Wild Opens December 5th!

Honestly when I finished Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail I wouldn't have picked it to get its own movie.  But Reese Witherspoon thought differently and starting this Friday we all get the treat of watching the Oscar winning actress bring Cheryl Strayed's WILD to life on the silver screen.  Hopefully a week from now I'll be entertaining you with my review of the movie.

I pretty much like any backpacking movie so I may not be the best judge to rely on, but Rotten Tomatoes is giving Reese Witherspoon's Wild a 89% rating.  Given that the subject matter is not going to excite the masses these are pretty high marks.  As a fan of  Witherspoon's memorable performance in Walk the Line, I'm really hopeful. Some critics have already made this comparison so we could be in store for a Best Actress caliber performance.  

I think drama lovers will love Strayed's intense personal backstory.  But outfitters like me are going to be vicariously enjoying the challenges of a PCT thru-hike.  Although she only finished 1100 miles, many thru-hikers have had the same fate of needing to bypass the wintery conditions of the High Sierra in high snow pack years.  Cheryl Strayed definitely shows us that it doesn't take a ton of preparation--or even the right gear--to step off and live big.   A movie like this has the potential to inspire more folks to find solace in prolonged outdoors adventures to our country's great wild places.

I really want to compare Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild to Strayed/Witherspoon's Wild, but I'll save that for a later review.  (Or maybe wait at least until I see what Witherspoon has in store.)  The obvious difference is that Chris McCandless' battles with his personal demons ultimately led to his tragic death in the wilderness of Alaska.   Strayed's story of torment leads to personal triumph and an impressive achievement.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed: A Review

All it took were the words Pacific Crest Trail memoir and I was off to the library.  It turns out that Wild by Cheryl Strayed (March 2012) has been wildly popular...and I waited a month and half for my name to come off the waitlist.  Thanks to Oprah, this summer everyone seemed to be reading about long distance hiking on the PCT! 

I'd expected to follow a grueling physical journey punctuated by descriptions of magnificent beauty.  I hadn't read any of the reviews; all it took for me to get excited to read the book was the backpacking boot on the cover! 

But this isn't that type of memoir.  Yes, Strayed emerges from her 1100 mile solo trek as "The Queen of the PCT", but her journey flashes back along an emotional highlight reel that almost got so depressing that I ended my trek after 4 chapters.  I didn't expect the author's travels from the Tehacapi Pass in Southern California to the Bridge of the Gods on the Washington border to share quite so much about sex, drug use, and grief over the loss of her mother.  But Strayed is a masterful storyteller, who grabbed my attention and kept me turning page after page. 

While in the end Strayed completes her travails spiritually uplifted, I didn't quite get the inspiration I'd hoped -- the one that was going to spring me from my day job for my own epic hike.  Strayed's ill-fitted hiking boots, overweight hiking backpack, and lack of physical training contributed greatly to what sounded like a god-awful experience.   Unlike Bill Bryson and his fellow AT thru-hikers in A Walk the Woods, Strayed had the hardest time liberating herself from non-essential gear like her stash of condoms.  But the way she faces down immense physical dangers like rattlers, dehydration and the loss of her hiking boots does make for an inspiring tale of individual courage and perseverance.