. I would like to extend my gratitude and admiration to my in-laws, for their courage and help, in spite of the numbing loss of Mike, to make sure we got the story right. I would like to thank my sister, Stephanie Pitts, for her content suggestions. I would like to thank Kathy Morey for sharing her Sierra Nevada expertise and advice. I would like to thank Bill Deitzer and Timothy Seaman for their constructive tips. I would like to thank Liz Osborn for her time and efforts in editing portions of this book. I would like to thank my webmaster, Georgia Sawhook, who played a key role in the success of our journey. Im grateful to my publicist, Kate Bandos, for helping put together an effective media campaign. I would like to thank all of the media, The Chicago Tribune, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Dayton Daily News, The Detroit Free Press, and The Reno Gazette Journal, just to name a few, for helping to spread the word about our journey. I would like to thank all of the financial and gear sponsors for making this expedition a success. I am especially grateful to all the compassionate people who wrote letters and logged on to our website expressing their support for our journey. Lastly, I am grateful to John Muir for inspiring the preservation of some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen.

This is a true account of the authors adventure along the John Muir Trail. Some of the names and details of individuals in this story were changed to protect their privacy. The John Muir Trail map has been modified and is not true to scale.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Natures
peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds
will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

John Muir, Our National Parks, 1901

The story you are about to read was originally published in paperback as A Hike For Mike. The new title, Four Boots One Journey, brings out the story line even more. On July 29, 2003, my wife Beth and I embarked on an expedition along the John Muir Trail, which treads the spine of the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. For the better part of a month, we lived nomadically, relying on basic supplies and each other. This story is much more than a journal or travel memoir; it is a story of the commitment my wife and I made to each other, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. We made a unique commitment to each other when we joined hands in a life partnershipto hike over the hills and through the valleys of life together. Little did we know how real our metaphor would become.

Four Boots One Journey is filled with adventure, humor and inspiration. I will explain the planning and preparation required for a high mountain expedition such as the John Muir Trail, and then take you on the trail with us. From the moment we set foot on the trail, you will walk alongside us as we encounter a menacing bear, lightning bolts, a mountain rescue, the constant threat of mountain lions, food shortages, fascinating characters and altitude sickness. You will read about how we learned things about each other that we might otherwise have never discovered. When you remove yourself from the hustle and bustle, throw in a few intense situations, hunger, and a stunningly beautiful mountain backdrop, you gain an appreciation for each others strengths and weaknesses that makes your relationship stronger.

I persuaded Beth to take this hike to help her work through the grief she experienced in the aftermath of her brothers death. We dedicated our hike to Beths brother Mike, who tragically took his own life. Mikes family overwhelmingly agreed that his suicide was the result of untreated depression. We walked the trail not only as an adventure to get away from it all, but also as an awareness campaign for depression.