Two years ago at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Susan "Su" Peck overheard another visitor talking about hiking "rim-to-rim."

"I didn't know anything about it, I had never even heard about it, and it was like a Scooby Doo moment, it was like, 'Whoo,' and that put it in my head," said Peck, who will turn 59 in two weeks, lives in Norwich and is a career housepainter who recently underwent surgery and radiation for Stage 2 breast cancer.

Fewer than 1 percent of the Grand Canyon’s 5 million annual visitors make the grueling 24-mile, rim-to-rim trek, according to the National Park Foundation.

Next month, Peck intends to join that elite list, and she's doing it as a benefit for the American Cancer Society as a thank you for the care she received last winter.

About 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 25, Peck will set out in the dark from the North Rim on the North Kaibab Trail and descend to the bottom of the canyon, where she will pick up the Bright Angel Trail and then climb 10 miles up to the top of the South Rim.

"It's 7 miles down, 7 miles across, and 10 up and up and up," said Peck, who added, "I know I can do it."

The farthest she's ever hiked before is 18 miles on Connecticut's Air Line State Park Trail, but she's confident.

"I believe tenacity and adrenaline will kick in. Sure hope so," she said.

For Peck, a native of New Jersey who ended up in Connecticut when she came north as a student at the University of Rhode Island in 1982, cancer has not dimmed her spirit.

"Attitude is easily more than 50 percent, it is huge," she said of thinking positive through her cancer treatments and in everyday life.

"What are you going to do, sit home and sulk?" she asked.

That positive spirit, and being active and physically strong, helped her to heal, she said.

Last December, Peck, who had missed several mammograms, was suffering some pain and went to see a physician.

In hindsight, missing those screenings was a huge mistake, she said.

The mammogram detected a mass in her breast and the doctor recommended a lumpectomy and additional treatment.

She had the surgery in February, and with her physician's approval left in March for a pre-planned, monthlong trip to New Zealand, returning in April for her radiation therapy.

It was in New Zealand that Peck decided to hike from one rim of the Grand Canyon to the other as a benefit.

Her plan is to raise $9,842.18 for cancer research and she has set up an account on Crowdrise that directs all donations directly to the American Cancer Society.

There's a logic to Peck's unusual number.

The temperature at the base of the canyon when she arrives there will be about 98 degrees, she said, and the number 42 is the meaning of life in the movie "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

As for the 18 cents, that's the number of hours she expects it will take her to complete the journey.

She typically hikes about 3 miles an hour but on the rim-to-rim trek, she's calculated that if she can do the first 14 miles at a 2 mph pace, that will allow her 11 hours more to complete the most difficult part, the final 10 miles up to the South Rim.

There is lodging at the basin of the canyon, but hikers who want to spend a night must make accommodations at least a year, if not longer, in advance. Peck is planning to hike straight through.

She will be traveling light, carrying ample water, a headlamp, extra clothes, shoes, socks, bandages, Ibuprofen, dehydrated fruits and peanut butter. She's not sure what kind of reception she will have, but she'll bring her cellphone and a camera.

"I won't take any music devices. I want to stay in the moment and hear the sounds of the trail. I think it will be so cool to first hear the (Colorado) river," she said.

Peck explains her motivation to raise money for cancer research on her Crowdrise page, a site that she said was recommended to her by the American Cancer Society.

"While on this journey, I met many wonderful people just doing their jobs but giving so much to us going through our treatments," she said. "I am thankful that if I had to go through this, it was at a time when years of research had made it much easier and effective. I want to give something back."

She received her treatments at Lawrence + Memorial and Yale-New Haven hospitals.

Peck has been training locally and is planning a trip to Maine later this month to complete some more serious hikes before she sets out across the Grand Canyon.

Her business, Arras Interiors, allows her some flexibility in her schedule for the trips and training, although she's so busy painting, she said it's difficult to get to the gym where she's been working on strength training.

Some people may remember Peck from 1998, when her 1982 Toyota truck with more than 307,000 miles was featured in a national commercial filmed in Stonington borough. She's still driving Toyotas — a 2001 Tundra with 233,000 miles and a 2007 Yaris with 203,000 miles.

Peck will not be going anywhere near those distances when she hikes rim-to-rim next month, but she's determined to successfully complete her journey and add the Grand Canyon sojourn to a list of items she's been checking off her bucket list.

"I was just so amazed at how well everyone treated me, and I wanted to give something back," she said.

And whatever she's able to raise will be a help, she believes.

"It's all these little fundraisers all around the world that makes it possible for everybody else" to receive improved cancer care, she said. "It may be only $300, but it's $300 they didn't have before."

People can pledge whatever they want for Peck's effort, she said.

"It's not a pledge thing by mile, because I have to finish, and I will. Slow and steady wins the race," she said.

To contribute to Peck's effort visit crowdrise.com/supeck.

a.baldelli@theday.com