Wild set on Pacific Crest Trail
Reese Witherspoon in Wild
First there was the movie The Way starring Martin Sheen and set on the Camino de Santiago, a long-distance hermitage trail in Spain. Now we are happy to see a movie set on the Pacific Crest Trail in California, Oregon and Washington. This latest movie is called Wild and stars Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed and Laura Dern as her mother. Cheryl changed her last name to Strayed after she strayed from her husband then got a divorce. Her life was in a death spiral of hard drugs and demeaning sex when she decided to forego standardized therapy and take matters into her own hands – or, in this case, feet. Despite having no experience as a long-distance hiker, she set out to conquer the Pacific Crest Trail starting in the Mojave Desert of California and heading toward Canada. As you can imagine, she suffered numerous setbacks along the way, but as you can also imagine, the trail proved to be her ultimate therapy, and she learned a lot about life and, most importantly, about herself.
A Walk in the Woods is next long-distance trail movie
Coming up next is the movie version of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. The movie is directed by Robert Redford and is about Bryson’s attempt (he didn’t quite make it) to through-hike the Appalachian Trail. So what’s causing this sudden interest in long-distance trails? A better question is, “What took so long?” Those of us trail fans have always known the allure of hiking or biking on scenic trails. The rest of the world is finally coming to their senses. Now we are anxiously awaiting movies set on the Colorado Trail, the Great Plains Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Danube CycleWay, etc. The world has discovered long-distance trails. Hopefully they’ll start funding them better, too.
