Wild Recap

For the past two weeks I have been reading the book "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed. The book is about a woman who hikes the Pacific Crest Trail after her mother dies at 42 after a 2 month battle with cancer. After her mother's death her family becomes estranged, her young marriage falls apart and she becomes dangerously close to an addiction with heroin. At this point she picks up a book standing in a checkout line that would change her life completely. It was titled "The Pacific Crest Trail Volume I: California". 2 months later, she was starting off in the Mojavi Desert embarcking on a three month journey taking her 2,663 miles up the west coast to the Bridge of Gods in Washington. With thirty pages left, Cheryl is in Oregon looking into Crater Lake. Crater Lake used to be a mountain. Mount Mazama, it was called. 7,700 years ago Mount Mazama blew up in the largest explosive eruption in the cascade Range in over a million years. In the wake of this destruction, 500,000 square miles were covered in ash. Crater Lake today, it is one of the most beautiful lakes in North America. Strayed recounts this sight."This was once Mazama, I kept reminding myself. This was once a mountain that stood nearly 12,000 feet tall and then had its heart removed. This was once a wasteland of lava and pumice and ash. This was once an empty bowl. They simply were not there anymore. There was only the stillness and silence of that water: what a mountain and a wasteland and an empty bowl turned into after the healing began." This quote essentially sums up the book. Cheryl is not only talking about Mount Mazama, but is talking about herself. Her journey stripped her of her emotions allowing her to grow into a peaceful state of being not unlike that of Crater Lake.