PORT ANGELES — Cheryl Strayed, rock-star author and veteran of a two-state, 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, reconnected with a spirit guide on the North Olympic Peninsula.
In June 1995, soon after Strayed set out on her trek across the Sierra Nevada to the Cascade Mountains, she read the ominous words of Jim Podlesny, now a resident of Port Angeles.
Podlesny had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail back in 1975; he was 20 and a “through-hiker,” walking from Mexico to Canada.
After completion, he wrote this for The Pacific Crest Trail: Volume 1, the guidebook Strayed used:
“The psychological factors a person must prepare for . . . [are] the despair, the alienation, the anxiety and especially the pain, both physical and mental, which slices to the very heart of the hiker’s volition . . . the real things that must be planned for.”
This scared Strayed. But she kept on and went on to write Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, now a giant hit perched atop The New York Times’ best-seller list and the book Oprah Winfrey chose to restart Oprah’s Book Club.
There’s one problem with the book, though.
Podlesny’s reflection on the real challenges of the Pacific Crest Trail were attributed to him in Vogue magazine’s excerpt of Wild.
But due to what Strayed believes was a copy-editing error, the book credits them to guidebook editor Chuck Long.
Last Wednesday night, Strayed met Podlesny in the Raymond Carver Room at the Port Angeles Library — appropriate since Carver is one of Strayed’s favorite writers — and promised her fellow hiker that future editions of Wild would make right the attribution.
Podlesny never did sweat it. Instead, he’s admired the way Strayed told her story, with all of its strife and triumph.
“She captured the spirit of the long-distance hike,” he said, with its random encounters, random thoughts, random kindnesses and dangers.
Podlesny should know: He hiked the Appalachian Trail at 17, did the Pacific Crest Trail three years later and the Continental Divide in 1979 — and then named them the Triple Crown of hiking.
These epic trails epitomize the American experience, Podlesny believes.
There are long days of suffering, of snowshoeing 1 mile per hour; there’s heart-stopping beauty and a community of hikers of varying preparedness.
Strayed was on the unprepared end of the spectrum, but she didn’t let that stop her.
“The reality of the trails is that you still have to confront it, produce the effort, survive the experience individually. That’s what makes Wild such a great read: She met it with her level of expertise,” Podlesny said.
Strayed confronted a series of jam-packed venues this past week on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The Carver Room filled up fast to its 100-seat capacity. More people stood outside listening to her read from Wild and from yet another book, her just-released collection of TheRumpus.net advice columns, Tiny Beautiful Things.
At Fort Worden State Park on Thursday, the 280-seat Wheeler Theater also was packed to capacity.
Strayed was then slated for appearances at Port Townsend’s Northwind Arts Center on Friday night and at the Cotton Building on Saturday afternoon.
Her message at these readings was about the necessity of sharing the truth.
When she started on the Pacific Crest Trail, she was 26 and broken, engulfed in grief over her mother’s death, her divorce and more than one form of self-abuse.
She lays it out in Wild: her memories, mistakes, fear and doubt.
She carries a backpack she names Monster, which wears her shoulders and hips raw.
She doesn’t think she can make it — but she does.
“That’s what Wild is about,” Strayed told her rapt readers in Port Angeles: “bearing the unbearable.”
Strayed is now a happily married mother of two: an 8-year-old boy named Carver and a 6-year-old girl, Bobbi.
She lives in Portland, Ore., when not touring and teaching. She just finished a week on the faculty of the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference at Fort Worden.
In her Thursday lecture, Strayed urged her listeners to tell their own stories and defy their doubts and fears.
Those are indications, Strayed said, that your truth needs to be told.
Readers recognize a true story, she believes; they recognize a fellow human being who is flawed, frightened and courageous.
Telling your story, she said, is like taking an extra beating heart out of your chest and showing it to the world.
As a reader, Strayed added, “I want to see the contents of that second beating heart.”
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
