The Marrow Walk: the Route, the Awareness Days, and How to Walk a Day

In 2009, Jeana Moore laced up her walking shoes in Seattle and started east. Fifteen months and 4,434 miles later she reached New York City, averaging 12 miles a day. In 2012 she walked Sea to Sea Europe — more than 1,000 miles in 137 days, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, through Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Part of that walk she did alongside Torsten Huber, the man whose marrow saved her granddaughter.

She is planning to do it again. This is the fifth Steps to Marrow walk, and it is still being planned, so it does not have a start date yet. What follows is the route as it currently stands.

The route

It is a loop around the Salish Sea: about 337 miles over 45 days, on foot the entire way except for two ferry crossings and one border crossing made on foot.

It starts at Fred Hutch in Seattle, which is not sentimental geography. Fred Hutch is where E. Donnall Thomas developed bone marrow transplantation, work that earned the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990. Every transplant discussed on this website descends from what happened on those blocks.

From there the route runs north through Shoreline, Everett and Marysville, up through the Skagit Valley and the Chuckanut corridor to Bellingham, and on to Blaine, where it crosses into British Columbia on foot at the Peace Arch — open around the clock, free to cross, passport required.

In Canada it passes through Surrey, North Delta and Burnaby to Vancouver General Hospital at 899 West 12th, home of the bone marrow transplant programme that serves adults across British Columbia and Yukon. Then west through New Westminster and Delta to Tsawwassen, and across on BC Ferries to Vancouver Island.

The island leg runs from Sidney south through Saanich to Victoria. Victoria is a milestone, not the end. From there the walk takes the Black Ball ferry back across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Port Angeles, re-entering the United States on the water, and turns east along the Olympic Peninsula — Carlsborg, Discovery Bay, Quilcene — then south down the Hood Canal through Brinnon, Lilliwaup and Skokomish to Shelton.

It finishes at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia.

Ten days of standing still

Thirty-five of the 45 days are walking days. The other ten are Bone Marrow Awareness Days, and they are the point of the whole thing. In Jeana's words: "I stay where I am to educate about donors, transplants, how and why they should join."

Those days fall in Everett, Mount Vernon, Bellingham, North Delta, Vancouver, Sidney, Victoria, Quilcene, Skokomish and Olympia. No walking, no mileage — just a day in one place, talking to whoever will stop.

That rhythm is why a person arriving on foot matters. Walking into a town invites a question, and the question is the opening.

Two countries, one ask

The walk crosses a border, which means it crosses registries. In the United States that is NMDP, which joins people aged 18 to 35 free. In Canada it is the Canadian Blood Services Stem Cell Registry, which joins people aged 17 to 35. In Quebec it is Héma-Québec, ages 18 to 35.

The ask does not change at the border, only the address does. If you are reading this from somewhere else entirely, find the registry that serves your country.

Why the walk goes where it goes: HLA markers are inherited, so patients are most likely to match donors who share their ancestry, and registries can only match patients to the donors they already hold. A registry that does not reflect the people it serves cannot serve them.

How it is being done

Cheaply, and mostly on hospitality — parish halls, community centres, temples and gurdwaras, Salvation Army posts. The framing is deliberate and borrowed from the Buddhist idea of dana, generosity both given and received. Beyond food, the fixed costs are two ferry fares.

That is not a fundraising gimmick. It is what makes a 45-day walk possible for a foundation this small.

How to help

Three things are genuinely useful.

Walk a day. Any single leg. Most days run 5 to 15 miles between towns, and the company matters more than the mileage.

Offer a room or a hall. If you know a congregation, community hall or fire station anywhere on the corridor between Seattle and Olympia that might host an evening or a night, that is the single most valuable thing you can offer.

Tell your town she is coming. An awareness day works when local people already know about it. A post in a community group two weeks ahead does more than a poster on the day.

Get in touch through the volunteer page.

Some of this route crosses or runs near tribal land. Where it does, we have listed the place and nothing more: no nation has been asked to host or endorse this walk, and none will be named as taking part until that conversation has happened and been agreed in writing.

Dates are not set either — when they are, they will be posted here and on the events page. Nothing above is a fixed commitment yet.