Wild

Wow, I loved this book.  What a great read.  I have put off reading this for a number of years because I thought for some reason I would find it intensely irritating ...what with all this lost to found nonsense and a complete novice walking literally a thousand miles. But how wrong I was!  This was a brilliant book and I loved the honesty of Strayed's writing.  For a start she wasn't a complete novice, she was fairly fit,  had lived like a hippy all of her childhood, she was outdoorsy, and knew how to camp, tie knots and live a simple life.  The only thing she hadn't done was walk for days  on end , alone with all her belongings on her back. Her description of her life falling apart before she started the walking and the trauma of her mum's death, her family break up and her divorce were really honest portrayals but her way to cope was a choice between becoming a heroin addict or getting back into the outdoor style life of her happier childhood.  She luckily decided on the latter, and what an adventure she had.

I loved reading about her initial planning with her packed boxes being posted onto stations ahead.  Her inability to make her pack smaller. The pain in her feet, hips and mind as she had to keep walking up and down the range of mountains on the Pacific Crest TrAil.  I loved her descriptions of when she met bears, rattle snakes, foxes and hideous frogs. The great  and generous people she met on the trail, both locals and fellow walkers and the infrequent unfriendly people she bumped into too. Her vulnerability is clearly expressed.  She makes some big mistakes, especially when she runs out of water and the tank ahead is also empty and her shoes cause her continuous pain.  This was a hard core adventure.  Not for the faint hearted, but I have to respect these hard core adventurers.  They sure have guts to go out walking in extreme snowy conditions with only an ice pick to help them stay safely attached to the snowy slopes. Infact Cheryl did have to bypass a section of the Sierra Navada range because it was so dangerous with all the snow...still there in May, June. 

I also loved learning about a trail I know nothing about. There was a map of the trail from the Mexico border, through CAlifornia, Oregan and Washington State. I learnt a lot about the geography of the region.  I now know about Crater Lake, the deepest in North America and how the Sierra Nevada range changes into the Cascade Range and how this trail was created in the early 1970s. I watched a few YouTube videos giving advice on how to walk the trail...you really need to plan ahead and be hard as nails..it's the equivalent of walking up and down about 6 Mount Everests. But I could really understand the beauty and power of what walking can do.  On a much simpler level it has really helped me  and my sister, just getting out and about into the Countryside.  I'd never be able to do this but it's great to know that the opportunity to dream is out there and big respect to Cheryl Strayed for writing such an honest and beautiful book about the power of getting out into nature and just walking!