Going extra miles for cancer aid

For a feel-good body and soul you could do the Philadelphia AIDS Walk along the river drives this Sunday, or run the Lupus Loop in Fairmount Park on Oct. 26.

Or you could live vicariously through the Foley sisters.

This trio - along with dozens of musicians, cancer survivors, and just plain altruistic folk - is hiking the Inca Trail en route to Machu Picchu to raise money for cancer in Peru.

The idea is to travel around the world using music to raise funds "one concert at a time," Shannon Foley says by satellite phone.

The sponsoring Love Hope Strength Foundation was built around a climb (and concert) to 18,600 feet on Mount Everest last year. Among other things, the proceeds paid for the first mammography machine in Nepal, says Foley, the Denver-based foundation's executive director.

Everyone has her own reason to make the journey. Tracey Callahan of Chesterbrook in Chester County is celebrating five cancer-free years since she was found to have colon cancer three weeks after giving birth to a son. It was Stage IV, and had spread to an ovary.

The Foley sisters, originally from Lafayette Hill, are honoring their brother Ryan's successful battle with testicular cancer and memorializing others who have not been so lucky. You can read all the trekkers' stories, and send them messages via satellite, at www.perurocks.org.

After a few days of acclimatizing and music-making (the whole thing will eventually become an MTV documentary), the group hit the trail along the Urubamba River on Friday. They were to ascend an Inca stairway and cross the Runquracay pass at close to 13,000 feet yesterday. Today's destination: Machu Picchu, the legendary Lost City.

Callahan has so far raised more than $8,000, and the Foleys have surpassed $15,000 combined.

"We just want people to be inspired," Molly (Foley) Harrington says.

She certainly is. Having given birth to her fourth child in March, Harrington, 36, started working out in August and was expecting a challenge. "There's no altitude where I'm at," she says. "In Lafayette Hill." - Don Sapatkin