Okay. I have a really silly question.

Hi everyone!

Edit: thank you everyone for being so nice 🥹 I’ve never had a real community I felt I belonged to until I discovered hiking. Your responses are so wonderful and helpful. I wasn’t ever going to let others judgements stop me from hiking because I know who I am and why I want to thru hike, but it’s very comforting to hear that people don’t care about Wild haha.

I’m 25F and I’m hoping to hike the PCT by time I’m 30 (really just struggled with getting the finances to do it haha). I have a really silly question.

I first heard of the PCT and got inspired to hike it because of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, Wild when I read it like 4 years ago. I had no idea long distance hiking was a thing before reading it and I was really in awe of her. She inspired me with her determination and story.

I don’t care that deeply, which is why this is silly haha, but will people judge me for this? I’d heard people making fun of hikers who just wanted to “do Wild” and how they aren’t “real” hikers. I’ve heard a lot of judgment because she didn’t hike the whole thing and then caused this like, phenomenon of people (mostly women) “pretending” to be hikers.

Are people still shitty over the Wild thing? I don’t care that deeply because I know I am a “real” hiker. I want to do the entire trail, I want to do the AT too. I try to go out hiking as much as I can. It brings me joy and peace and escape from my struggles with mental illness.

I’m just asking more out of curiosity than fear of judgement, I guess. But I also don’t want people to think I’m playing pretend hiker because Reese Witherspoon made it look cool. I am not using Wild as a guidebook or expectations haha, Wild just introduced me to thruhiking. I’m doing lots and lots of researching and planning on my own!