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You bring up an interesting "what if". Let's say someone found him in the bus near death and they were able to get him to a hospital ASAP and he lived, how would that change his story/the narrative? Would a book still have been written, would Chris have written it?
Looks like it was his death that made the entire debacle noteworthy. Has anyone in this thread ever heard of these two characters? I hadn't, until a few days ago.
That's Wolf Wagner and John Hoentsch, two Germans who set off in the wrong sort of canoe in northern Manitoba, crashed it, and had to hike 70+ miles back to civilization. Which they did - took them 11 days. But they had the gear, the knowledge and the skills - although perhaps a bit lacking in the looks department - and so they lived to tell their story, only nobody cares.
Nope, that far out, you'll die unless you plan on returning to a resupply base (Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nenana even). You'll trip fall knock yourself out in the dead of winter and wake up dead. You'll slip and break an ankle, die of exposure, you'll experience an animal attack, get an infection that needs antibiotics but lays you up for septicemia.
Hell just running out of firewood where he was later in the year and he'd be toast.
But that's my point - he WASN'T "that far out." He was very close to civilization, and when he decided at the end of July that he was finished out there and wanted to get back to that civilization, he could have done so, if only he'd consulted a map. Sure, he could have met with a true accident along the way, but true accidents can kill any of us wherever we are. A true accident wasn't what killed him, though. His issue was simply extremely poor planning. There were at least two other routes he could have taken to avoid the dangerous ford crossing (the cable crossing, and the road leading into Denali National Park) but because he didn't look at a map he apparently didn't know about either of them.
People who go out knowing what they are facing and who die in true accidents aren't an issue. The problem is that McCandless clearly didn't fall into that category, and that stupid bus has since become a magnet to too many naive people just as unprepared for what they are facing in their "adventure" as he was.
Why would he give away all his money then work minimum wage jobs to keep from starving on the road? Wtf made him believe he could hike from Healy to the Bering sea with a 10 lb bag of rice, a 22 rifle and a few books? He didn't even have a tent ffs. I think his stumbling onto the bus was completely unexpected, and was the only thing that kept him from dying much sooner.
This is a really weird set of facts and the mind is very complex, a deep desire for suicide is the only thing that makes sense to me. I could be wrong, and he was just one weird sob - but stupidity can't be the answer, he got great grades in high school and college. He also showed his intelligence by surviving 2 years as a hobo.
Wow, it's fascinating on how you can take 100 different people and have them look at something and you can get 100 different opinions/theories on that something!
I see Chris giving away all that money to OXFAM America a couple of ways, it was a good cause he believed in, and it shows his anti-materialist/minimalist lifestyle and a big FU to his parents. Nowhere in that act do I see that meaning he was suicidal? I bet there are people in a similar situation as Chris that came from money and decided to live like a pauper (for whatever reason) and give away their trust fund, it doesn't mean their suicidal!
As for hiking all the way to the Bering Sea, how do we know he was serious? What if the bus wasn't there and he kept going, would he have turned around and started heading back to Healy when his rice was nearly gone and he couldn't catch/kill anymore wildlife?
It seems that when you, duke944, look at Chris, his life, his situation, what he did and how different and "not normal" it was as compared to how the rest of society lives and follows a very similar path, it makes you think he was suicidal. Like others have mentioned in this thread, I think he was overconfident, maybe a little cocky in his wilderness skill set, and in the end it cost him his life.
I believe he intended to hike back out of the wilderness, but I also believe he didn't have a fear of death (except until the very end when he was near-death and wrote the SOS note), and he knew that was a possibility. Just because people have little to no fear of death, doesn't make them suicidal. Many might see all those base jumpers or free solo climbers and think, they are suicidal or have a death wish, I don't see it that way, I think they just have very little to no fear of death!
That's Wolf Wagner and John Hoentsch, two Germans who set off in the wrong sort of canoe in northern Manitoba, crashed it, and had to hike 70+ miles back to civilization. Which they did - took them 11 days. But they had the gear, the knowledge and the skills - although perhaps a bit lacking in the looks department - and so they lived to tell their story, only nobody cares.
Their story isn't romantic enough. They were equipped, they had outdoor skills, and they survived. Where's the romance in that?
The also lacked a bizarre backstory, such as graduating from a prestigious college, giving all their money away and walking away from their car to live as tramps - for two years before their survival ordeal. They also lacked a red hot author to write a book about their adventure and spin a bs romanticized Jack Londonish yarn so he could sell lots of books.
I'm not talking about some lonely old man who felt sorry for him, I'm talking about connecting with his peers - women his age. Before left everything to be Alex Supertramp.
Did you not get the impression that everyone he met along his way really liked him? I sure did. At least, the people who were interviewed for the book. He seemed to connect more with people a bit older than himself, such as the hippie couple on the beach and Wayne Westerbrook (sp?) These were young adults. Why necessary to connect with young woman his age-though I think he did?
Looks like it was his death that made the entire debacle noteworthy. Has anyone in this thread ever heard of these two characters? I hadn't, until a few days ago.
That's Wolf Wagner and John Hoentsch, two Germans who set off in the wrong sort of canoe in northern Manitoba, crashed it, and had to hike 70+ miles back to civilization. Which they did - took them 11 days. But they had the gear, the knowledge and the skills - although perhaps a bit lacking in the looks department - and so they lived to tell their story, only nobody cares.
For those who are dissing Krakauer for writing the book I feel I should point out that he was working for Outside magazine and was assigned the story. He became so fascinated by the story and by Chris that he kept going and researching and trying to figure out what was in his head. I have no problem with it and don’t really understand why others do. Krakauer writes some really interesting books and a lot of research goes into them. And perhaps it was a cautionary tale meant to nudge people who want adventure into doing more research? Maybe. Again his is also a personality type and once he started digging into it I doubt he knew how to stop.
For those who are dissing Krakauer for writing the book I feel I should point out that he was working for Outside magazine and was assigned the story. He became so fascinated by the story and by Chris that he kept going and researching and trying to figure out what was in his head. I have no problem with it and don’t really understand why others do. Krakauer writes some really interesting books and a lot of research goes into them. And perhaps it was a cautionary tale meant to nudge people who want adventure into doing more research? Maybe. Again his is also a personality type and once he started digging into it I doubt he knew how to stop.
I think he spun a sad drawn out suicide into something it wasn't to sell lots of books. I also think Sean Penn did the same thing to sell movie tickets. That's it for me for this thread, I've said what I think and everyone can look at the story and make their own minds up about what really happened here. I know one thing's for sure, if I'm right all Chris wanted was to disappear - the book, movie and all this talk decades later about his life is a huge invasion of his privacy. You can thank Krakauer and his parents for that.
I believe he intended to hike back out of the wilderness, but I also believe he didn't have a fear of death (except until the very end when he was near-death and wrote the SOS note), and he knew that was a possibility. Just because people have little to no fear of death, doesn't make them suicidal. Many might see all those base jumpers or free solo climbers and think, they are suicidal or have a death wish, I don't see it that way, I think they just have very little to no fear of death!
Did you see the recent movie Free Solo, which documented Alex Honnold's successful attempt to free solo El Capitan? It's a very educational contrast to Chris McCandless's Alaska adventure. Alex Honnold planned that climb down to the inch, and he practiced the route over and over and over while roped with a climbing partner, until he had each tricky section truly mastered. And when he made the first attempt, he aborted the climb very early because something just didn't feel right to him. Short of not making the free solo attempt at all, he did everything it was possible to do to weigh the odds in favor of success.
What he didn't do was decide to just take off one morning and free solo El Cap because he'd has some experiences with minor bouldering problems, and hey, how hard could it be, really? That would be the free solo version of McCandless's "live entirely off the land in wild Alaska" trip - and I'm sure it would have ended just as tragically.
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