The sharp, gnawing grief that turns people inside out when a very young loved one commits suicide is too hard to share. Some people never do.

But Thomas Brown Alton’s family tugged a vestige of well-being from their grief when they formed a foundation in his name. Its mission was to raise money to support efforts to prevent suicide.

Two years ago, the family held the first Walkatop — a hiking event that attracted 300 people to Emerald View Park, a green loop around Mount Washington and Duquesne Heights. Last year’s event was similarly popular.

The third annual Walkatop is Sunday, from 8 a.m. to noon. Advance registration is $20 through Saturday. Pay online at showclix.com. Admission on event day is $25 at check-in — at the parking lot on Grandview Avenue across from the Duquesne Incline station. Parking is free for the event.

The walk features six routes of varying degrees of difficulty, and walkers can exit the trail system at various points onto nearby streets.

I met Tom Brown, young Tom’s uncle and an avid hiker, at the statue of George Washington and Guyasuta, the Seneca leader, along Grandview on the Duquesne Heights side. The George and Guy trail begins on a gravel path with Downtown looming below you. Then suddenly you are plunged into woods. It’s amazing to be suddenly in a forest, surrounded by huge rocks, a dense tree canopy and songbirds, just across the river from skyscrapers.

We stopped at an overlook to admire the West End Village in miniature and then a little further on to say “wow” at the depth of the vista.

“I’m not comparing this to Machu Picchu,” I said, and he laughed. “But we take our geography for granted sometimes.”

Mr. Brown and his boyhood buddies used to play in the woodsy areas scattered throughout the mount. Back then, the trails were made mostly by kids, but people used to live back in there. Along our five-mile trek, we passed numerous house foundations, a fire hydrant and patches of pavement.

Over the past 12 years, Emerald View Park has evolved as a 257-acre regional park with 12 miles of trails. It has been developed since 2005, connecting three older parks — Grandview, Olympia and Mount Washington. At the time it was proposed, Mr. Brown said, “it seemed very ambitious.” It is a project of the Mount Washington Community Development Corp. and the city, and now has the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy as a stewardship partner.

“This is where we used to come as teenagers,” for beer-and-campfire socials, he said as we stopped at a clearing where several boulders and a pile of wood suggested the tradition lives on.

The trail we took led us across Greenleaf Street and Shaler Street and over the Fort Pitt Tunnel. “Down there,” he pointed, and I looked at teeny little cars lining up at the portal.

We encountered one other person, as it was a workday afternoon, and one adolescent deer that stood perched along the remnant of an old street. She didn’t move. She just looked at us and tentatively raised one hoof, the way my dog does when she wants a treat.

We admired her, then went back into the woods, past a portable toilet.

On event day, water stations will be set up along the routes, he said, “and there will be guides to say ‘two-mile people that way, five-mile people that way.’ “ There’s also a 14-mile walk, which ends up in the South Side for quaffs.

The five-mile walk is fairly challenging. If you’re in pretty good shape, you will only need to pause a couple times. It took us 90 minutes. We crossed little footbridges over several trickling streams and patches of Belgian block and brick. The path is mostly hard-packed dirt, but in some places, tree roots line up like rungs in a ladder and some foundation stones and bricks were placed to stabilize mucky dips.

When we came out onto Hallock Street, a dead end at Olympia Park, we stopped at the water fountain for big swigs, then proceeded toward Grandview Avenue, where I had parked. On Olympia Street, Mr. Brown pointed at a house.

“That’s where Tom lived for about two years,” he said.

“Your young Tom?” I asked.

“Our young Tom,” he said.

Tom Brown Alton was 25 when he took his life in 2004.

Proceeds from Walkatop will benefit UPMC Mercy’s Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training and a suicide prevention program at Brashear High School.

 Diana Nelson Jones: djones@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1626.

First Published: September 11, 2017, 4:00 a.m.