A Risk I Took to Save Myself

In Wild, the author recounts her months-long hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, a journey that she took entirely alone after life as she’d known it had fallen apart.

“It was a world I’d never been to and yet had known was there all along . . . one I’d staggered to in sorrow and confusion and fear and hope. A world I thought would both make me into the woman I knew I could become and turn me back into the girl I’d once been.”

—Cheryl Strayed, Wild

Write about a time when you embarked upon something new and challenging, frightening, or even dangerous—as a way to find an answer, to rediscover something essential about yourself. Tell us about what you did—the adventure, the journey, the risks you took—what drove you there, and who you were when you emerged afterwards.

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