Carrot Quinn fears that she's become addicted to the internet. The city makes her feel numb, and she's having trouble connecting with others. In a desperate move she breaks away from everything to walk 2,660 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. It will be her first long-distance hike.
In the desert of Southern California Carrot faces many challenges, both physical and emotional: pain, injury, blisters, aching cold and searing heat, dehydration, exhaustion, loneliness. In the wilderness she happens upon and becomes close with an eclectic group of strangers- people she wouldn't have chanced to meet in the “regular world” but who are brought together, here on the trail, by their one common goal: make it to Canada before the snow flies. Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail
Impressed with her accomplishment but not impressed with the book. I wanted way more trail descriptions and way less food diary. I think she included every bit of food she consumed. Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail It always feels weird to be critical of books about thru-hiking when I haven’t done it. Heck, I’m training for a half marathon and I am still *very* much in the run 2-minutes walk 1-minute stage. I can walk for days, but I’ve never tried to do with much of a pack or in much elevation (the exception being lost for 2 hours while we searched for Triangle Rock in Rocky Mountain National Park). So I fully respect what Carrot did, both in writing a book and in thru hiking the trail (which she has done twice now and also don’t the CDT), but why read a book if you aren’t going to reflect on it?
I genuinely enjoyed most of the book. It’s a lot more detailed than some accounts that I’ve read. It’s an amazing juxtaposition to “Becoming Odyssa.” I like Carrot’s genuine honesty, how willing she is to talk about things like diarrhea and menstruation on the trail. I like that she really lets the reader inside her head, but I absolutely think that some of her later revelations about her childhood should have come earlier in the story- it would have made much of her need to find packs of hikers, her good-thought bad-thought circulations, and her depth much more understandable and relatable. Still, despite the honesty and stream of consciousness writing there was a lack of depth that would have made the whole story more meaningful. I’m left at the end not really feeling that thru-hiking is heartbreaking. Surely, she seemed emptied physically and emotionally at the end, and I can imagine that, but she couldn’t quite bring the reader to that place with her. I never felt that heart break in her writing, couldn’t understand some of her decisions, and wished she had let us in a bit more there.
I think my biggest qualm is the description. She is afraid she is addicted to the internet. Yet, at every turn in the book she is on her phone. I understand she was using it for maps and I certainly do not begrudge anyone real-time information on water in the Mojave, weather conditions in the Sierras, or even the ability to communicate with fellow hikers. I think it’s smart in fact, it’s safe. Still, she never explored that angle, the usage, what she was doing to prevent herself from being a phone-drone on the trail. I probably wouldn’t care so much if I hadn’t been expecting there to be a good hard look at modern relationships and technology and a return to “roots” on the trail.
I will also admit that there are times the repetition because a bit much. For the entire middle section of the book it felt like she was ending every paragraph by repeating three words “Rain, rain, rain” “water, water, water” “granola, granola, granola” and her favorite “Well, well”. It became grating to me. But Carrot is a fine writer. I recently read an article from her in the Guardian and it was excellent but this book is a first-stab. She has grown a lot in the last few years- reading the two pieces back to back showed me that. If she wrote another book about her further adventures I wouldn’t hesitate to pick it up.
**Not the authors fault, but the audible narrator also mispronounced some really weird words… I giggled every time Seamus was pronounced cee-mues. Audible needs to work on its editing for their own productions.
Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail “Time disappears, and it is just me and the mountain, and the wind. I have always been in this windstorm, I think, as I fight my way forward. And I will always be in this windstorm.”
My wanderlust is not quite satisfied by books about thru-hiking. Every once in a while, though, I pick up some accounts such as Carrot Quinn's Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail, and give it a try. I enjoyed Quinn's narrative as it followed her 2,653 mile journey. Besides detailing what happens on these hikes, such accounts also serve as reflections on what it means to be on a thru-hike cut off from our normal day to day lives as well as the ways in which one can grow on such a journey.
“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back, into safety. -Abraham Maslow”
― Carrot Quinn, Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail Carrot communicates the rawness of being on the PCT in each moment. The startling beauty, the hunger, the physical pain and the incredible determination to be a thru hiker. I don't think you could get a more thorough, embodied, brazenly honest version of what it feels like to be on the PCT - whether in the moments wonder, of utter loneliness or those of deep, trail-found friendship. I tore through this book as she ran, stumbled, climbed the 2660 miles. And often, late at night as I read, I would have to get up and have a midnight snack after reading passages on intense hunger and then the joy of trail magic or arriving in a town for a greasy breakfast or roast chicken and potato salad from the local grocery store. It is hard to not feel like you are right there on the trail with her. Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail this is one of those books I didn't want to end. 2600 miles with carrot was not long enough. thank goodness she has a blog and I can follow her second pct adventure there and her current hike on the cdt, 2800 miles this summer. this book is about hiking. the nitty gritty details of the day to day, mile to mile adventure. you will cheer her on each step of the way, you will feel her chill, her fatigue, her thirst and hunger. you too will be huddling with her in the shade of a small shrub in 100 degree heat and remember that when your mind is trying to wrap itself around hands too cold and numb to grip a trekking pole. and you will rally with her because you can't help admiring her tough as nails spirit, her honesty, her humor, her love for the trail, her friends, the family she finds there, the trail angels who support thru hikers and their journey following their dreams. you will come to love all of that, as she does. and you will worry about her even when you know already she's come thru somehow. in short, your heart will soar on one page and break on another, up, down, up, down, following the trail, trying not to fall off. coming to the end and wondering with her, what then? Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail
Free read ☆ PDF, eBook or Kindle ePUB ô Carrot Quinn
Disclaimer: I listened to this book on Audible so that might have influenced my experience compared to actually reading.
As others have commented, this book had so much potential but just fell a bit flat. I enjoyed Carrot's story but I was waiting for the book to dig in to the characters and experience of the thru-hike more, and it just never did. There was a lot of detailed descriptions of meals and towns along the PCT, and that became distractingly repetitive about halfway through the book. I also felt as if I lost my connection to Carrot's story as soon as her relationship with Ramen started...I spent that part of the book thinking WHYYYYYYY???? a lot. I have a lot of respect for Carrot and what she accomplished, and I will probably check out her other writing, but I was disappointed by this book. Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail I hated almost everything about this.
Let's first start with her just randomly deciding to do this with no prep or apparent reason. She's addicted to the internet, yet she takes her phone and browses the fucking internet when she's in town. Seriously? While making sure your pack isn't back-breakingly heavy IS important, it shouldn't be your #1 goal when packing for a hike that is several thousand miles. Spoiler alert: it's hers. For fuck's sake she didn't even pack pants or soap!
Next there's the exceedingly juvenile sentence structures and errors. I think of how hard those first hundred miles was, uh, you mean were? Then there's the narrator saying Ibprofren (there's no R!) The She said/I say exchanges had me practically clawing at my face. Then there's her insane need to repeat words three times every few paragraphs (no exaggeration!). Hike. Hike. Hike. Shower. Shower. Shower. Gatorade, gatorade gatorade. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Yeah girl, us too. Knock that shit off already. She also loves to end sentences with 'forever.' For no damn reason. The names of people and food aside, I'll be stunned if there are 100 different words used in this book.
Thirdly, this book is more about meals and the people she meets versus the trail itself. I also didn't expect so much of it to be about the towns she visits. Or food. She CAN carry more food, she just chooses not to (and says so), so you constantly hear about how hungry she is, and her fantasizing over various meals. It becomes more of a treasure hunt with her raiding hiker boxes and relying on trail angels (and hitching to the next spot on the trail vs actually hiking to it) than actually sustaining herself on the trail. I mean, she gorges on fast food and junk food then I dig a hole, take a massive dump, and feel better. Are you shitting me? Really!? No, c'mon.
Apparently there's some ill-advised, fruitless and foolish romance later on but I didn't get that far. I couldn't take anymore. I really wanted to finish this... if only for there to be some epiphany or resolution, but even just having it on as background noise while I did other things pissed me off. I hate quitting, and feeling like i wasted money on a book, but I had to. This book was literally souring my day each time I listened to it.
I'm seriously wondering what book everyone else read that was so great and worthy of 4-5 stars! It certainly wasn't this one!! Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail As much as I enjoy reading travel memoirs, and particularly from hikers, sometimes I can’t help but be incredulous (and a bit annoyed) at how self-centered and short-sighted some of them can be. Also, there was more raw language and description than I would have wished…I skipped over several sections to get back to the hiking part.
Nonetheless, it's a tremendous accomplishment to hike the PCT (or the AT or any trail like them), one that requires fortitude, persistence, and determination. Despite hunger, thirst, cold, aches and pains, and fears of a less physical sort, Carrot Quinn nonetheless manages to hike over 2600 miles to complete the Pacific Crest Trail. Still, I got to the point where I groaned whenever she said “I know I should do X, but I want to do Y,” because I knew that, almost inevitably, she would do Y. She suffered more than she needed to because she seemed to give little thought for the future. All that aside, though, her book sheds a little light on the inner workings of a thru-hiker’s mind and heart. Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail The PCT journey itself sounds wondrous and inspiring. The writing is mediocre at best, with annoying repetition and adolescent self-indulgence. It was the desire to stick through the entire trail that motivated me to actually finish the book instead of abandon it. Worth doing research on other PCT journals instead of read this one Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail This read like one of my high school student's creative writing story. It was so incredibly repetitive - mememe, hikehikehike, mememe, friendsfriendsfriends, mememe, foodfoodfood, mememe, sexsexsex. She tried to be a lot more clever and introspective than she actually is, unfortunately. Most of her misery came from incredibly poor decisions and contradictions - such as nah, I don't need anything other than shorts and a tanktop for fall in the Cascades or I love my friends soooooo much look at how clever and unique we are, but omg there's this super cute guy that I'm going to ditch my friends for.
She had occasional good descriptions, but they tended to be overshadowed by the endless ramble about her trying to be existential. Pass. Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail