Wild

Cheryl Strayed is coming to Bend as part of the "Author, Author!" series put on by Deschutes County Public Library. So I vowed to read the book before she came. This is one of those amazing memoirs that will leave you bowled over by her incredible determination, but also slightly uncomfortable for all the personal revelations. It's a little like seeing someone without their clothes on to have their emotions and most intimate behaviors laid out before you. In this combination of feelings, I am reminded of the memoir by Storm Large, Crazy Enough. Cheryl loses her mother from cancer when the woman is in her early forties and it just tears her and her family apart. Her father was long gone, but her step-father immediately got involved with another woman, and her brother and sister just withdrew. She had no real home, no real family and she subsequently embarked on a course of self-destruction that shattered her marriage as well.
She decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) — by herself — to "find herself" or who she wants to be. She is ill-prepared physically, having never backpacked in her life, and starts off with a pack that she cannot physically lift off the floor, eventually nicknamed the Monster. Even though other hikers eventually help her lighten the load by shedding non-essentials, it remains bigger than packs carried by others because she is alone and must carry everything, instead of sharing--her own tent, her own stove, etc. She starts out with hiking boots a size too small, and though they are replaced with larger ones halfway through the 1,200 mile trip, her feet never recover the entire time, and she loses 6 of her toenails and walks with constant blisters and open sores on her feet. She has almost no money, encounters rattlesnake, bears, mountain lion tracks, unpassable stretches of snow and ice, and at least one pair of hunters with bad intentions. Nevertheless she also finds  good camaraderie among the other PCT hikers she encounters and eventually reaches her goal. It is a moving account and you have to admire — and occasionally shake your head at — her sheer stubbornness. It is well written, and her connection to nature shines through.