Another person takes a trip "into the wild" bus (Anchorage: buying, suburbs)

[Harrier]

There has been no conclusive evidence presented that McCandless broke into the nearby cabins.

Glitch I really wonder how you became to be so arrogant and smug. You seem to think that you have all the answers and anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot. You say that you are an experienced wilderness survivalist. This really doesn't mean anything. Anyone can die in the wilderness no matter their preparation and experience level. Someday you may die in that manner - and people will be calling you stupid and unprepared for survival because you are DEAD! Your logic fails on every level. I think you like to attack MCCandless simply so you can feel better about yourself.

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by Harrier

There has been no conclusive evidence presented that McCandless broke into the nearby cabins.

Glitch I really wonder how you became to be so arrogant and smug. You seem to think that you have all the answers and anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot. You say that you are an experienced wilderness survivalist. This really doesn't mean anything. Anyone can die in the wilderness no matter their preparation and experience level. Someday you may die in that manner - and people will be calling you stupid and unprepared for survival because you are DEAD! Your logic fails on every level. I think you like to attack MCCandless simply so you can feel better about yourself.

If I starve to death on the road system (remember, he was living in a bus, which is NOT wilderness by any stretch of the imagination), then everyone on the planet has the right to declare me an idiot, or worse.

I was experienced in hunting and backpacking in the lower-48, not Alaska. I have been hunting since age 8, and backpacking since age 14, in just about every State west of the Mississippi River. Even with that background, I did not think I had the experience or skills necessary to survive long term in the Alaskan bush.

The difference between McCandless and myself is that I survived and he did not. I had the common sense to have a contingency plan, and the intelligence to know when it was time to leave. McCandless failed in that regard, on both counts, and that is why he is dead. THAT is what makes him a complete idiot.

Continue to glorify his stupidity, like Hollywood, if it makes you feel better, but the rest of us will always consider him in the same category as Timothy Tredwell - Yet another urbanite moron without any common sense.

[RayinAK]

McCandless showed his stupidity from the beginning. He did not listen the the warnings from experienced Alaskans.

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by Glitch

If I starve to death on the road system (remember, he was living in a bus, which is NOT wilderness by any stretch of the imagination), then everyone on the planet has the right to declare me an idiot, or worse.

I was experienced in hunting and backpacking in the lower-48. I have been hunting since age 8, and backpacking since age 14, in just about every State west of the Mississippi River. Even with that background, I did not think I had the experience or skills necessary to survive long term in the Alaskan bush.

The difference between McCandless and myself is that I survived and he did not. I had the common sense to have a contingency plan, and the intelligence to know when it was time to leave. McCandless failed in that regard, on both counts, and that is why he is dead. THAT is what makes him a complete idiot.

Continue to glorify his stupidity, like Hollywood, if it makes you feel better, but the rest of us will always consider him in the same category as Timothy Tredwell - Yet another urbanite moron without any common sense.

Again the criteria of competance is whether one lives or dies. It is much more complicated than that. Experienced people die all the time in the wilderness, not because of stupidity or unpreparedness, but because nature is unforgiving and harsh and shyte happens that even the most meticulous, fit, and intelligent person may not be able to handle.

You are free to have your opinion of McCandless. It just sems odd that you can be so smug when for any person "there for the grace of God go I" applies to many situations.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Harrier

Again the criteria of competance is whether one lives or dies. It is much more complicated than that. Experienced people die all the time in the wilderness, not because of stupidity or unpreparedness, but because nature is unforgiving and harsh and shyte happens that even the most meticulous, fit, and intelligent person may not be able to handle.

You are free to have your opinion of McCandless. It just sems odd that you can be so smug when for any person "there for the grace of God go I" applies to many situations.

An intelligent person prepares himself or herself for such an undertaking. McCandles didn't, nor did he listen to what others had to say.

Your view of McCandles is quite fantastic, not like this one:
http://nmge.gmu.edu/textandcommunity...n_Response.pdf

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by RayinAK

McCandless showed his stupidity from the beginning. He did not listen the the warnings from experienced Alaskans.

That is another difference between myself and McCandless. I sought out experienced Alaskans before I moved to Alaska. I found someone in Talkeetna who owned property and a cabin in the area I was interested in, and had long phone conversations about the terrain, weather, and critters. This was before browsers and the WWW.

It was he who told me about Devil's Club, which prompted me to order snake-proof chaps from Cabelas (which work great by the way). I was a sponge, absorbing everything I could. Even so, there was a great deal I did not know to ask.

When I finally arrived in Talkeetna, he allowed me to store my stuff on his property in Talkeetna while I was up-river scouting.

[R_Cowgirl]

We have a "stupid motorist law" here in Arizona. It's for the idjits who ignore our "DON'T DRIVE THROUGH THE WASH WHEN IT RAINS!" signs. In the early days when they built Feenix, they decided they didn't need no stinkin' street drains cuz it rained about every eleventy hundred days. So they just put in really deep dips in the road and built washes alongside so's the water could wash on by. So you are not supposed to drive through it, since you can't tell how deep it is. And every single year we lose a couple of people. Every once in awhile a couple of teenagers decide to try surfing it. And every year the guvmint has to go in and save them. So they actually call it the "Stupid Motorist Law." We will save your sorry a**, but you pay us when you get out of the hospital.

We also have some laws like that in Hawaii. If you go hiking and we have to save you, we bill you. That's pure democracy: you make a choice, there are consequences. Pay up.

Actually, IMHO, if we all paid a little more attention to the choice ~ consequence paradigm, we'd have less stupid behavior. But i think that's another forum!

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by R_Cowgirl

We have a "stupid motorist law" here in Arizona. It's for the idjits who ignore our "DON'T DRIVE THROUGH THE WASH WHEN IT RAINS!" signs. In the early days when they built Feenix, they decided they didn't need no stinkin' street drains cuz it rained about every eleventy hundred days. So they just put in really deep dips in the road and built washes alongside so's the water could wash on by. So you are not supposed to drive through it, since you can't tell how deep it is. And every single year we lose a couple of people. Every once in awhile a couple of teenagers decide to try surfing it. And every year the guvmint has to go in and save them. So they actually call it the "Stupid Motorist Law." We will save your sorry a**, but you pay us when you get out of the hospital.

We also have some laws like that in Hawaii. If you go hiking and we have to save you, we bill you. That's pure democracy: you make a choice, there are consequences. Pay up.

Actually, IMHO, if we all paid a little more attention to the choice ~ consequence paradigm, we'd have less stupid behavior. But i think that's another forum!

We have similar laws in Alaska. For example, it used to cost us, on average, about $65,000 to save someone on Denali. As a result, we now require climber's insurance before anyone is allowed on the Mountain.

For now at least, you can still go hiking or backpacking without having to obtain insurance first. However, if we have to go to the expense of rescuing lots of people, then I expect that will change.

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by RayinAK

An intelligent person prepares himself or herself for such an undertaking. McCandles didn't, nor did he listen to what others had to say.

Your view of McCandles is quite fantastic, not like this one:
http://nmge.gmu.edu/textandcommunity...n_Response.pdf

Well if this all you read then I can see how it would skew your view of the subject. Interestingly, he ends it by saying "I did not write this essay to trash McCandless, not intentionally." His entire "essay" is a smug, arrogant, hit piece, based on inaccurate information, and a holier then thou attitude that permeates the entire writing.

Most of these diatribes against McCandless are based on the assumption that he was unprepared to survive, unknowledgeble about the land, did not show the proper "respect" for the land, and was incompetent as a backpacker.

None of this is true. He did survive for 16 weeks. He knew he had a margin of error and had to get out before breakup was entirely complete. He was testing his limits and left to cross the Teklanika too late. He showed poor judgment in not finding the gauging station before he became too weak to get out, this however does not equate to incompentance.

A tragic chain of events cost him his life. This could befall any of you here who so smugly say that you would never die because you "know what you are doing and know limitations.

[wildchild_to]

Originally Posted by jacobwilliam77

The Teklanika River - one of the reasons why Chris McCandless wound up dead.

Chris McCandless made himself dead,,, no one, no river is to blame for his death just himself.