Saturday, October 31, 2015

I Love Wild - Bring It On

Here’s my Wild “confession.”  I’ve read Wild twice and enjoyed it thoroughly both times.  Yeah, I’m one of “them.”  One of those Wild fans who read the book and ran straight out and tried to hike the PCT. 

Actually, no, that’s not quite how it happened.

I’ve had this strange ambition to walk a really long distance for a long, long time.  Seriously, since I was about 9 or 10.  That desire has stuck with me all of my life but unfortunately I never made it happen.  My trajectory took me in other directions.  And then I turned 40 and I had, I dunno, call it a wake up call or, heck, a mid-life crisis.  I suddenly realized that I wasn’t getting any younger and I had better get working on this long distance walk thing or I might never get the chance.  I know that a few folks continue backpacking into their 60s and 70s but I wanted to do it now, when I was still reasonably young and my body could handle it better.

The year I turned 40, my friend Melissa completed about 300 miles of the PCT in Oregon.  Listening to her talk about her adventure, a light bulb clicked on.  That was it!  I could hike across Oregon.  While I had known about the PCT for several years, it hadn’t occurred to me that it was the perfect solution to my long distance walking ambitions.  So, I started thinking about and planning my adventure just as countless PCT hopefuls do every year. 

That was October 2013.  Two months later, my mother-in-law gave me a copy of Wild for Christmas.  I loved it.  I thought to myself, “This girl did what I’m going to do!  How cool is that!”  I had no idea at that time, when my plans were in their infancy, that there was this whole big “thing” about the PCT going on.  I had no idea that more and more people were tackling the PCT every year.  I had no idea that there was something called a “thru-hiker.”  All I knew was that I was seriously pumped to walk across Oregon and this amazing, funny, sad, and touching book strengthened my resolve to go out and do it.

My Initial Reaction to Wild

As I said, I received Wild for Christmas in 2013.  I devoured it in 2 days.  I was completely caught up in Cheryl Strayed’s story.  From the heartbreaking loss of her mother to her terrible decisions following her mother’s death – I was enraptured.  For me, on that first reading, the PCT merely formed a backstory.  It was the linear backdrop to a story that meandered from the present to the far away past.  It anchored the story in the now.  I loved her descriptions of being on the trail and her self deprecating humor.  And I did think, “geez, she never tried packing her backpack before she went?!”  I laughed and cried and smiled and marveled every page of the way.  But importantly, at no point did I think “This is the greatest book about backpacking I have every read!  I want to be like her.”  For me, the book was about Strayed’s personal journey to recovery, every messy step of the way – and I’m not talking about hiking.  Strayed is incredibly forthright and truthful about what she went through with depression, infidelity, and drug use.  And that’s the point.  The hike and the book were her catharsis.

My Second Reading of Wild

So, inspired by many things, including Wild, I set forth in August 2014 to hike across Oregon.  Sadly I only made it 210 miles before injury ended my trip (I will be back!).  I dealt with some pretty serious self doubt and depression when I returned from my trip.  My failure stuck with me and for months I couldn’t stop thinking about my trip and making plans to go back and accomplish my dream.

During this time, the movie based on Wild came out.  Of course I had to go see it.  I was excited to see the landscapes I had seen in Oregon and to relive some of my trip.  I found the movie to be thoroughly disappointing.  Reese Witherspoon just didn’t fit my image of Strayed.  Witherspoon in all her sweetness just couldn’t pull of the proper level of ‘90s angst Strayed went through and although they supposedly packed her backpack full of gear, she just never hit that backpacker stride that comes from walking many miles.  Most disappointing of all, the amazing PCT landscapes that I love weren’t there.  The shots were too tight – filming couldn’t occur in wilderness areas, so they found substitutes and shot scenes tightly to cover up the fact that they weren’t really on location.  I also took deep umbrage to the fact that they showed Strayed camping on the rim of Crater Lake, which is illegal and did not happen in reality.

Disappointed with the movie, I decided to re-read the book.  My second reading was a bit different than the first.  I knew what to expect from her emotional journey so that part wasn’t as engaging as it had been the first time (but still SO good).  What I focused on, probably stemming from the disappointment I felt over my “failure,” were her descriptions of hiking.  As I read, the book, I definitely noticed that Strayed moved locations around to suit the story.  But reading her descriptions of life on the trail, I also found myself smiling ruefully and thinking, “I know exactly what she’s talking about.”  Her disappointments and victories on the trail were very much like my own and will probably resonate with anyone who’s backpacked long distances.  Reading her descriptions of the trail and her hike I thought, “Guys, she’s legit.  She’s been there.”

STFU and HYOH

I’ve seen quite a bit of vitriolic negativity thrown toward Strayed and I personally don’t get it.  My sense of things, as I watch from the sidelines (until now), is that most of the haters haven’t read the book.  They’ve maybe watched the movie but I think a lot of people are just riding the Strayed Hate Wave to fit in and are repeating the same BS about how dumb and unprepared she was.  God forbid anyone should stand up for her, especially in a group as conformist as thru-hikers.  There is also a subset of people who read the book but didn’t get it.  I think what people get out of the book has a lot to do with their expectations of it.  Like I said, when I read it, I was going in blind.  I knew the PCT existed and I knew that I wanted to hike part of it.  But I didn’t know much more than that and thus I also didn’t know what to expect from the book so I just rolled with the story and got caught up in it the way Strayed intended.  On the other hand, there are people like my friend Melissa and my mother-in-law who read the book expecting it to be a description of Strayed’s backpacking trip and were thus disappointed in her naïveté and, as Melissa puts it, her “stupidity.”  I’ve heard that others hate the book because they thought it would be a how-to guide for the PCT.  God, it bugs me when people talk shit about something when it isn’t what they thought it would be.  Get over it.  Love it or hate it based on what it is, not on what you think it should be.

What bugs me in particular about the Strayed haters is that they’ve forgotten the mantra of the PCT and all backpackers – HYOH.  Hike Your Own Hike.  Why is everyone wasting so much energy tearing down a fellow backpacker?  I have several theories but I think it comes down to this: thru-hikers are pissed that their little secret is now main stream.  It’s like they’re afraid Oprah’s Book Club is going to take over the PCT and armies of ill-prepared middle aged women are going to be clogging up the trail.  And while there are more hikers on the trail with each consecutive year, I really don’t think Wild has much to do with it.  During my short time on the PCT in 2014, the most common backpacker I saw was a 20-something, white, college educated male - and I sincerely doubt any of them read Wild.  As things have a tendency to do, the PCT is building on itself.  As more people do it, more people learn about it and want to attempt it themselves.  That’s how I arrived at my decision to hike it.  Either by design or happenstance, Wild came out just when the interest in the PCT was growing exponentially.  The snowball was already growing when Wild came along.

I’m sure few people in the hiker community will take my opinion seriously since I’m only a section hiker - and a failed one at that - but I felt the need to defend a book that I really love.  Read the book and love it or hate it but geez, form your own opinion about it instead of repeating the same BS everyone says.  More than anything, get over it.  Stop using a book and a single person as your scapegoat for the problems with the PCT.  Seriously people, STFU and HYOH.  

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