At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State -- and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than "an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise." But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone. Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

The ten thousand things -- Splitting -- Hunching in a remotely upright position. -- The Pacific Crest Trail, volume I: California -- Tracks -- A bull in both directions -- The only girl in the woods. -- Corvidology -- Staying found -- Range of light. -- The Lou out of Lou -- This far -- The accumulation of trees -- Wild. -- Box of rain -- Mazama -- Into a primal gear -- The queen of the PCT -- The dream of a common language -- Books burned on the PCT.