Reese Witherspoon's Missing Wild Boot Found By A Hiker

Chris Kesting came back from a recent hike with a one-of-a-kind souvenir: a boot worn by Reese Witherspoon in the movie Wild.

The Oscar-nominated film, based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, contains a memorable moment in which Witherspoon (playing Strayed) accidentally knocks one of her ill-fitting hiking boots off a cliff and then throws the other one after it in rage and despair. Kesting, a hiking enthusiast from Washington, told the Oregonian that he watched that scene and thought, “Hey, I know exactly where that is. One of these days it might be fun to go up there and see if that boot is actually there.“

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As it happens, the boot was there, and Kesting located it easily on the cliffs at the south side of Mount Hood. "The thing that stood out was the red laces,” he said. “The brown of the leather blended into the soil and I didn’t see that at all.”

His discovery is all the more extraordinary considering that the movie was filmed in fall 2013, nearly two years ago. But Kesting was quite certain that the boot, which it took him all of 15 minutes to locate, was the real deal. “Well, first of all you wouldn’t find a single boot in a place where nobody would leave a boot,” he pointed out to the Oregonian. “It has red laces and it’s a 6 ½ woman’s size Danner boot, made in Portland. If you look at the movie poster, it’s that boot.”

Cheryl Strayed herself confirmed the boot’s authenticity on her Facebook page. “Someone found Reese’s boot! For real,” wrote the author. “And yes, the film crew adhered to leave no trace practices. They could not find the boot. I’m so glad Chris Keating did. What a funny story.” (The Oregonian notes that Kesting was unable to find the second boot — so it appears that the crew recovered that one.)

Witherspoon’s red-laced hiking boots in the film were custom-made by Danner, who manufactured 25 pairs in various stages of wear to be used throughout the movie. “We had to throw them off the side of the mountain like Cheryl did,” Witherspoon said while promoting the film (via NY Daily News). “She just absolutely cracks and throws her boot off the side of the mountain and decides to duct tape her sandals to her feet.”

In reality, Strayed wore REI boots when she hiked the PCT in 1995, and was able to replace her too-small pair on the trail through the company’s generous replacement policy.

The lost boot now resides on a bookshelf in Kesting’s house.

Watch a trailer for the movie: