Strayed bonded with almost everyone she met along the trail, from fellow hikers to people she encountered in the towns she stopped at, some of whom offered her a place to stay for the night. In one incident, two fellow hikers left her a peach that they'd gotten from another group, and it was lying on a picnic table waiting for Strayed when she arrived at that spot in the trail. "The kindness with which it was given blunted the heat and tedium of the day," she wrote. "As difficult and maddening as the trail could be, there was hardly a day that passed that didn't offer up some form of what was called trail magic.... the unexpected and sweet happenings that stand out in stark relief to the challenges of the trail."
