;_;11 minutes ago
Definitely tragic. However, consider this quote (taken from his wiki page.) "When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn't even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he [had] had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament [... ] Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide.Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian wrote:
You've never done anything careless? Most of us have, and live to tell about it. There is no doubt that McCandless underestimated, greatly, the situation he was putting himself in, but when you are that age that seems to be par for the course. I read the book many years ago and I recall that McCandless was on a sort of self constructed walk-about after graduating from college. When others were heading off to new careers, he was "dropping out" and going off to live in an abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere Alaska. Smart? No, but definitely the kind of thing 22 year olds do. I don't think the guy should be glorified or vilified. Damn good book though, I like reading Krakauer. Into Thin Air is a great one. Aside: My fathers cousin ended up marrying Rob Hall's widow. This happened after I had read the book. Strange that I felt I knew so much about her having never met her. Under the Banner of Heaven is also a great read. Check it out if you've not already.
I read Into the wild when I was at McCandless' age and I totally understood him. With hindside though I think he did a lot of really stupid things. No maps, no winter coat, killing a moose without the means to preserve the flesh and believing you're better then the rest of the world. But then I think of myself on my first hike north of Vancouver on the Howe Sound Crest trail. It was June but it was misty and there remained so much snow that I quickly got lost in a white out. I carried too much in my backpack and lost my canteen as I accidently pushed it over a cliff while resting. Only by retracing my steps in the snow did I find a way out but I was wet, cold, covered in mud and felt totally miserable.
Glad you found your way back. It's amazing how quickly a trek in to nature can turn in to a fight for survival when you are traveling alone, are unprepared and the weather turns. Those footprints in the snow could have saved your life... who knows? When I was sixteen years old I was grounded to my room and my best friend and neighbor's parents were out of town and he was having a party. After my parents fell asleep, I snuck out the basement door and walked over to his house. Around 3am I snuck back in. The next day my parents told me I was grounded for another week. "why?" I asked. "Because you snuck out", they said. "But I swear that I didn't" I said. My dad shook his head and led me to the window that overlooked our backyard. There in the snow were my incriminating foot prints. -I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and I am certain I wasn't as excited to find my own footprints in the snow as you were.
AGREED. It was a really fun book to read. Is "fun" the wrong word? It must be given how incredibly sad the book is at times. Still, the majority of it had me on the edge of my seat in a great way.
Thanks eataudio for spotting and sharing this. I always felt Krakauer was onto something with his hunch. It's clear from the book that he identified closely with McCandless; the book describes a similarly reckless adventure climbing an Alaskan mountain when he was a dumb kid. I wasn't impressed by Sean Penn's movie version of the story, but Eddie Vedder's soundtrack was great. And if you liked Into Thin Air, you must check out Eiger Dreams. Twelve stories of spectacular mountaineering adventures and mishaps. I admire the bravery and even hubris of people like McCandless, and I'm content to get my thrills reading about their exploits from the comfort of my chair.
I didn't enjoy the film version either, but the book was fantastic. I don't recall Eddie Vedder's soundtrack in a positive or negative way, but I have always liked his song, The Long Road that he recorded with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for the movie Dead Man Walking. -Good movie, good song, good stuff.