Ten years ago, the movie Wild, starring the PCT (along with award-winning actresses Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern) hit the big screens.
Among many other things, Wild helped to raise awareness of the PCT, long-distance hiking and the value of wild places where people can recreate and find peace. In doing so, it also punctuated the importance of protecting the PCT and natural outdoor resources.
The article below was previously published in the Pacific Crest Trail Communicator magazine and has been adapted for this blog. If you don’t already receive the Communicator in your mailbox, join the PCTA today and support our work to care for and conserve the trail and the lands through which it passes. The Communicator is one of many benefits of membership.
Wild, 2014 movie poster
When the movie Wild (based on the bestselling book) came out on December 5, 2014, it changed awareness of the PCT, as well as other long-distance trails, forever. The memoir (by Cheryl Strayed, who Reese Witherspoon plays in the Fox Searchlight Pictures film) tells the story of the authors’ three-month PCT journey through California and Oregon.
“Wild” is a story of struggle, journey, and redemption — all set against the spectacular backdrop of the PCT. Dealing with baggage beyond her overstuffed backpack (nicknamed “Monster”), Strayed used her PCT journey to cope with divorce, drug use, and the death of her mother.
A singular but also universal saga, “Wild” landed on The New York Times Best Sellers list for 56 weeks, and Reese Witherspoon was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the film. Suddenly, the PCT and long-distance backpacking felt real and within reach of more people than ever before, especially women.
Ten years later, many women are still feeling Wild’s effects…
Wild,” based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed, stars Reese Witherspoon as a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail.Credit/Anne Marie Fox/Fox Searchlight Pictures
Annette Kuz had seen PCT signs in Sierra City, California, where she lives part of the year, but she didn’t know anything about the trail until she encountered Wild. Wild, she says, “struck me and now I have a PCT obsession.” These days, Annette hikes sections of the PCT with friends, often for long day hikes or short backpacking trips.
Strayed “inspired people that they can just get out there and do it,” Annette says.
“She put her heart and soul out there. That’s brave, courageous and relatable.”
Hiking is a key outlet that allows Annette to dismiss her worldly worries and focus on the outdoors for a while. “There’s an important mental health component to being out there on the trail to refresh and rethink,” Annette says. “I have people in my life fighting cancer. I need to be with them. I take care of myself through hiking so I can give back.”
For Annette, the trail is also about relationships. “We talk about so much on the trail and work through stuff,” she says. “People who hike and do outdoor sports… there is a generous spirit and a loving spirit that you find.”
Maya Gonzalez Berry’s mother introduced her to Wild. The saga inspired Maya (in a roundabout way) to take up backpacking and the 54-year-old New Yorker has since hiked more than 5,000 miles in the U.S. and Australia. “It was the start of a new passion,” she says. “The funny thing is, I wasn’t inspired. … Strayed’s failures showed me: If she can do it, I can do it.”
Maya says she now approaches each backpacking trip as a chance to learn something. “Every time I go out, there’s constant newness for me and I really love that,” she says. “I look at it as more of a process than a final product.”
Photo: Anne Marie Fox/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Vivian Reese Hill of Fayetteville, Arkansas, says she was “a total couch potato” before enjoying Wild. “To me, a hike was a mile and a half in the woods,” Vivian remembers.
After Wild, she started thinking, “I can do that.”
Vivian felt that Strayed was at rock bottom in Wild. “I wasn’t at rock bottom, but I was pretty low,” Vivian says. “And I said to myself, ‘I should try to do something like this. Something that will put the life back into me.’ I was in a terrible rut. I was overweight, getting older, and felt like I was losing my identity. She [Strayed] could have laid down and just given up on herself, but she didn’t. The way the PCT changed her for the better was inspiring.”
Vivian started researching the PCT with every book and website she could find. She also started taking more risks in her life and walking every day, sometimes as much as 10 miles. At age 57 in 2016, Vivian left her husband at home and spent five months on the PCT.
“I thought about Cheryl while hiking when my pack was feeling heavy,” says Vivian, “I thought, ‘How did she do this?’ My goal was to just go as far as I could.” That summer, Vivian hiked 1,100 miles. She’d only ever spent one other night outdoors before.
“I had forgotten the girl I used to be,” Vivian says. “I had always been fun, adventurous and brave, but I had lost that person. I wanted to find her again. I came back a person not afraid of the world so much anymore.”
“Even if I don’t ever finish the PCT,” Vivian says, “I’m still going to have a great time. I think about it almost every day. I think every young woman should discover Wild; they really should. It shows them the transformational aspect of challenging yourself in a big way.”
More testimonies of the Wild effect from Wild Women
Image: Courtesy: Cheryl Strayed / Anne Marie Fox/ Portland Monthly
“I had never heard of anything like the PCT until my dentist (of all people) told me about Wild, and that’s how I ended up thru-hiking! At first, I thought she was absolutely out of her mind for walking that far and couldn’t believe she’d done it or that anyone could do it. … I think what inspired me the most is the fact that it seemed impossible to me, yet she had done it. I think the story showed me that if I wanted to, I could also do something that seemed impossible.”
– Diede Mekkering, Wageningen, The Netherlands
“Wild helped me rediscover the outdoors and changed the way I lived and traveled. It sparked a chain reaction that led me to try new things, and I am so grateful.”
– Shannon Ryker, Goodlettsville, TN
“Being alone out in the wilderness, depending on only yourself, pushing yourself past your perceived limits, and discovering who you are outside of societal or familial contexts is the strongest thing a person can do. Wild inspired me to start backpacking.”
– Lora Johansen, Catalina Island, CA
“Without that story, I and many internationals wouldn’t even know about the PCT. Cheryl Strayed definitely put the PCT on the map.”
– Bexie Garvie, Brisbane, Australia