Becky is a writing instructor at California State University, Long Beach, and a volunteer for the Sierra Clubâs Wilderness Travel Course. She started backpacking ten years ago as a relief from the tedium of paper grading. Friends joined her for portions of her 2013 trek, but about two-thirds of the time she hiked alone. Her plan is to section hike the PCT and other National Trails until the cartilage wears out in her knees.
I was coated in dirt, a fine powder that could not be brushed off, but only transferred from one hand to the other, or one pant leg to the other, or smeared onto my backside. After my first week section-hiking the PCT in June 2013, I was headed toward my first zero-day in Big Bear City, California, where Iâd stay in a hotel that offered steep discounts to hikers. Â I imagined floating in the roomâs tub, fully submerged until the grit loosened and floated to the surface.
I began to see tantalizing markers of civilizationâthe deep tread of mountain bikes and the presence of actual people on the trail. I watched two fully outfitted backpackers approach from a distance, both wearing identical sun hats with neck panels that flapped in the wind. The lead hiker kept his eyes on the trail and then finally looked up and smiled at me. I waited for the inevitable brief discussion of trail conditions, of the nearly-exhausted water caches and springs that require bushwhacking, crucial information shared between backpackers crossing paths. But the lead hiker couldnât wait until I was in earshot. He shouted his question.
Bullet-punctured sign east of Cajon Pass
What he wanted to know was if Iâd read âthat book.â As he neared, he asked again, still smiling. âYou read that book, that Wild book?â For a second I hesitated, caught between simple weariness, and a stubborn assertion of my will. I decided that no matter what Iâd say, he had me pegged. At least in his mind.
I had first learned of Cheryl Strayedâs book from my mom, who hoped that the bookâpart memoir, part travel journalâwould help her understand what I was planning to do that coming summer, walk 500 miles of the PCT. Before Wild Iâd already devoured dozens of trail journals and memoirs, all of them describing in excruciating detail the hunger, the thirst, the raw oozing blisters, and of course the spectacular sights, the beauty that held every PCT adventurer spellbound. I couldnât get enough of these stories, but even more I wanted to plant myself right there in the pages, be the story, and walk the trail myself. And that was the thing that lit my interest the most. With some free time and a small savings I could walk into the wilderness and keep on walking.
I answered the fellow backpacker warily. I said that I had read Wild, and that I liked it very much.
âI knew it,â he said, nodding emphatically and planting his poles in the dirt. âThatâs why you think itâs okay to be out here alone.â
Most likely, if youâre a hiker of the female kind youâve had the Wild discussion, at least once. Each time I was asked if Iâd read the book, I sensed a barely hidden scorn, which I couldnât fathom and wasnât prepared for. With Wildâs popularity, the backpacking that Iâd done for nearly a decade became something else, viewed almost entirely through the prism of âthat book.â The assumption was that once I had read the concluding sentences I stumbled drunkenly toward the forest, following thousands of other dreamy-eyed amateurs, clutching that book like a talisman.
For the next four miles into town I engaged in a heated one-way argument with the backpacker, explaining the history of the PCT and the women whoâve hiked it, and asking pointed questions about his special concern for women on the trail. After all, he surely passed the solo male hiker who was just ahead of me. Did he ask this man if heâd read Wild? I doubted it. Perhaps he was merely employing old-fashioned chivalric concern, I reasoned, but that too I doubted.
The âconcernâ that I was made aware of echoes the ongoing internet debates surrounding Strayedâs quiet, reflective memoir and the movie starring Reese Witherspoon. The most vociferous attacks on websites such as Amazon and Goodreads are long spit-inflected diatribes. Much criticism of the book focuses on Strayedâs amateur backpacker statusâa typical reader review: âI could forgive her utter dumbness in wandering onto the PCT unprepared if she actually learned anything about what a bad idea it is to wander into the wilderness unpreparedâ (L.M. Ironside, Goodreads).
Others questioned the very gear that represents the bookâs emblematic cover: âWhy didnât she have boots which were properly fitted, which she at least attempted to test out prior to beginning the Pacific Crest Trail?â (Emilia Marty, Goodreads).
To a certain degree, itâs no surprise that a successful book, especially an âOprah book,â would eventually inspire a certain sneering objection against the overwhelmingly positive groundswell. But the attacks seemed especially cruel, reaching Strayedâs own Facebook page, and leading the author to compose a response: âI must say I marvel at the ugliness it takes to gather one's forces in the direction of what one loathes rather than loves.â During her book tour, Strayed was given to emphasizing, rather obviously, that her book was not a âhow-to guide,â this in response to the relentless irrational complaints that the book would inspire thousands of inexperienced women to go tra-la-la-ing into the wilderness and fall off of cliffs or starve to death.
Looking South into Kings Canyon
One might expect that the hiking community would rejoice in the PCTâs sudden celebrity, in a book and movie that valorizes their own experiences. Embodied in the mantra âHike Your Own Hikeâ is the distance-hiking communityâs Zen-like ideal to hike the trail your way, the best way you know how. The mantra discourages criticizing any one approach and reminds amateurs that there is no single âright wayâ to do the trail. Despite this history of open encouragement, much invective about the book and movie can be found on popular hiker list-serves and websites. Nuanced, well-reasoned comments are inevitably followed by a litany of posts imagining flabby, reckless females (and âjunkiesâ) entering the wilderness on a lark, contributing to the so-called âWild Effect.â Even the nuanced voices often relent and preface comments with warnings that Strayedâs book is really a âhow not-to-do-itâ guide, and pointing out Strayedâs rookie errors and lapses in wilderness ethics. Good grief.
Inevitably, the ongoing debate has almost no functional correspondence with the book or movie. The online discussions exist in a story world of their own, with their own plot lines and narrative arcs, revealing the fears, insecurities, and biases of the âcharactersâ who post online. If you hadnât read the book, you might be surprised to learn that while on the trail, excluding one frightening encounter with humans, Strayedâs life is in no great peril. No blood-smeared cheeks, no hacked-off limbs, no miles-long Lawrence of Arabia crawls through the desert chasing shimmering mirages. Â Ultimately, her experience was good, if painful. Her hike was like all long-distance hikesâan endurance test of the mind as much as the body.
Bridge over the South Fork of the Kern River
Itâs hard to imagine such intense scrutiny given a manâs solo journey, even a man with Strayedâs limited experience. It is assumed that men seek risky adventures, often far above their abilities, in order to âfind themselves,â and âface their fears.â Any mistake along the way is considered a routine part of the challenge. But women, just as men, need to test themselves. The challenge need not involve solitary travel, but as Simone de Beauvoir argued in The Second Sex the evolution of a human being partly depends on solo adventures, which at the time was an exclusively male prerogative:âSuch experiences are of incalculable influence: through them an individual, in the intoxication of liberty and discovery, learns to regard the entire earth as his territory.â  Leaving aside the imperialist connotations of âterritory,â de Beauvoir suggests that women cannot fully evolve as humans and, of particular interest to de Beauvoir, as artists if they perceive themselves as mere guests in the world. She must see herself as an equal inhabitant. The world is hers to discover, to be challenged by, and as a logical consequenceâto take responsibility for.
Women today can and do travel alone, but often not without endless assurances that the route is safe, the path already blazed by thousands before them. My standard response to fellow backpacking friends who complained that Wild will lead to thousands of expensive wilderness rescues was to make my own questionable declarations about the PCTâs safetyââItâs safer than driving a car!â I insisted. âItâs safer than walking on the sidewalk!â Â But itâs no use stripping adventure of the very thing that defines adventureârisk. And that risk is felt most acutely by women, especially in the ink-black dead of night, listening to the coyote howls that sound mere feet away. And for all the wild beauty of the PCT, the trail winds its way through hundreds of miles of fringe desert outposts and BLM land heavily used by off-roaders and beer-soaked gun enthusiasts. Camped near one of these forgotten Southern California towns, headlights raking the walls of your tent, there is no escaping the sense of naked vulnerability. Itâs impossible to prepare and protect against that feeling.
Palisade Lake and some California Conservation Corps staff
Before my long trek, Iâd camped alone on many occasions, mostly quick overnight trips in popular back-country campsites. But on the PCT I made camp where I could find it, luckily happening upon the first patch of flat dirt after miles of desert choked with flesh-ripping catâs-claw. As the sun dipped below the horizon, my aloneness closed in on me. Iâd scan the distance for the reassuring glow of a neighborâs tent but most often find nothing. Or I would see something, a flickering light maybe, or Iâd imagine the distant muffled sounds of music, sometimes laughter. My senses came alive and I was faced every night with the stark realization that my bare hands and a two-inch pocket knife were all that I had for protection. There was no rationalizing my way out of it, no matter what Iâd heard about the PCTâs relative safety. So shortly after my first few days on the trail, Iâd come to see my tarp-tent as having magical qualities thatâd protect me once Iâd zipped the flaps closed. Against my hard rational nature, Iâd developed this bit of magical realism without having coaxed it at all. The sound of thunder in the distance, or a mysterious rustling in the pines, and Iâd dive right in, instantly âsafe,â despite the fact that my tentâs nylon walls could be breached easily enough with a plastic barbers comb.
No, we cannot escape the risk, and do we really want to? Rarely does enlightenment come without danger or discomfort. As in John Bunyanâs 17th Century Christian allegory Pilgrimâs Progress, the way to the âCelestial Cityâ is through a physically demanding wilderness path that requires everyman âChristianâ to abandon the comforts and safety of home and family. Always in Pilgrimâs Progress, the easy way is the wrong way. âDark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none,â and the âHill of Difficultyâ canât be bypassed:
This hill though high I covet to ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the way of life lies here.
Come, pluck up, heart; let's neither faint nor fear.
Christianâs pilgrimage leads to religious salvation, the burden of original sin falling from his back. In the modern wilderness narrative, the pilgrimage is a personal journey in which âpilgrimsâ like Strayed, abandon worldly comforts for weeks and sometimes months of unimaginable physical stress, and willingly don the âburdenâ of a heavy backpack, to arrive at some awareness of themselves and their place in the universe.
Rebecca just below Muir Pass
 Within the hiking community, the loudest critics aside, a woman choosing to hike alone inspires little more than a shrug. Women have been hiking the PCT solo for decades, without much fanfare. Cindy Ross began her 1982 trek on the PCT alone and recounts the adventure in her Journey on the Crest, considered by manyâwomen and menâa seminal trail memoir. But Strayedâs book is the first trail memoir with a star-studded movie deal and her solo journey clearly has touched a nerve. The focus on Strayedâs relative backpacking experience reveals lingering bias about women and their relationship to the world outside the realm of home and family. For all the strides women have made, they are still expected to be hyper vigilant, become acquainted with and follow the rules of this âworldâ before they are permitted to âenter.â Like a guest in a home, Strayed is welcome so long as she maintains good behavior.
This hyper scrutiny will pass. There are simply too many women lured by the beauty and solitude of the mountains, for the potential of self-discovery and pure adventure to give the self-serving voices of concern much weight. And over time, the long-distance hiking community will return to the trailâs greatest threatâa lack of awareness. Perhaps we are all getting ahead of ourselves. A couple months ago, at a coffee house on a Cal State University campus I spotted a young woman with âLeave No Traceâ tattooed on her right calf and other hiking-inspired tattoos on her forearms. I was certain that she must be a PCT veteran and asked when sheâd hiked the trail. She had no idea what I was talking about. âWhat does âPCTâ stand for?â she asked. I was absolutely floored.Â
Mojave River Forks Reservoir Dam
After talking to her for a while, we figured out that the trail actually passed not more than a ten miles from her front door. She excitedly wrote down all the information I gave her. Can you believe that? Imagine that there is a whole new generation of hikers who have no idea what this âPCTâ is all about. It seems strange but is much truer than throngs of inexperienced female hikers destroying the trail. Thousands of hikers know nothing of the National Trails System. Theyâre wilderness experience has been confined to crowded local trails or once-a-year car-camping trips to National Parks. At road-side vistas, they may have gazed in wonder at the seemingly endless wilderness but couldnât imagine themselves exploring much more than a few miles beyond the trailhead. They have no idea what the Wilderness Act of 1964 means, that there are millions of acres of gorgeous âuntrammeledâ wilderness belonging to them, waiting for them to discover and to protect. Iâm certain that Wild the book and movie has inspired many to learn more about the PCT and to actually hike the trail. Then again, I watched Wild with friends the weekend it opened, in a half-full theater, on the one screen that was playing the movie within fifty miles. Perhaps itâs difficult for us to believe that the concept of wilderness, what fills our minds and helps give our lives meaning, is simply not part of the national consciousness.
Iâll be on the trail again this June with a friend, inching my way up California, one section at a time. Solo female hikers who may or may not have been inspired by the book and movie will be out there, too. Theyâll make some rookie mistakes. So will I. So will you. They might wear the wrong shoes, have sketchy navigation skills, or struggle with a fiddly tarptent.   Theyâll need your help. Welcome them, embrace their appearance on the trail. After all, the odds were against them. Rejoice in the fact that they surmounted the same obstacles of a modern chaotic life that you did-- work and family responsibilities, scarce resources, and little free time--to finally stand at the trailhead, to begin their own epic PCT adventures.
Sunset Over the San Gabriels
