Diagnosed with cervical cancer at 30, Katie Gibson of Bozeman, Mont., craved the outdoors so much that even the recurrence of the life-threatening disease couldn’t keep her away. So she and her husband, the writer Scott Bischke, have begun spending summers hiking the West’s arduous Continental Divide Trail. It’s a quest that has taken them through several states and over 14,000-foot peaks, and they aren’t done yet. This book about their continuing trek — hardly a walk in the park for people in the pink of health — makes for compelling reading. There’s never a false note, just useful stubbornness and devotion to marvel at.
Crossing Divides: A Couple’s Story of Cancer, Hope, and Hiking Montana’s Continental Divide. Scott Bischke, published by the American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Ga. Hardcover, $24.95. 270 pages, illustrated with photos and maps.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Hiking toward healing.
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