IS THERE MORE TO THE CHRISTOPHER MCCANDLESS STORY???

[GoNorth]

that he had a gun with plenty of bullets in it when he died.

And a machete and lots of other stuff, right. I totally agree with you.

What seems more interesting to me, is the thing she said about the surroundings of the bus and the different possibilities to get help. Ok, it's not the first time someone mentions the planes and making a fire and all that. However so far I had thought that perhaps there weren't that many planes in that area by then. And especially regarding the Stampede trail itself, I had always believed that - except for the first miles perhaps - this had long time been a rather narrow path that had only become larger and accessible to vehicles in the last few years, since more and more people are visiting the bus. So the fact that this had always been a road used by vehicles was quite new to me (so far I just knew what that Victor had said on youtube about people who knew he was at the bus).

As I said before, I don't agree with that lady's conclusion that Chris wanted to die, but I just wonder how all this fits together.

I'll be back to add more later... : )

Can't wait.

[erikhalfacre]

I think your friend is pretty misinformed. The Stampede Road was never a road more-so than a 'road in construction.' The funding never came through for the bridges, so at it's most developed it was still just a wide Caterpillar trail, not really a road. It's important to remember that Bus 142 was left there, right after construction of the road 'completed' because the trail was in such rough shape that the bus snapped an axle being towed out. The Stampede Road/Trail/Path/Whatever has never been anything other than a jeep trail.

Also, as far as I'm aware, the trail never went further than Stampede Mine, not to Kantishna. There is a jeep trail that heads from Kantishna out that direction but it's not 'Stampede' and it doesn't/hasn't connected as far as I'm aware.

[GoNorth]

The Stampede Road/Trail/Path/Whatever has never been anything other than a jeep trail.

Actually, that's how I understood what she said as well: not a road according to the definition in the lower 48 (or in Europe ), but something that Alaskans do call a road.

(actually, more people seem to call it like that, according to what user Husky wrote on the opinion of some locals in another topic:

... walked out a gravel road, illegally killed a cow moose and let it rot, illegally killed some birds and porcupines, ate them and curled up in a ball and died. ...

http://www.christophermccandless.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4929&p=7324#p7324)

But anyway, I can only repeat what she said, as a person having known the area for a long time and having been at the bus and on the trail/road about 20 years ago.
But my question was not so much about the exact definition of a road in Alaska , but about the possibilities Chris probably would have had to get in touch with people who could have helped him.

[erikhalfacre]

8 miles of Stampede Road are a 'road.' It's actually state maintained to a point and there are many side roads coming off of it with homes and such. Past 8 mile lake though, the road degrades into a trail, by any logical definition.

I'm not making this point so much to dispute your friends knowledge of the area, as to keep from spreading false conceptions about the difficulty of the trail. People read stuff like this and they think the trail is less of a trail than just a road and that hiking it will be a cake walk. Then we end up with unnecessary rescues that cost the taxpayers money that could be better used for other things.

I agree that the issue of is-it-a-trail-or-a-road is relatively inconsequential, so long as people understand that this is a 40 mile hike (if you start at 8 mile lake) through backcountry, can be difficult, includes difficult river crossings, and if you go out there you may or may not be able to hitch a ride out with a passing four-wheeler. If the conditions are wrong, you might get stuck there for some time. That's really the point I want to make.

I just hear too many people say stuff like "I can't believe you could starve to death in a bus 20 miles from the highway down a gravel road if you had much of a brain." That's pretty over-simplified. Reality's a bit different.

[Husky]

FALL 2011 004.jpg

Did this lady say how long she was out at the bus and how many other people she saw? My impression is that back in '92 very few people went very far out the Stampede in summer. There was the occasional hiking group but most of them turned around at the Teklanika. People came to Denali to hike in the Park's high country then, not out Stampede.

The only Ranger patrols were in September up along the old Park boundary- seven miles south of the bus- and Rangers had little interest in campfires or anything else downstream along the Stampede.

I can believe that a few people may have gotten out there and seen Chris at some time and that the word got around Healy that he was living in the bus. But I doubt they drove there in a Tercel, even if it was a four wheel drive with big tires. The road was better then but only ATV's got past the swamp where the road leaves Fish Creek (where the sign is now warning people to turn around.) I think that no one would have been out there to help Chris in August for the same reason he wasn't able to walk back in- the river intimidated the few people who might have been out there.

There were planes coming in to Healy and the Park strip from Kantishna once in a while when the weather was socked in along the Park road flyway but not near as many as now because no air service was operating in Healy. It would have taken a pretty good size smokey fire to attract small planes. But I think he could have done it with the piles of driftwood upstream from the bus- if he could have gotten a fire going quick enough when he heard a plane.

A bigger fire would have been noticed and reported by jets- they do that- and the bus area is in a high suppression zone so Alaska Fire Service or the Ranger plane would have checked it out. But that would have meant an "official" rescue and investigation- something Chris may not have wanted given his apparent shame over the moose he'd killed.

The most activity on Stampede back then came in the late summer when hunters would go out. Just like now they would park at 8 Mile and walk or ATV farthur out. (There was even an outhouse at the 8 Mile parking area then but people tore it up for firewood.) A few hunters would use the bus every year as a base camp. They would write their names and the date on the bus wall along with how much game they had shot. In the 70's it was still open to caribou hunting so some of that writing included dates in mid-August. Perhaps Chris read some of that dated graffiti and thus expected hunters to show up and help him...

It may indicate how few people were going out to the bus then that even though moose season started on September 1st, no one found Chris until September 6th. Found by a moose hunter who quickly thought the bus might be a crime scene...kind of ironic.

These days moose hunters show up several days early and take their more muscular ATV's past the Sushana right to the Park boundaries. So the Rangers also come out and patrol- saw a Park Service truck and trailer parked at 7 mile today. Also saw a four wheeler all loaded up with a butchered moose at the 8 Mile lot. (We take the dog out there for a run sometimes.) Then on the way back in we saw a cow with two calves feeding right next to the road- the dog really enjoyed that...

[GoNorth]

@Husky: Thanks once again for your detailed explanations. I assume you live in the area? Have you lived there for a long time and experienced what the elements were about 20 years ago or do you know it from someone who did? It is or would be really interesting to have statements from several people who actually knew the area at the time.
The lady I talked to just said what I already wrote above: that she and her husband spent the night in the bus - as people had done before and people still do occasionally (hunters or so). I didn't question her more about that.

I can believe that a few people may have gotten out there and seen Chris at some time and that the word got around Healy that he was living in the bus. But I doubt they drove there in a Tercel, even if it was a four wheel drive with big tires. The road was better then but only ATV's got past the swamp where the road leaves Fish Creek (where the sign is now warning people to turn around.) I think that no one would have been out there to help Chris in August for the same reason he wasn't able to walk back in- the river intimidated the few people who might have been out there.

Probably. I mean, you never know exactly how many people passed by in a certain period. Just remember the day when Chris was found, there were 3 different parties independent from each other, that arrived at the bus on the same day. And we can be quite sure that at that time, there hadn't been anyone passing by for at least several weeks. But of course, it also seems very unlikely that there hadn't been anyone in ALL the time Chris lived there. First because of what that guy on the youtube video said. And also, as I wrote some time ago in this topic (some pages earlier) I could imagine that Chris might have put the SOS note there after having noticed that someone had been passing by (perhaps because he had missed the person before, or because he really had been hiding from people so far and finally changed his mind).

A bigger fire would have been noticed and reported by jets- they do that- and the bus area is in a high suppression zone so Alaska Fire Service or the Ranger plane would have checked it out. But that would have meant an "official" rescue and investigation- something Chris may not have wanted given his apparent shame over the moose he'd killed.

Well, that's exactly my thoughts as well (see one of my former posts).

I mean, the reason why I posted the stuff the lady said is not that I would like to believe mean things that people say about Chris (I also told her that I like the guy in principle and that we simply have different points of view), but I just try to stay open (and I think that's also the initial purpose of this thread) when it comes to "new" elements about what happened or might have happened at the time.

In fact, one such point is the fact that Chris apparently didn't try to get rescued by a plane, either by making a fire or by writing something on the roof of the bus or whatever. So, perhaps it's really as simple as this: He just wanted to avoid to be rescued that way when he was still in not too bad shape. I mean, I really don't think that in the very end he would have refused anyone's help (and somehow try to hide), because that would mean that he really wanted to die which I really can't imagine at all, but probably at the time when he realized that he wouldn't be able to get out on his own, there wasn't any opportunity to get help any longer .

[waytoolongatsea]

Although I think the backpack was kind of creepy in the documentary. I'd guess that Chris did vandalize the cabins, as I read I think in the original "death of an innocent" article that he had broken into another cabin before to get supplies, probably while having 3 or 4 hundred dollars in his wallet. I've lived on the road, in buses, in rainbow camps so I have been in the park, on the bench, and in the mission line with Chris's type. When you live off the land, even in a cabin in Alaska you use whatever there. So, for him to take a pack and use it from a place where he knew no one would be using it anymore is completely normal. As normal as Chris using the bus he came along that wasn't his, or any of the things inside of it.

We live by our own set of rules, the code of the outlaw -- We'll give everything we got and take anything we need.

The same guy who wouldn't light a fire to save his life because he would be destroying nature. To me, is the same type of guy that would be so jaded by society and others that he would almost enjoy breaking out all the windows, and hopping on the roof swinging an axe like a maniac. In small towns like these, everybody knows whose coming and going and the list of likely suspects in short.

I'm 28 now, looking to assimilate, I now want the wife and kid, the dog, the white picket fence, the 3 piece leisure suit. I just wish Chris had a chance to truly gain some insight with age and maturity because it took me a long time to realize that parents aren't perfect.