Strayed's mother is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer while both women are seniors at the University of Minnesota.

After discovering she is pregnant by Joe, Strayed spots a PCT guidebook at REI and decides to hike the trail.

Strayed quits her waitressing job, finalizes her divorce from Paul, and visits her mother's grave before traveling to California.

In a motel room in Los Angeles, Strayed realizes she cannot lift her enormous backpack off the floor.

Strayed hitchhikes to the edge of the Mojave Desert and writes her name in the PCT trail register.

Strayed arrives at Kennedy Meadows and picks up her first resupply box, elated to reach her first pitstop.

Concerned about record snow levels ahead, Strayed decides to bypass the High Sierra and reroute the rest of her journey.

After traveling to Sierra City with Greg, Strayed bathes for the first time in weeks and a blackened toenail falls off.

Strayed descends into Belden Town and meets female hikers Trina and Stacy, overjoyed to have other women on the trail.

One of Strayed's boots falls off the edge of the trail and she hurls the other one down after it.

Strayed arrives at Castle Crags and finds her new REI boots waiting at the post office.

Strayed hikes her final miles in California and crosses the state border into Oregon.

Strayed arrives in Ashland during a memorial for Jerry Garcia and meets a music promoter named Jonathan.

On what would have been her mother's 50th birthday, Strayed stops hiking and unleashes her grief and fury aloud.

Strayed descends to Cascade Locks and reaches the Bridge of Gods, completing her PCT journey two days before her 27th birthday.

Wild follows Cheryl Strayed as she attempts to rebuild herself after her mother's death by hiking over a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone. Starting with no hiking experience, she battles the brutal Mojave heat, an impossibly heavy pack, and relentless physical pain through California and Oregon. Key milestones—her first resupply stop, a reroute around record Sierra Nevada snow, and a dramatic loss of her boots—mark how the trail strips her down and forces her to adapt. In Oregon, a brief romance in Ashland helps her forgive herself for the collapse of her marriage, while an explosive moment of grief on her mother's birthday begins to clear the emotional wreckage she has carried for years. By the time she reaches the Bridge of Gods at Cascade Locks, she has completed not just a physical crossing of the American West but a full internal reckoning with her past.

Cheryl Strayed's journey from grief to healing on the PCT.

After their mother's death, Strayed's siblings and stepfather Eddie grow distant and the family falls apart entirely.

Before leaving for the trail, Strayed tasks her friend Lisa with mailing resupply boxes to pitstops along the PCT.

Strayed moves in with a man named Joe and quickly becomes addicted to heroin.

Weighed down by her overpacked backpack, Strayed staggers through blistering Mojave heat on her first day hiking.

Strayed rests under a cluster of Joshua trees and notices a patch of sage that powerfully evokes her dead mother.

On Day 8, low on food, Strayed veers off the trail and accepts a ride from a group of miners including a man named Frank.

At Kennedy Meadows, a fellow hiker named Albert helps Strayed sort her gear into keep and discard piles, lightening Monster significantly.

A woman in Reno tells Strayed that her corvid feather symbolizes the void — the place where new things are born.

Alone after bypassing the High Sierra, Strayed navigates snowy terrain using only a map, a compass, and a guidebook.

A kind stranger at Packer Lake Lodge feeds Strayed and gives her a copy of The Novel by James Michener.

Two firemen camping at Three Lakes declare Strayed's solo hike a spirit walk and give her a Bob Marley t-shirt.

Strayed calls REI from a payphone and the company agrees to send her replacement boots free of charge.

After losing her boots on the trail, Strayed duct-tapes her sandals to her feet and continues hiking toward Castle Crags.

Two hunters make threatening advances at Strayed's campsite in Oregon and she flees into the forest to escape them.

Strayed is stunned to run into her Portland friend Lisa at a store near Olallie Lake in Oregon.

Pool 2 traces the supporting fabric of Strayed's journey, from the collapse of her family after her mother's death to the string of generous strangers who sustain her on the trail. After heroin and grief unravel her life, Strayed enlists her friend Lisa to handle logistics and sets off wildly underprepared, staggering under Monster's weight and finding unexpected comfort in a patch of sage. Along the way, acts of kindness—a miner's hot meal, a stranger's explanation of the corvid feather, a lodge owner's sandwiches, firemen's admiration—keep her moving forward. Practical crises like an empty water tank, a promise of free boots from REI, and a frightening encounter with hunters in Oregon test her resourcefulness and courage. The section closes with a joyful shock when her Portland friend Lisa appears unexpectedly near Olallie Lake, reminding Strayed that the world she left behind still loves her.

The trail's hardships, strangers' kindness, and the backstory that drove Strayed to hike.

With siblings and Paul pulling away, Strayed becomes her dying mother's primary caretaker at the hospital.

On her first night on the trail, Strayed pitches her tent alone for the first time and reads Adrienne Rich's poem Power.

Strayed uses her chosen surname for the first time when signing her divorce papers, marking her break from her old identity.

A fellow hiker named Greg comments on the size of Strayed's backpack, prompting her to name it Monster.

At Kennedy Meadows, hiker Doug gives Strayed a black feather from a corvid as a good luck charm.

After spotting a fox in the Sierra Nevada wilderness, Strayed spontaneously cries out for her dead mother.

A hostile couple running a campground evicts Strayed in the dark and threatens to call the police.

Strayed reunites with hikers Stacy and Trina at Old Station and finishes The Novel, burning its pages to lighten her pack.

Strayed calls Paul from a café in Old Station, feeling the pull of her old life but choosing not to return to it.

Strayed camps under open stars on Hat Creek Rim and wakes to find herself covered in slimy frogs.

Jonathan drives Strayed to Brookings beach, where she writes Paul's name in the sand, erases it, and forgives herself for their divorce.

While hiking on her mother's birthday, Strayed sees a patch of pink crocuses and her rage and grief finally dissolve.

Sitting by a fire, Strayed says her mother's name Bobbi aloud for the first time, seeing her as a complete person.

Fellow hikers known as the Three Young Bucks give Strayed the trail name Queen of the PCT.

At a creek near the trail's end, Strayed silently releases her mother and feels the grief she has carried finally lift.

Pool 3 maps the internal arc of Wild, focusing on the moments of decision and discovery that quietly redefine Strayed as a person. Before the hike, she absorbs devastating losses—her role as sole caretaker, a divorce that ends the best thing in her life, a new name chosen to mark her rupture from the past. On the trail, small revelations accumulate: a feather gifted by a stranger, a fox that cracks her open, a hostile campground eviction that stirs memories of putting down her mother's horse. In Oregon, a tender beach scene with Jonathan finally breaks the guilt she has carried over her marriage, while the sight of pink crocuses on her mother's birthday dissolves years of frozen grief into anger and then release. By the journey's end, Strayed has spoken her mother's name aloud as a full human being, been crowned Queen of the PCT by fellow hikers, and stood at a mountain creek able, at last, to let go.

The emotional and psychological shifts that reshaped Strayed on and off the trail.