Book: Wild by Cheryl Strayed

From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

I liked this book a lot. Cheryl didn't hike the whole trail and her hike happened several years ago, but she is a skillful writer and recounts a fine adventure.

She starts off "hunching in a remotely upright position" as she struggles with her pack, her too-heavy pack.

"Three hours in, I came to a rare level spot near a gathering of Joshua trees, yucca and junipers and stopped to rest. To my monumental relief, there was a large boulder upon which I could sit and remove my pack in the same fashion I had in the van in Mojave. Amazed to be free of its weight, I strolled around and accidentally brushed up against one of the Joshua trees and was bayoneted by its sharp spikes. Blood instantly spurted out of three stab wounds on my arm. The wind blew so fiercely that when I removed my first aid kit from my pack and opened it up, all the of Band-Aids blew away...I'd never been so exhausted in all of my life. Part of it was due to my body adjusting to the exertion and the elevation...but most of my exhaustion could be blamed on the outrageous weight of my pack. I looked at it hopelessly. It was my burden to bear, of my very own ludicrous making, and yet I had no idea how I was going to bear it."

But bear it she does of course, beginning in the heat in the Mojave Desert and ending at Bridge of the Gods in Oregon, near Mt. Hood, which was her finish line.

There is always the present but also much of her past in this book, especially the death of her mother and her own reckless way of life before she began hiking. But she keeps moving forward, physically and emotionally, and we are her vicarious companions.

Cheryl stops at her pre-determined re-supply stations, sometimes totally out of food and with less than a dollar in her pocket. She meets other hikers and animals and snow: "I walked all day, falling and skidding and trudging along, bracing so hard with my ski pole that my hand blistered...Around every bend and over every ridge and on the other side of every meadow I hoped there would be no more snow. But there was always more show amid the occasional patches where the ground was visible."

I could quote from any page chosen at random. The adventure never got boring or dull for me.

"Sagebrush and a sprawl of hardy wildflowers blanketed the wide plain. As I walked, scratchy plants I couldn't identify gazed my calves. Others I knew seemed to speak to me, saying their name to me in my mother's voice. Names I didn't realize I knew until they came so clearly into my mind: Queen Anne's lace, Indian paintbrush, lupine--those same flowers grew in Minnesota, white and orange and purple When we passed them as we drove my mother would sometimes stop the car and pick a bouquet from what grew in the ditch."

So I could go on quoting Cheryl, but if any of this piques your interest, just read the book.