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News & Blogs Why the ‘Chris McCandless Bus’ Was Removed From Alaska’s Wilderness

Matt Derrick

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Flickr/The Alaska Landmine -- The back of the famous "Chris McCandless" bus.

The bus that served as shelter for itinerant hiker, hitchhiker and adventurer Chris McCandless and also became the site of his death has been removed from the Alaskan wilderness’ Denali State Park.

McCandless’ story was memorialized in Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book “Into the Wild” and further popularized when a subsequent movie was made from the book. As a result, the bus that McCandless called the “Magic Bus” in his journal has become famous itself.

However, the bus, which is located on the far side of a treacherous river, has also proven a death trap for some who have tried to reach it; according to local TV station KTVA-11, between 2009 and 2017, the state has conducted 15 search and rescue operations for people trying to reach the bus.

Here’s what you need to know:

The Bus Was Moved Because Trying to Reach It Posed A Safety Hazard



The bus where McCandless spent 114 days until his death in 1992 was helicoptered out June 18, the Washington Post reported. The Department of Natural Resources and Alaska Army National Guard worked together, cutting holes in the roof of the bus and extracting it with a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, according to KTVA-11.

Located on the Stampede Trail by the Teklanika River near Healy, the bus was removed because its presence as a tourist attraction was putting lives at risk, the Washington Post reported. In a press release, Alaska Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige said the organization considered alternatives but ultimately decided that moving the bus was the best option.

In February, five hikers from Italy tried to reach the bus but suffered frostbite and had to be rescued by Alaska State Troopers, CTV reported. The incident was one of several that have added to calls that the bus should be moved.

The Anchorage Daily News reported in 2010 that Claire Ackermann, a 29-year-old Swiss woman backpacking the Stampede Trail, drowned while attempting to cross the Teklanika River. And last year, 24-year-old Veramika Maikamava from Belarus also died while trying to cross the Teklanika River, according to the Associated Press.

According to KTVA-11, authorities are still deciding whether the bus will be displayed in a safer location, and other items, such as a suitcase with McCandless’ belongings, have been stored for safekeeping.


McCandless’ Journey Made Him Famous, Even After Death



After college, McCandless left a comfortable suburban life to go on a nationwide tour, hitchhiking, relying on the kindness of strangers and working odd jobs before he eventually made his way to Alaska, according to Krakauer’s account and information from McCandless’ journals.

A book from McCandless’ sister Carine has suggested that his parents’ abusive past might have driven him to want to escape, Outside Online reported. According to Krakauer, McCandless deceived his parents at the outset of his trip:
When Walt and Billie went to Atlanta in the spring of 1990 for Chris’s college graduation, he told them that he was planning another summerlong trip and that he’d drive up to visit them in Annandale before hitting the road. But he never showed. Shortly thereafter he donated the $20,000 in his bank account to Oxfam, loaded up his car, and disappeared. From then on he scrupulously avoided contacting either his parents or Carine, the sister for whom he purportedly cared immensely.
Krakauer wrote that McCandless had planned on leaving the bus and walked 30 miles toward the road before he found himself dissuaded by the state of the Teklanika River:
Two days later, halfway to the road, he arrived in heavy rain on the west bank of the Teklanika River, a major stream spawned by distant glaciers on the crest of the Alaska Range. Sixty-seven days earlier it had been frozen over, and he had simply strolled across it. Now, however, swollen with rain and melting snow, the Teklanika was running big, cold, and fast.
If he could reach the far shore, the rest of the hike to the highway would be trivial, but to get there he would have to negotiate a 75-foot channel of chest-deep water that churned with the power of a freight train. In his journal, McCandless wrote, “Rained in. River look impossible. Lonely, scared.” Concluding that he would drown if he attempted to cross, he turned around and walked back toward the bus, back into the fickle heart of the bush.
According to what Krakauer wrote in the New Yorker, perceptions of McCandless have ranged from seeing him as an adventurous folk hero to an arrogant attention-seeker:
I’ve received thousands of letters from people who admire McCandless for his rejection of conformity and materialism in order to discover what was authentic and what was not, to test himself, to experience the raw throb of life without a safety net. But I’ve also received plenty of mail from people who think he was an idiot who came to grief because he was arrogant, woefully unprepared, mentally unbalanced, and possibly suicidal.
There is some controversy over how McCandless died. Krakauer has said he believes McCandless could have accidentally poisoned his already-emaciated frame. Others have assumed that McCandless died from starvation; according to the New Yorker, he went from being a 140-pound 24-year-old to weighing just 67 pounds eight months later.

Relying on McCandless’s journals, Krakauer described what he believed the young man’s final moments were like this way:
After three months on a marginal diet, McCandless had run up a sizable caloric deficit. He was balanced on a precarious, razor-thin edge. And then, on July 30, he made the mistake that pulled him down. His journal entry for that date reads, “Extremely weak. Fault of pot[ato] seed. Much trouble just to stand up. Starving. Great Jeopardy.”

Laid low by the poisonous seeds, he was too weak to hunt effectively and thus slid toward starvation. Things began to spin out of control with terrible speed. “DAY 100! MADE IT!” he noted jubilantly on August 5, proud of achieving such a significant milestone, “but in weakest condition of life. Death looms as serious threat. Too weak to walk out.”
At some point during this week, he tore the final page from Louis L’Amour’s memoir, “Education of a Wandering Man” … On the other side of the page, which was blank, McCandless penned a brief adios: “I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!” Then he crawled into the sleeping bag his mother had made for him and slipped into unconsciousness.

 

dprogram

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Such a sad story. And a great warning to all of you who think you can make it.
 

Bushpig

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Adventure is amazing. But he was stubborn and didn't take advice or help. I don't know how he thought he was prepared. I don't consider him a hero, personally, but his story is definitely a warning.
Don't bite off more than you can chew, or you'll starve to death!

Be safe out there, people. Know your fucking limits and fuck pride.
 
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Adventure is amazing. But he was stubborn and didn't take advice or help. I don't know how he thought he was prepared. I don't consider him a hero, personally, but his story is definitely a warning.
Don't bite off more than you can chew, or you'll starve to death!

Be safe out there, people. Know your fucking limits and fuck pride.

I love you bushpig
 

EphemeralStick

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Good riddance I say. I've talked about Chris McCandless quite a bit over the years and honestly his story is one that frustrates me greatly, mainly because I've met so many McCandless fans during my travels that try to emulate his"burn your possessions and the world will provide" mentality. I've talked about this at length with Matt before buuut since you posted this article I might as well throw it out there again for conversation sake. ::wacky::

The fact that he came from a wealthy family and then turned away from that in favor of relying on the kindness of strangers is infuriating. He was an upper middle class raised person who had the financial means to help the people he encountered yet instead he ignored his privilege and depended on people who had less than him to take care of his needs.

It shouldn't have to be said but if you're a person who has the financial means to support yourself yet instead you rely on people living in poverty to take care of your basic needs, you are an asshole.

His death was a direct result of his own arrogance, yet when people read his story that is rarely the take-away they come to. It's almost always interpreted as a story that romanticizes this idea that choosing to live beneath your means is a symbol of humility and that doing so will somehow make you more content with your life.

While there is some truth to that; the fact that this kid ignored peoples advice, couldn't provide for himself, and thought he could survive in the wilderness with zero preparation or training, greatly overshadows any message of humility that is trying to be sold.

I've met more than a handful of greenhorns in Slab City who read/watched Into the Wild and got in their heads that Chris McCandless is the role model for what it is they're trying to find by traveling, which more often than not is accompanied by a gross misunderstanding of what homelessness actually entails. Some of them were even in the same position as McCandless in that they had the financial means to take care of themselves and others but instead chose to "rely on the kindness of strangers" which is just a pretty way of saying "I need someone else to take care of me."

The removal of that bus was a wise decision. It was a beacon for the ill-prepared to flock towards their demise and by removing it, maybe, just maybe, people will think twice before idolizing a kid who if anyone of us ran into out there, we'd recognize him as a wook.
 

Beegod Santana

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Seriously, he could've thrown some raging bridge parties with that 20k. I know I know "but he gave it all to charity!" Who knows what Oxfam did with it. Coulda just been some beauracrat's bonus for increasing productivity that year.
 
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r3yn

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Damn, I was up near there a few years back -- I didn't think the bus would be a limited time opportunity. Sad to read that. But thanks for posting, Matt. Guess I'll have to find some new interesting hobo-historical places I can wander to.
 
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brando

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Near my home in PA a popular hiking trail (Glen Onoko) was permanently closed due to too many accidents and injuries. Most of these were caused by improper footwear and/or inexperienced, out of shape hikers. Now nobody can enjoy the trail.

I don't care for this baby proofing of reality. Life is dangerous. Some of us just won't make it. But that's ok.
 

r3yn

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I don't care for this baby proofing of reality. Life is dangerous. Some of us just won't make it. But that's ok.

Exactly! Fuck this "safety first" nonsense!

Life is about risk.

I'm hoping that the next generation can remember that and embrace it like a counter-culture -- but hopefully where it becomes the new normal.
 

Stinkyyy

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Only recently read that book. Great story. Interesting that so many people call Chris an idiot for living how he did and how he met his end, yet if he had made it back out of Alaska alive no doubt his story would have made him a hero or daredevil.
 
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train in vain

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Only recently read that book. Great story. Interesting that so many people call Chris an idiot for living how he did and how he met his end, yet if he had made it back out of Alaska alive no doubt his story would have made him a hero or daredevil.
But he didnt make it. The end.
 

Matt Derrick

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i think the guy gets too much hate from travelers; he never asked to have a book written about him, and if the book wasn't written, none of us would be having this conversation now. he'd just be another traveler that bit the dust. happens all the time.
 

Lotus Shaped Potato

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Yea, feels more like Chris is a cautionary tale about not trying to go blind into the wild and expect nature to provide. Especially alone.

We formed tribes and community pretty early in our evolution, there’s a reason that working together has made humans the dominant species. Going it alone, without knowing the area, is a great way to die without planning to.

y’all weird with his money thing. To commit to the class placement he was born into would defacto mean a high level of participation in capitalism likely to a direct detriment to others; there’s no ethical wage labor under capitalism, ultimately in America you can’t exist without capitalism fucking someone over in the process of your survival. Whether that’s the poor people giving you handouts or the slave laborers providing clothing and food. We could see the his overall reduced participation ultimately as less detrimental

Unless you believe work itself is virtuous or that people don’t deserve food, medicine, shelter and clothing as natural givens of being alive in society. Then yea he’s just a fucking useless bum.
 
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sevedemanos

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Good riddance I say. I've talked about Chris McCandless quite a bit over the years and honestly his story is one that frustrates me greatly, mainly because I've met so many McCandless fans during my travels that try to emulate his"burn your possessions and the world will provide" mentality. I've talked about this at length with Matt before buuut since you posted this article I might as well throw it out there again for conversation sake. ::wacky::

The fact that he came from a wealthy family and then turned away from that in favor of relying on the kindness of strangers is infuriating. He was an upper middle class raised person who had the financial means to help the people he encountered yet instead he ignored his privilege and depended on people who had less than him to take care of his needs.

It shouldn't have to be said but if you're a person who has the financial means to support yourself yet instead you rely on people living in poverty to take care of your basic needs, you are an asshole.

His death was a direct result of his own arrogance, yet when people read his story that is rarely the take-away they come to. It's almost always interpreted as a story that romanticizes this idea that choosing to live beneath your means is a symbol of humility and that doing so will somehow make you more content with your life.

While there is some truth to that; the fact that this kid ignored peoples advice, couldn't provide for himself, and thought he could survive in the wilderness with zero preparation or training, greatly overshadows any message of humility that is trying to be sold.

I've met more than a handful of greenhorns in Slab City who read/watched Into the Wild and got in their heads that Chris McCandless is the role model for what it is they're trying to find by traveling, which more often than not is accompanied by a gross misunderstanding of what homelessness actually entails. Some of them were even in the same position as McCandless in that they had the financial means to take care of themselves and others but instead chose to "rely on the kindness of strangers" which is just a pretty way of saying "I need someone else to take care of me."

The removal of that bus was a wise decision. It was a beacon for the ill-prepared to flock towards their demise and by removing it, maybe, just maybe, people will think twice before idolizing a kid who if anyone of us ran into out there, we'd recognize him as a wook.

his storys kinda lame and never even considered reading into the wild, myself. but ultimately we benefit by proxy, bc knowing that something stupid/crazy has already been done — and unsuccessfully — will always singlehandedly scratch a great deal of nonsense off the bucket list for many of us. or at least for me bc i mightve tried it by now, once or twice, bc im retarded
 

TheDesertMouse

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Didnt he have several odd jobs though? Like seasonal work? How is that relying on poor people for his needs? seems like he worked for his needs and then hitched and hopped freight to get around. Is it possible we’re projecting a modern spanging dirty kid persona onto him that he didnt embody?
 
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