Cheryl Strayed · 2012 · overland

Cheryl Strayed's 2012 memoir. Twenty-six, grieving her mother and the wreck of her marriage, she walks eleven hundred miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone with no experience whatsoever - from the Mojave through a record Sierra snow year that forces her off-trail, up through northern California and all of Oregon to the Bridge of the Gods.

1. 1
   Tehachapi Pass

   She steps onto the trail in the Mojave in June 1995, boots too small, pack so heavy she cannot lift it standing up.

2. 2
   Kennedy Meadows

   The gateway to the High Sierra, and where other hikers strip her pack down to something she can actually carry.

3. 3
   Sierra City

   Record snowpack closes the High Sierra, so she skips ahead by road - the part of the hike the film leaves out.

4. 4
   Burney Falls

   Back on the trail through northern California, in the long hot stretch where the walking becomes routine rather than ordeal.

5. 5
   Castle Crags

   Granite spires above the Sacramento River, and one of the last big landmarks before the Oregon line.

6. 6
   Seiad Valley

   The final California town, a few miles from the border she has spent two months walking towards.

7. 7
   Ashland

   Over into Oregon. She comes off trail here, and nearly does not go back.

8. 8
   Crater Lake

   The flooded caldera - the deepest lake in the United States, and the point where the miles start going quickly.

9. 9
   Timberline Lodge

   High on Mount Hood, the last mountain, with the Columbia gorge somewhere below in the haze.

10. 10
    Bridge of the Gods

    Cascade Locks, and the end: 1,100 miles, ninety-four days, and an ice cream on a bridge over the Columbia.