Adventure

The 'Wild' Effect: How Cheryl Strayed's Memoir Inspires Hikers

Since it was released in 2012, Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild has inspired both newbies and experienced hikers to tackle the Pacific Crest Trail on the West Coast—one such hiker shares her story with Condé Nast Traveler.
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Photo by Hans Berg, courtesy of PCTA

Call it the call of Wild. In spring 2012, author Cheryl Strayed released her memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, about hiking a large chunk of the Pacific Crest Trail back in the 1990s. The trail itself is a daunting challenge, winding through 2,650 miles of mountains and deserts of California, Oregon, and Washington, from the bottom of the country to the top. In 2014 a film version starring Reese Witherspoon was released. The bestselling book immediately drove more hikers to the route, and the Oscar-nominated film looks to do the same.

Liz Bergeron and the Pacific Crest Trail Association, which works to protect and provide information about the path, saw increased numbers everywhere within a year—more day hikers, doubled website traffic, and more permit requests for thru-hiking, the ambitious practice of completing the entire trail at once. Nearly 2,000 people attempted a thru-hike in 2014, double the previous year. Every time Bergeron and her board members hit the trail, hikers kept asking them the same question: Have you read Wild?

Strayed's memoir isn't the first tome to popularize long-distance hiking. The more humorous A Walk in the Woods, with Bill Bryson describing a hapless stumble up the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail on the east coast, came out in 1998. This year, Robert Redford starred in a film adaption of the tale, which nabbed a seven-figure distribution deal after its Sundance Film Festival premiere in January. "We saw a 50 percent increase in long distance hikers on the AT within two years of the book," says Ron Tipton of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, "and we expect similar results from the movie."

April Sylva on the Pacific Crest Trail

One person who was inspired by Wild is April Sylva, who picked up Strayed's book at the airport on her way to Bermuda in hopes of recovering from surgery to remove malignant melanoma. The 39-year-old Oklahoman "felt extreme parallels with Cheryl Strayed's story," she says; the self-abuse, filling voids in her painful life. "[Strayed] set out and said, basically, 'fuck this.'" A year later, Sylva quit her high-paid oil and gas-industry job and successfully applied for a PCTA sponsorship program through Yama Mountain Gear. She got mentors and gear, and in 2014, she hiked the entire PCT over five months.

"Her words became my guide," Sylva says of Strayed. Sylva had two bouts of giardia, foot injuries, and "my demons came out," she says. "You can't run from them; the trail will bring out the truth." But she found healing and used Strayed's words to pull strength from her own mind. Within a month, she went off anxiety medication. She's now a minimalist activist and blogger with only a handful of possessions, and she married one of her trail mentors. Strayed sometimes comments on her Instagram photos, which is "the coolest thing ever," says Sylva. She's currently prepping to hike the entire Continental Divide Trail, almost twice the length of the PCT, this summer.

For those who are curious about hiking the massive trail, the PCTA has a special Responsibly Wild section on its website, complete with hashtag, to inform curious readers and viewers. As the organization considers increasing the size of a few campgrounds to accommodate more backpackers, they're generally happy with Hollywood's portrayal of Strayed's experience. Fortunately, says Bergeron, Wild hasn't inspired an influx of grossly unprepared newbies, mostly because Strayed wrote about underestimating the experience. "I’ve heard from a number of people that because she was so unprepared, that has motivated them to be prepared," says Bergeron. "Because she was miserable."