A Mazama Encounter ... Pre-Wild

by Richard Getgen

Richard Getgen with Mt. McLoughlin & Devil's Peak. 1995.

On December 12 the movie Wild will arrive in theaters in Portland, with Reese Witherspoon playing a 26-year-old novice PCT hiker named Cheryl Strayed. My wife and I are wondering, who, if anyone, will be playing us in the movie.  In the book, Cheryl mentions “encountering a group of backpackers and hikers” as she enters the Sky Lake Wilderness. That group was Billie Goodwin, Tom Cawi, John Harmon, Judith Salter, and Richard & Carol Getgen.

John Harmon, Billie Goodwin, unknown, Judith Salter & Tom
Cawi at Crater Lake. 1995.

Billie Goodwin and I were leading an eight-day Mazama Outing from the rim of Crater Lake to the south end of Brown Mountain along the PCT.  A foot problem kept Billie from walking most of the route, so she and Judith spent a week in the Klamath Falls area while I led Tom and John through the wilderness.  The five of us met-up on the trail at the south end of the wilderness.  Billie convinced us to set up camp at Fourmile Lake.  While at Lake of the Woods, enjoying a hamburger (fine cuisine after a week of freeze-dried meals), Billie came across a solo backpacker looking for a place to pitch her tent, and Billie invited her to join our group for the night.  This young woman was Cheryl Strayed.

Like many long-distance hikers, Cheryl was “writing a book” of her adventures, and I had long-since forgotten her plans to capture her trek on paper.  Seventeen years passed.  When I read Wild a couple of years ago, I got goosebumps when I realized that her walk coincided with the 1995 outing Billie and I had led. I immediately went to my hiking journal to see if Cheryl Strayed was indeed the same woman who shared a campsite with us at Fourmile Lake all those years ago.

From my journal of August 1995:

Judith Salter & Tom Cawi at Brown Mountain. 1995.

“The sun evaporated the clouds late in the afternoon.  This meant a cold evening (twenty-six degrees).  We gather firewood in an effort to make it through the evening in comfort.  Our five some was increased by one when a PCT hiker named Cheryl joined us.  Cheryl had started in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains and was hiking 1,300 miles to Portland by herself at an average of twenty miles each day.  She had been cold for the last two weeks due to the unseasonable ‘fall weather’." 

I had a habit of getting out of the tent at sunrise each morning, and on the frosty morning which Cheryl mentions in her book as being 26 degrees is a quote from Carol and me.  I promptly started a campfire to thaw-out my stiff muscles, at which time Carol drove into the campground to join the group.  (I had telephoned Carol the previous afternoon from Lake of the Woods , and she drove through the night.)  Carol told me that the radio broadcast had said it was 26 degrees, and later when Cheryl crept out of her tent she asked me if I knew how cold it was.

Billie Goodwin in the Sky Lakes Wilderness. 1995.

My chivalrous act of building a fire on this icy cold morning did not make the book, but the conversation about the weather did.  It gives me a warm feeling to know that I am mentioned (not by name) in a New York bestseller, doing what I like doing most in life: hiking.

After breakfast that morning, Cheryl continued north toward Woodpecker and Badger Lakes , and our group walked south along the shoulder of Mt. McLoughlin and across the lava-strewn mass of Brown Mountain.  That was the last we saw or heard of her until reading the book.

At the time, this was not a “meet someone famous” encounter for the group. Cheryl was just another hiker on the trail. The previous night, a thru-hiker named Trapper camped with us, sharing our campfire. The next year, when I walked with Billie through the section of trail she had missed in 1995, a woman named Curly camped with us at Red Lake. Billie met Curley at Cascade Locks a few weeks later, and received a letter from Curly after she reached Canada.  Cheryl was the only one of us to get published.

In 1995, Billie Goodwin and I were the most-active Mazama hike leaders. Billie and I are still the all-time most-active male and female Mazama hike leaders.  Billie has led 632 hikes for the Mazamas and I have led 1,071 hikes.

Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern will be in Portland on Dec. 8 at premiere of Wild (admission to this screening is by invitiation only). They will be joined by Cheryl Strayed. More info on Oregon Live.