Visiting Bus 142 is an insult to Chris

[AKThill4]

Time and time again people are traveling across the globe to relive Chris' experience by hiking to the bus where he perished. Whether they're doing it to honor him or his philosophy...I think it's an insult to both. Chris' inevitable fate was death when he decided to make the trek into the bush unprepared. He sense of adventure failed him when he didn't make the realization that there were many opportunities to save his life prior to starving to death. Being there for quite some time he should have realized the outlets at his disposal to finding safety. When starting to starve to death, why didn't he leave or at least attempt to cross the river at a different junction? Why didn't he attempt to find help? Did his ignorance ultimately lead to his death? Or did he going into the bush never planning on leaving once he found his utopia?

Irregardless, his Alaskan experience was a huge mistake. He had accomplished so much prior to getting there and by going to visit the place where he died really doesn't show your respect for Chris, especially when showing up unprepared. There have been dozens of rescues on the Stampede Trail since the book was published from tourists showing up in Alaska grossly unprepared to handle it. In addition to the numerous rescues, there have always been drownings in the attempt to cross the river to get to bus 142. If you want to truly honor Chris McCandless, live out his philosophy by experiencing your own adventures. Push aside your inner plasticity/material driven self and head out on an adventure..but don't go get yourself killed because you think you're honoring your "hero" but showing up in AK on a "whim and ultimately a false pretense" (Chris Ingram).

His ignorance got him killed, learn from his experience...take the good and bad..and stay away from bus 142.

[thedoors]

1. Irregardless isn't a word.

2. Why is it important to you to dissuade others from visiting the bus?

[goombla]

I think your message is mixed with both truth and false.
Everyone should in fact live out their own adventure, and somewhere along the road find their own personal "magic bus", but to bluntly claim that his ignorance got him killed is ignorant in itself. There's so much speculation and so many possibilities that in a situation such as this, you must really just go after the straight facts; That is, he was in the happiest place of his life before he made a mistake that cost him his life that even Einstein could have made.

[saturation64]

Hi
Do you not think,that people want to visit the bus for various reason,,,maybe to pay homage to Chris,or as a mark of respect even,is it such a bad thing that Chris has infact inspired so many people to follow in his footsteps,if even for just a moment,to capture and feel and see,something of what he did. For so many,they will never have the balls to go the hole hog,even though most would love to dream of it..the closest they will ever come is to spend a few days getting a close to what he experienced as possible and hopefully return having experienced something,that might change their lives forever,make them better people and appreciate life and what we have around us on a daily basis. Sometimes it takes one person to lead the way and Chris has done that. They want to see it and experience it for themselves,even if only for a short while. We all have an inner Alexander Supertramp inside of us...I think Chris himself would be amazed and rather proud that so many have been inspired to Visit No:142,,I certainly dont think he would consider it an Insult..
Chill

[GoNorth]

Whether they're doing it to honor him or his philosophy...I think it's an insult to both.

I partly agree. I also think that visiting the bus cannot honor neither a person nor their philosophy, but I wouldn’t call it an insult!

Chris' inevitable fate was death when he decided to make the trek into the bush unprepared.

This is certainly not true, because nothing was “inevitable” from the start. In other circumstances he could have survived even badly prepared – or he could have died in another way much earlier as well; just remember how long he survived with only 10 pounds of rice and a small caliber rifle in his backpack.

…and by going to visit the place where he died really doesn't show your respect for Chris, especially when showing up unprepared. There have been dozens of rescues on the Stampede Trail since the book was published from tourists showing up in Alaska grossly unprepared to handle it.

Very true, however as far as I know, not everybody who went to the bus or is still planning on doing so in the future, belongs to the unprepared and clueless species you describe.

If you want to truly honor Chris McCandless, live out his philosophy by experiencing your own adventures. Push aside your inner plasticity/material driven self and head out on an adventure..

Very well put!

if even for just a moment,to capture and feel and see,something of what he did. For so many,they will never have the balls to go the hole hog,even though most would love to dream of it..the closest they will ever come is to spend a few days getting a close to what he experienced

I think that’s the point that most of those “pilgrims” get wrong. Not only because almost 20 years have passed and the landscape and everything must have changed a lot in the meantime. But even if they had gone there shortly after Chris had been there, no one would ever be able to see, feel or experience the same thing as another person did before (and in this case: hopefully!, because I assume that no one would like to experience a similar thing as Chris did in that bus ). Especially when they are not even going there all alone, but with one or even a whole bunch of friends – this is really as far away as one can imagine from the so called “spirit” of Chris McCandless.
However I’m – of course - not against people travelling to the bus, if they like to check out the location, why not. Anyway, it’s a place open to the public, as it has always been and everyone has to right to use that bus as a shelter for the night or so.

[pezar]

I can see your point. Chris may have gone off into the taiga unprepared, and died as a result. Chris seems to have wanted to "experience" Alaska, but he had never been there, his main sources of info were Jack London novels and a brief visit to Fairbanks about four years before dying in the bus. I wonder why people don't visit the places Chris loved in life, like Carthage, SD (he told numerous people he was from S. Dakota) and Bullhead City? Whenever somebody dies a horrible death, their family inevitably asks people to remember the deceased as they were in life, not death. Visiting the Bus seems to me to remember how Chris was in death, not life. Chris must have been terrified when he realized there was no way out, and he would die alone in that bus. I don't want to remember Chris like that. Why don't we remember Chris painting houses in Carthage, or Chris riding an old bicycle around Bullhead, living a surprisingly normal existence?

[erikhalfacre]

In defense of visiting the bus I offer my two cents:

Though going to the bus is in fact focusing on 'the end' as it was for Chris, It's not so much about the fact that he died there as it is about understanding what it was that he faced, and what drew him to be there. Alaska is not like any challenge that Chris faced before though. It was a different place, with different rules, and different pitfalls that ended up killing him.

Part of what drew me to this story was my admiration for Chris' sense of adventure. Part of it was a curiosity about something that had taken place in my state, in an area not unlike many of the places I visit regularly.

When I heard about Chris and what happened to him, I wanted to know if I could have done better. I wanted to know why he ended up dying, and I didn't buy Krakauer's story about poison. Chris made mistakes, and I wanted to know what they were so that I could learn from them. There's nothing wrong in that, that's how we progress.

If modern climbers were to time travel back 60 years and see the way mountaineers climbed then, they would be appalled at the risks that were taken and the horrendously unsafe gear and techniques being practiced. People died. People learned from those accidents. Technology improved, and now people routinely do some of the climbs that used to be exceedingly dangerous, and they do them today safer than ever before. I don't know too many climbers though, that look back at the men who preceded them and say "what idiots!"

In visiting the bus, I was able to see the Teklanika River crossing with my own eyes. I felt the slippery rocks at the bottom. I saw the bus, and where it was located, and what kinds of food and water sources were available to Chris. Though not perfect, it enhanced my understanding of the story in a way that no book, documentary, movie, or other secondhand telling of any kind could. Beyond that, it was an enjoyable trip, though not the greatest scenery I've ever seen, and it really wasn't as death defying as it's made out to be, by people's whose motives I cannot understand.

I do not believe that visiting the bus is an insult to Chris. However, I DO believe that visiting the bus without adequately preparing is an insult to Chris, Alaska, and the adventure community as a whole. It's one thing to challenge yourself, it's another to blatantly ignore the lessons offered by others mistakes and go and make them for yourself. It's ridiculous to knowingly put yourself in a situation where the park service, AK state troopers, or the Healy fire department is likely to have to come and rescue you. Honest mistakes will be made on the Stampede Trail, as with any trail. What irritates me though, is this attitude I see in some people that surviving in Alaska is easy and that Chris was just an idiot, when they themselves have no real experience to speak of. They head out there full of pride and with no respect for the wilderness and the challenges it poses, and they end up in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. This has got to stop. It really does.

Be honest with yourselves. Turn back when you need to turn back. Don't knowingly charge headlong into something you can't get yourself out of. Last week, I tried to ski out to the bus, and when it became apparent that I would not be able to in the time table I'd set for myself, I turned around. A user of this forum, ellisd, was turned back at the Teklanika River when the water was too high and fast. He made the right decision, because he was not comfortable with the situation. There's no shame in turning around so that you don't end up in the news, or worse yet dead.

Respect the wilderness, and respect your own limitations. If you do that and then you still fail or have an accident, there is no shame.

[SteveSalmon]

~SS

[ellisd]

Very well put! And I am not ashamed at all by being turned back by the river, was disappointed but nothing more than that. Atleast I have the chance to go back and do it again this july, something I might not have had if I tried crossing back in june 2011.