Each year ? over five million visitors vacation in or near the Sierra Nevada, ? one million eight hundred thousand hikers embark on our nation?s hiking trails, ? nineteen million Americans suffer with depression?and ? each year 30 thousand lives are lost to suicide (most attributed to untreated depression). All of these people?and others (including armchair adventurers)? will be interested in Jeff Alt?s forthcoming book, A Hike for Mike: An Uplifting Adventure Across the Sierra Nevada (ISBN: 0-9679482-1-5; $14.95 trade paperback original). For review consideration, a galley is enclosed.After losing a brother-in-law to suicide, Jeff Alt and his wife, Beth, hiked the 218-mile John Muir Trail across the Sierra Nevada mountain range as a depression awareness campaign to spread the word that depression is treatable. In A Hike for Mike, readers walk vicariously alongside Jeff and Beth, through Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks, ending high atop Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the contiguous United States. There are encounters with bears, lightning bolts, scary hikers, fascinating people, and beautifully rugged scenery.

And gradually, from the dark ashes of tragedy, a ray of light emerges. A Hike For Mike is a heartwarming, humbling, humorous, true-life adventure story personifying perseverance, and modeling ways to overcome adversity, and navigate the mountains and valleys of life. In addition to sharing their adventure, Alt includes a chapter with some basic facts about depression. Awareness is the first step of any healing journey. The author of the primary guidebook for the John Muir Trail writes: "Thank you, Jeff and Beth, for A Hike For Mike. It gave me the chance to relive my own JMT adventures and to plan new ones. I also appreciate its critically important message about depression, something that's dogged me all my life!"- Kathy Morey, co-author, Guide to the John Muir Trail (www.wildernesspress.

com)Alt?s previous book, the award-winning A Walk for Sunshine, is currently in its fourth printing and is still selling steadily. Prior to Jeff and Beth?s John Muir Trail journey, their planned adventure was written up in the Chicago Tribune (and syndicated to other papers across the US). It was also featured in several other newspaper stories and on radio interviews. The media requested they be informed once the book is available, so good media coverage is expected for A Hike For Mike.A Hike For Mike is scheduled for publication September 2005 by Dreams Shared Publications. The book will be available at bookstores and libraries nationwide, from online bookstores, at www.hikeformike.com,.