“Foot speed was a profoundly different way of moving through the world than my normal modes of travel. Miles weren’t things that blazed dully past. They were long, intimate straggles of weeds and clumps of dirt, blades of grass and flowers that bent in the wind, trees that lumbered and screeched. They were the sound of my breath and my feet hitting the trail one step at a time and the click of my ski pole. The PCT had taught me what a mile was. I was humble before each and every one.”
When her mother dies and her personal life unravels (one-night stands, divorce, heroin), Cheryl Strayed decides to walk the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) from Mohave, California, to the Bridge of the Gods on the border of Oregon and Washington. Even with sections of the route being missed, it ends up being a journey of 1,100 miles.
Along the way she evades rattlesnakes and bears, struggling through parched deserts and deep snow. She has excruciating foot pain and loses toenails, but meets kindly strangers, makes some hiking friends and starts to come to terms with her past.
It’s hugely readable. The film made in 2014 is a fairly faithful adaptation of this text, but suffers from condensing such a detailed narrative into a couple of hours and somehow seemed a more disturbing tale overall. It’s also harder for a film to show an emotional transformation, which is perhaps the real subject of Wild.
The book is far more varied in tone, with plenty of gentle humour amid the soul-searching and recollection. You end up admiring her spirit and determination. And if you like walking, as I do, it leaves you yearning to undertake your own epic journey.
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