Cheryl Strayed, a backpacking novice whose impulsive decision to hike 1,100 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail at age 26 resulted in the best-selling memoir Wild, was Oprah Winfrey's first guest as Winfrey launched Oprah's Book Club 2.0 Sunday (July 22) on Winfrey's OWN network.

The complete episode of Sunday's telecast (run time: nearly 90 minutes) as well as shorter outtakes from the full interview are available at Winfrey's website. Below is one segment where Strayed describes the challenge of adapting to one of her new realities: an overburdened backpack she eventually dubbed "Monster":

The following clip comes from Strayed's website, which provides context to the factors that prompted her journey:

Wild, one of the most-discussed books of 2012, including a memorable New York Times review, recounts Strayed's tenacity to complete the challenge—largely spurred by her mother's death at 45—despite no previous backpacking experience, encounters with wildlife, and conditions that ranged from deep snow to desert heat.

It is the written word, we learn, that ignited Strayed's zeal for the journey. In the second segment of Winfrey's 2-hour program, Strayed explains how she once picked up a copy of the California volume of the long-running Pacific Crest Trail guidebook series from Wilderness Press (now in its 6th edition and divided into Southern California and Northern California books as well as an Oregon-Washington volume) and read the description on the back cover.

"It seemed like such an important thing, such a grand thing, such a significant thing," she said, "and I was none of those things at that moment in my life, and I just knew that I wanted to attach myself to it. I knew instinctively that the wilderness was the place that I felt most gathered. I was in serious need of gathering at that time."

What's your response to Cheryl Strayed's tale?

Photo of Strayed from CherylStrayed.com. PCT trail photo by T.D. Wood.