Wild: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

Cheryl arrives at Kennedy Meadows—it “seem[s] like a miracle” to her that she has gotten there. While not exactly a town, Kennedy Meadows is a grassy outpost along the trail with a post office, a general store, a restaurant, and a small campground. After picking up her care package—and a postcard from Joe—at the post office, Cheryl buys herself a Snapple lemonade and checks out the “FREE” box, where she nabs a ski pole she knows will come in handy as the terrain on the PCT gets rougher.

As Cheryl makes her way to the campground, she’s surprised to find that people she doesn’t know recognize her—as “famous Cheryl of the enormous backpack.” A man named Ed introduces himself to her and tells her that Greg, Albert, and Matt have arrived, but have gone to the store. Cheryl sets her things down with Ed and then goes to wash herself in the river. She has lunch with Ed, an amateur poet in his fifties who shares some of his work with her and tells her that he camps at Kennedy Meadows each summer to greet PCT hikers.

After the other hikers get back from the general store, they greet Cheryl happily, chat for a while, and then go off to take naps. Cheryl is too excited to sleep, and she stays awake going through her box and reflecting on the trip so far. After his nap, Albert emerges from his tent and offers to help Cheryl lighten the load she’s been carrying inside Monster. He unpacks her bag and sorts what’s necessary and what’s not, putting everything she doesn’t need in a box. He puts aside a foldable saw, miniature binoculars, deodorant, a razor, and a large roll of condoms. Cheryl secretly tears one condom off the end of the roll and tucks it in her back pocket to keep just in case. After Albert is through helping her, Cheryl lifts Monster onto her back and is surprised to find that it’s much lighter.

Doug and Tom—the two men who have been on the trail behind Cheryl—arrive at Kennedy Meadows and jubilantly greet Cheryl. She greets them just as excitedly. As Cheryl shows them the way to camp, she learns about the two of them—friends from a fancy boarding school on the east coast, they have come to hike the trail together on a whim. Cheryl is relieved to encounter two people who are amateur hikers like her.

Back at camp, the group decides to go to a restaurant in town at 6. Cheryl goes into her tent to get ready—but without a real change of clothes, makeup, or even a proper shower, the only thing she can do to make herself feel a little prettier is to put on a necklace. The pendant on the chain is a feather—it used to be one of Cheryl’s mother’s earrings, but Cheryl lost the mate and turned it into a necklace. As Cheryl finishes preparing to go out to dinner, she thinks about how she is now “one of the guys” in this group—the first time in her life she’s ever been part of such a dynamic.

Before dinner, Cheryl heads down to the river with some of the guys. Doug gives Cheryl a black feather for good luck. Cheryl tells Greg that she’s nervous about the snow up ahead. Greg confesses that he’s uncertain about what the snow pack might look like, too. Cheryl is reluctant to give up on the High Sierra, and Doug chimes in to tell her that there are forty miles ahead before the going gets “seriously rough”—they could hike those miles, evaluate the situation, and then bail out through a trail to a nearby campground and bypass the mountains if things are too tough.

The next morning, Greg gives Cheryl a tutorial on how to use her ice axe, should they decide to brave the High Sierra after all. Albert and Matt are ill with diarrhea, and the others suspect they have drunk tainted water from one of the sources along the trail. As a group loads Albert and Matt into a car to drive them to the nearest hospital, Cheryl bids Albert goodbye, thanks him for his help with Monster, and privately reflects on the sadness of the idea that she might never see him again. She’s also melancholy to think that she’ll probably never see Greg, Doug, or Tom again, either.