To take on the PCT all by herself was crazy brave or maybe just.well, wild.īut Cheryl was desperate to halt her downward spiral, and she was searching for insight. Though she wasn't a stranger to the wilderness (she'd grown up on 40 acres in Minnesota, with no electricity or running water), she'd never hiked more than a day at a time, and usually with other people. This would be a huge decision even for an experienced backpacker-which Cheryl definitely was not. Six months later, she'd started her hike from the Mojave Desert to Oregon. Cheryl had never heard of the PCT-neither had I until I read Wild-but something compelled her to go back and buy the book. While waiting in line to pay, she saw a guidebook to the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. So she stepped into a camping store to buy a shovel to literally dig out of trouble. On a snowy night three and a half years later, Cheryl lent a friend her truck, which promptly broke down. Crazed with grief, Cheryl began doubting her marriage, sleeping with other men and eventually even doing heroin with one of them.īut then something happened. Her beloved A mother, who was only 45 years old, had died of cancer. At the age of 22, in 1991, Cheryl Strayed fell into an abyss.
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