A machine voice reads this one, and on a memoir stitched together from journal and vlog entries that single credit decides more than usual about whether the audiobook suits you. The narrator field says Virtual Voice, which means synthesis rather than a person at a microphone. L. Michele Scott hiked Section A of the Pacific Crest Trail the year she turned fifty, wrote it up, and the audio edition landed in April 2025 at three hours and twenty-seven minutes. Two people have posted written responses. Both of them wrote years before this recording existed.
The title is doing something honest that trail memoirs rarely bother with. A 100 Mile Journey Plus a Few Extra promises exactly the distance it delivers and not a step more. Scott set out intending a full thru-hike, the 2,650 miles from the Mexican border to Canada that the description lays out, and finished Section A: arid valleys, scorching deserts, occasional mountain pine forest in southern California. The book is the section, and the title says so out loud. Anyone who has waded through thru-hike literature knows how rare that is, and how much of the genre rests on the completed walk.
Section A is also where most of the attrition begins, which gives a hundred miles more weight than the number suggests. The description notes that roughly a quarter of the thousands who attempt the trail each year finish the whole thing, and that extremes of hot and cold either break backpackers or forge them into stronger hikers. Scott was managing small niggling injuries and arthritis flare-ups on top of that, at fifty, with doubters saying she would not last a day. That last line comes straight from the copy, and it sets the terms of the book.
Both written responses treat this as a book rather than a recording, and their dates explain why. One is from January 2021 and one from January 2023, while the audio edition on this entry carries an April 2025 release date. Whatever those two people are describing predates the file you would be buying by more than four years in one case and more than two in the other. Worth understanding before you take the star line as any kind of verdict on the listening, because neither response is in a position to speak to it.
Why It Works in Audio
Michele's account earns its place on the strength of who is doing the telling. Patti Doyle, one of the two people who wrote something, put the appeal plainly: "the author isn't old but she is closer to me in age than the average thru-hiker", and it is "refreshing to read an account of the trail as seen by someone whose slightly senior body gives her some of the same troubles mine does when I hit the dirt". That is an audience identified with real precision. Trail literature skews young and skews finished, and the gap it leaves behind is wide.
What the format hands you is a journal, not a shaped narrative. The description says the story comes through Michele's journal and vlog entries, and that structure preserves the ordinary texture most trail books edit away: "the people you meet, the sweat, the tears, the things you see and hear". Three hours and twenty-seven minutes is about a long afternoon, a length that suits diary material far better than a twelve-hour epic would. You are not committing to a season on a trail. You are sitting with somebody through one section of one.
That runtime also puts the book within reach of the trip it might help you plan. Doyle called it "a great read to relax and dream about my next backpacking trip with", which is a fair statement of the use case. Anyone eyeing Section A as a first attempt, or eyeing any long trail at an age where the body has developed opinions, gets what the same response calls "a realistic snapshot of a person who had attempted to hike the PCT", at close enough range to be useful rather than aspirational.
Things to Know Before Starting A 100 Mile Journey Plus a Few Extra
Synthesis is the real risk here, and it is a specific one rather than a general complaint. A machine reading handles mileage, dates, and trail logistics without trouble; what it cannot do is carry the catch in a voice at the end of a bad day. This is a book about aches, arthritis flare-ups, tears, and a fiftieth birthday spent in the desert, material whose value sits almost entirely in the register of the person living it. The description promises journal and vlog entries, about the most intimate forms available, then hands them to a voice with no stake in any of it.
The star line does not survive arithmetic either. A 4.4 average sits above a counter reading six votes, and no combination of six whole-star ratings lands on 4.4 under any rounding rule anybody uses. Something in that pair is wrong, most probably the counter, and the practical consequence is the same either way: treat the number as decoration and read the two written responses instead. They tell you more, and one of them tells you more than it appears to at first glance.
Patti Doyle's response is cut off mid-sentence. It ends with the words "The author of" and whatever followed is simply gone. Truncation like that turns up often in scraped review columns, and it earns a mention here because the fragment breaks off precisely where a comparison or a caveat about the writer would have gone. What survives is warm and specific. What went missing may well have been the single most useful sentence anybody has written about this book.
Who Will Get the Most From It
Take this if you are past forty and have been quietly wondering whether a long trail is still available to you, or if you like trail journals for their texture rather than their triumph. It works for anyone planning the southern California stretch who wants to know what that desert does to a body no longer aged twenty-five. Under three and a half hours, it fits inside the drive to a trailhead. The other written response calls it "Nice easy read about a woman living out her dreams", which is roughly the register on offer.
Give it a miss if you want the full thru-hike, because Section A is what happened and Section A is what gets described, and give it a miss if a synthetic voice on confessional material is going to bother you, since that is exactly what the credit announces. Anyone hoping the star average carries information should look at the vote counter first. Hikers who want the honest, unfinished, still-limping version of a fiftieth birthday on the Pacific Crest Trail have one here, and the title refuses to oversell it.
Before You Listen
Who narrates the A 100 Mile Journey Plus a Few Extra audiobook?
The narrator field reads Virtual Voice, meaning a synthesized reading rather than a hired performer. No human reader is credited anywhere on the entry. For a book built from journal and vlog entries, that is the main thing to weigh, since the intimacy of the source material is the part synthesis handles least well.
Does the audiobook cover the entire Pacific Crest Trail?
No, and it never claims to. The description puts the full trail at roughly 2,650 miles from the Mexican border to Canada, then narrows to Section A in southern California plus a few extra miles. Scott set out aiming at a complete thru-hike and finished that opening section, which the title states plainly.
Why are both reviews dated before the release date?
One is from January 2021 and the other from January 2023, while the audio edition is dated April 2025. Whatever those two readers experienced, it was not this recording. Their comments about pacing, warmth and writing style still apply to the text, but nothing in either one addresses the synthesized delivery.
Can the 4.4 star average be trusted here?
Not as arithmetic. The counter shows six votes, and six whole-star ratings cannot average out to 4.4 under any rounding convention. One of the two figures is wrong. Since only two written responses appear, rated five stars and four, the useful information sits in the text of those rather than the number.
