Wild: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

At first light, Cheryl quickly and deftly packs up Monster. Along the trail, Monster has become less of an adversary and more of an ally. It is still Cheryl’s “burden to bear”—but it is also an extension of herself. Cheryl has noticed that carrying Monster has made her stronger and more grounded in her body—although her battered feet are still “entirely, unspeakably fucked.” Her pinky toes have been rubbed raw, and there are “permanent blisters” on the back of her heels. Cheryl has learned to cover her wounds with 2nd Skin and duct tape and forget about them as she walks on and on.

Though the day is hot as Cheryl sets out, she feels rested, strong, and ready for whatever lies ahead. Now that she has escaped the snow, she feels, nothing can throw her off-course. Cheryl still feels the profound, deep length of the miles she’s walking—but she manages to settle into each moment of her trek and find intimacy with nature each day. At midday, with the thermometer on her pack reading 100 degrees, Cheryl sits down for a rest and drains the remainder of one of her water bottles—she still has 32 ounces left in the other.

As Cheryl continues along the plateau, she begins sweating intensely and feeling oppressed and battered by the heat. She keeps stopping to drink water until she is down to her last two ounces, at which point she resolves to save them until the water tank is in sight. At 4:30 in the afternoon, as she comes around a bend, she spots it, and gleefully drinks her last two ounces. When she gets up to the tank, though, she sees a piece of paper stuck to the side of it: it reads, NO WATER.

Cheryl is panicked and furious. She consults her guidebook to see if there are any other water sources around. She is slowly beginning to comprehend that this is the most serious situation she’s been in so far on the trip—she needs water immediately. She has not urinated all day, and she is so thirsty she can’t even gather spit in her mouth—soon, her dehydration will go from being uncomfortable to actively dangerous. Cheryl’s guidebook tells her there is another water source five miles up the trail—but the quality of the water is “questionable.” Even so, Cheryl is determined to give it a go. 

Cheryl arrives at a “miserable-looking mucky pond.” It is full of water, even though the water is indeed questionable-looking. Cheryl immediately begins pumping water into her bottles through her purifier, even though the act makes her even more fatigued and shaky. She drops iodine tablets into the bottles, but must wait thirty minutes for them to cleanse the water. As she waits, Cheryl sits naked and lies down on the ground near the pool. She has hiked her first twenty-mile day.

Once the water is purified, Cheryl gulps the warm, muddy-tasting water. She drinks both 32-ounce bottles, then pumps in some more. After another half-hour, she drinks the contents of both bottles down once again. As dark falls, Cheryl waits for the urge to urinate—but it doesn’t come. She worries that she’s harmed her body, but she lies down to rest for the night at least knowing that she’s near to water. Two hours later, she awakens to the feeling of “tiny cool hands” patting her—she opens her eyes and sees that she is covered in hundreds of tiny frogs. Cheryl scrambles up and rids herself of them, then pitches her tent and goes back to sleep.

In the morning, Cheryl still doesn’t have to urinate. She pumps some more water and drinks it, then refills her bottles and sets out on the trail—it is even hotter today than the day before. Rather than heading on to a state park ahead, Cheryl takes a detour off the trail to a small town with a general store. A thermometer on the store’s front porch reads 102 degrees. Cheryl nearly cries as she counts the change in her pack and realizes she doesn’t have enough money for a Snapple lemonade. She goes inside to escape the heat anyway, and the cashier, who has seen Cheryl counting her pennies, gives her a Snapple for free.

A man named Rex soon stops at the general store. He is big, gay, and gregarious, with a shock of red hair. He buys some beers and sits outside with Cheryl, and as they talk, he reveals that he is hiking the PCT, too. At one point in their conversation, Rex suggests that Cheryl might need new boots. She laments that she has no money. Rex asks if she bought the boots at REI—when she says that she did, Rex tells her that the store has a satisfaction guarantee and will overnight her a pair of new ones, free of charge, if she calls them.

The next day, Cheryl and Rex hike the remaining miles to the state park, and together stop off so Cheryl can collect her resupply box. She calls REI from the pay phone there, and they agree to overnight her a new pair of boots. Cheryl feels like she could jump for joy—if only her feet weren’t in such bad shape. As Cheryl and Rex arrive at the camping site, Cheryl reunites with Trina and Stacy, who arrived at the site the day before. Trina tells Cheryl she has decided to get off the trail here, but Stacy is continuing on as planned. Even though Cheryl is excited to see her friends, her feet are in intense pain, and every step is excruciating. Even after she puts on sandals, her toes look like “two beets” and feel tender and swollen.

In the morning, Trina leaves, and Stacy gets back on the trail. Cheryl enjoys some alone time at the campsite while she waits for her boots to arrive, but by late that afternoon, there is still no sign of them. She walks in her sandals to a nearby waterfall, but is in excruciating pain the whole time. Back at the campsite, Cheryl reaches down and pulls off her two big toenails—she feels instantaneous relief. She only has six nails left—the PCT has claimed four.

The next morning, Cheryl packs up Monster and heads to the general store in her sandals. She knows that regardless of whether or not her boots have arrived, she needs to head back out on the trail today if she is going to make it to her next stop in time and stay on schedule. Cheryl’s boots are not at the store, and though she hangs around for UPS and USPS to come, her boots still don’t arrive. Frustrated, she calls REI and learns they haven’t even mailed them yet—they can’t overnight them to the park, and won’t be able to get them to her for five days. Cheryl instructs REI to send the boots to her next stop.

Cheryl knows she needs to move on—but she can’t bear to don her boots. She considers whether she can wear her camp sandals all the way to her next stop, Castle Crags, but she is daunted by their flimsiness. In a moment of frustration, Cheryl picks up a rock and flings it at a tree. She then remembers a conversation with a psychic she had years ago—the woman, Pat, told her one day she’d have to “get on [a] horse and ride into battle.” The psychic predicted Cheryl would hesitate and falter—but warned her that in order to heal her wounds, she’d have to ride into battle “like a warrior.” Cheryl laughs to herself, then puts on her sandals and begins hiking on.