MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – Twelve hundred miles, one backpack and a camera- a Madison man’s road to recovery took him through the Ice Age Trail.
After undergoing emergency heart surgery, in 2014, he decided to focus on gaining his strength back while making new friends along the way. He documented his voyage through his camera lens.
Two hundred and sixty-four pages later, photographer Cameron Gillie combined all the photos he took into a book. It took him four years to complete the hike and this year he is finally able to share it with the world.
“They realized once they got in there and saw there was a lot of blockage and I needed to have quadruple bypass surgery,” Gillie said.
The emergency open heart surgery reminded him that life is precious.
“Well, having something like that happened to you when you’re young is it’s an eye opener,” Gillie said. “You realize your mortality, you know you. You’re not going to be around forever, so. Yeah, it was. It became important to do.”
In hopes to complete his goal to walk one million steps, Gillie packed his backpack and camera and hiked through the Ice Age Trail.
“It was about four years after heart surgery, I started the hike and it took a long time because it’s 1,200 miles,” Gillie said.
He learned how much his body could handle in a day and how to make quick and easy dinners.
“I would make my own backpacking meals, things that were easy to rehydrate, like couscous and ramen,” Gillie said.
After meals, he would travel through towns to snap photos of people he met along the way. One day he ended up at a barber shop in Kewaunee.
“I knocked on the door and just called, just kind of ambushed him and said, ‘hey, can I take some pictures?’” he said.
He reminds others to never give up when things get hard.
“If you just keep making progress, you’ll get there,” he said. “At one point, you’ll get to the point where you’re a quarter of the way done.”
Gillie plans to create another book, taking another journey through Wisconsin and making connections with the people he meets. He thinks he might ride his bike this time.
Click here to download the NBC15 News app or our NBC15 First Alert weather app.
Copyright 2023 WMTV. All rights reserved.
