Christopher McCandless

April 28: Chris gets dropped off by Jim Gallien at the Stampede Trail and walks "into the wild".

May 1st: Magic Bus Day

During this early period of Chris's sojourn he was reportedly exploring the hills north and west of the bus with the goal of continuing on toward the coast some hundreds of miles to the west. He wrote during this period that he was snowed in and experiencing a famine. (He must have meant a hunting famine because surely he hadn't consumed all of his rice this soon?)

Krakauer writes that Chris got as far west as the toklat river before turning back to the Sushana. He was off exploring for about three weeks before returning to the bus. Does anyone know if pictures from that period were released in the new book? I'm curious if he was able to find the old Stampede road or if he just traveled cross country. Parts of the road were visible then if he had traveled north on the Sushana gravel bars and scanned the hills to the west. But winter travelers weren't going that way so he wouldn't have seen a trail in old snow.

Conditions are much the same this year so I hope anyone hiking out there now is being careful. It was quite nice earlier this spring but lately has turned cold again and is snowing and raining this morning.

There are a lot more possibilities for rescue this year, though. When that fellow went out to live in the bus for a while the Park Service rangers went out to rescue him for no apparent reason. Then several days later the Healy fire rescue team went out to check on him, also. The only reason I can ascertain for these two unnecessary rescue activities is that both organizations had gotten new equipment and wanted to test it out on the trail. So, you folks who are planning a trip to the bus this summer can expect to see lots of Ranger activity. You can usually tell if they are out there simply by looking for their trucks parked along the road on the way to 8 Mile. There is also another tour outfit that will operate with amphibious Argo vehicles. Who knows how far they will get...

Good to know about the Argo tours.

I wasn't aware that NPS had gone to check on Mike. He told me troopers had asked him to leave, and then I met the Healy FD as they were coming out and we were skiing in. He definitely did not ask for any of that though. I certainly am not happy about all the crazies that go out that way reckless and woefully under prepared, and end up having to get rescued at others' expense, but if the various agencies feel like running out there just because they hear someone is out there, regardless of whether or not there's any emergency, that's on them really.

Still, a lot of people (many of whom are on this site) get annoyed with troopers and other locals who give them hell about hiking to the bus, and tell them they should reconsider, but it's good to think about it from their perspective. They just don't want to bring you out in a body bag and have to call your family, and most of them genuinely do care, which is something hikers should be thankful for.

Husky wrote: He was off exploring for about three weeks before returning to the bus. Does anyone know if pictures from that period were released in the new book? I'm curious if he was able to find the old Stampede road or if he just traveled cross country. ...

There are indeed some photos of that part of the journey, but they probably wouldn't help you to know where exactly he hiked along. As far as I remember from the Krakauer book, he continued on the Stampede trail, but lost it (intentionally or not) for a short part. The new book also states that "he continues to follow the Stampede trail westward..." and one photo is supposed to be taken "near Stampede Trail and Toklat river intersect".