Nothing was going to stop her from achieving her goal, even when she encountered rattlesnakes, downed trees blocking her path, an army of frogs, record snowfalls, severe high temperatures, a lack of water, bears and other predators, terrifying hillbillies, even a bull (Yes! A BULL!). Her feet suffered from the ill-fitting boots and her toenails blackened and fell off.
The weight of Monster bore down and the straps rubbed her shoulders and hips raw and bloody. Refusing to relent to the initial harbingers of hiking doom, Cheryl began her journey on the trail armed only with a whistle. She needed to wriggle into her pack while sitting, and then rock to her feet. Her backpack, dubbed ‘Monster’, couldn’t even be lifted off the ground by Cheryl. For all of her planning and prepping, Cheryl immediately encountered two major problems: the weight of her backpack and her hiking boots which were too tight. Cheryl had never even hiked out into the woods and pitched a tent for one night. She was the epitome of the word “newbie”.
Before she knew it, Cheryl was at the start of her solo hike in southern California – with a box full of condoms, just in case.īefore this massive undertaking, Cheryl had no training or experience in hiking. No responsibilities, nothing to look forward to – why not make this goal a reality? Cheryl saved her waitressing tips, purchased gear and set a date. Hiking the PCT became a dream and then suddenly, it became a goal. As happenstance would have it, she came across a guidebook on the PCT. Alienated from friends and family, she fell into an easy relationship of sex and drugs with a man she hardly knew.Ĭheryl didn’t exactly hit rock bottom, but when her ex-husband and an old friend tried to pull her away from the heroin, she knew this wasn’t the place she wanted to be in life. Already married, Cheryl pushed her husband away through adultery and lies. Her world collapsed when her mother, the one who always held the family together, died from lung cancer when Cheryl was merely twenty.
Her mother eventually remarried a decent man and although they struggled financially, she was surrounded by love. Abandoned by her wife-beating father as a child, Cheryl grew up as the middle child, daughter to a poor, single mother. Wild has won the 2013 Indies Choice Book Award for Adult Nonfiction, the 2012 GoodReads Choice for Best Memoir & Autobiography, and was added to Oprah’s Book Club List.Ĭheryl never had an easy life. Her goal is to traverse hundreds of miles of difficult terrain on foot, from southern California all the way to the border of Washington, all by herself. A troubled young woman puts her problems behind her, straps on a monstrous backpack, and sets off on a three month hike along the ‘PCT’ (Pacific Crest Trail). Wild is an adventurous memoir with an unforgettable voice of honesty.
0 kommentar(er)
