The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind-and Almost Found Myself-on the Pacific Crest Trail (P.S.)

I found this book sitting on the break room table and starting paging through it. It looked promising so I took it home. I ended up reading it in two sittings because I couldn't put it down. Mr. White paints a vivid picture of the trail and it's characters and it inspired me to start planning a long distance bike trip (I don't have a year to spend on the hike). I laughed, cringed and felt queasy along with the author and decided that I wanted to have an adventure too. One nitpick: I thought the ending seemed rushed, almost as if he was tired of writing and just wanted to send it to the printers, but I think the story definitely deserves a 5 star review.

I came across this book while on vacation with my girlfriend and couldn't put it down! Since her and I talk about adventures like this, we passed the book back and forth until it was done.

The book is very well written, many twists and turns and not predictable at all. If you like adventure, you will love this book. If you like reading about adventure, you will definitely love this book. Most importantly, if you want a book to keep your interest and challenge your sense of adventure, you will love this book.

Enjoy!

I was hoping for an engaging story akin to "A Walk in the Woods". Instead I found myself disgusted with Dan's behavior toward his hiking companion and annoyed that the story didn't talk more about the adventure of the trail. This story should have remained a diary.

I gave it three stars because I did read all 400 pages hoping to see Dan "almost find himself" and become less of a jerk. No luck.

So as not to be spoiler, I won't explain my quibble with book's title, except to say it is symptomatic of the author's attitude. He spreads the blame to include his hiking companion, Allison, when things go wrong. I noticed in the book's Author's Notes that Dan thanks everyone on the planet except Allison, which seems very petty. I give him credit for frankly admitting his many mistakes and stupidities along the trail, which gives the book its humor and spice. It is obvious he was very immature when he hiked the trail, but Dan the author seems to have not grown up much.

The writing is medocre. However the subject is fascinating and there are several poignant moments so I can recommend it as a light read.

I did not think it was possible to write a book about hiking the PCT without conveying the joy, beauty and spirituality of the experience, but Dan White has managed to do it.

If you are looking to understand what it is like to hike the PCT, this is not the book. This book about two inexperienced, unprepared hikers portrays the worst of the experience and almost completely misses explaining the hike itself. Instead of descriptions of the terrain, we get long reminisces about the authors past experiences [generally not very interesting] and long descriptions of tedious conversations with other PCT hikers---all which crowd out the PCT itself. For example, on the top of Mt. Whitney, which commands one of the greatest 360 degree views in America, White writes nothing about the joy of being there, but instead repeats a desultory conversation with another hiker. He walks through the southern Sierras without mentioning Rae Lakes, passes through the Yosemite High Country with few comments, then provides a detailed description of his visit to souvenir shops at Lake Tahoe!

I congratulate the author and his girlfriend for undertaking this adventure and only wish he could have captured the joy of the experience,