[HN Gopher] 'Into The Wild' bus removed from Alaska wilderness
___________________________________________________________________
'Into The Wild' bus removed from Alaska wilderness
Author : arprocter
Score : 129 points
Date : 2020-06-19 14:09 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Won't those same people just get into the same trouble elsewhere?
|
| I see no net positive here, and a few net negatives.
|
| 1 - History. For better or for worse, it never the less is.
|
| 2 - If people do come from all over to see it, then, that means,
| by definition, it's a thing people want. You're generally
| supposed to provide what people want, not remove it wherever you
| find it.
|
| 3 - If my zero-sum theory is right, or if the numbers even merely
| lean that way even if still a little imbalanced, then isn't
| knowing the where the emergencies will happen ahead of time
| better than having them happen in unpredictable random places
| throughout the whole of a place as huge as Alaska?
|
| Seems like a dumb response to the, observation. I wouldn't even
| say "problem", merely observation, unless you could show that the
| bus actually adds some harm that wouldn't still be there just
| somewhere else.
| grecy wrote:
| In the summer of 2009, at the beginning of my first massive
| expedition from Alaska to Argentina, I hiked into the bus and
| spent a night in what turned out to be the most intense and
| peaceful place I've ever spent time. Reading the exhilarating
| stories in the guest book was like nothing I've ever experienced,
| and I was awe-struck that one person can inspire so many with his
| big smile and simple approach to life.
|
| Over the years I've spent hundreds of hours thinking about Chris,
| his conscious choice to live the life he wanted and the freedom
| that brought him. He is one of my biggest inspirations, and I
| like to think we would have been friends.
|
| Every time the sound track from the movie comes on I get tingles
| down my spine, and I can't help but sing along. It's easily the
| most-listened to music of my life, and in a strange way it's the
| sound track to my life.
|
| I have mixed emotions about the removal of the bus - on one hand
| I understand the need to stop people visiting who require rescue,
| while on the other I'm sad I never made a return trip. I had
| always planned a solo winter trip, and somehow while living only
| ten hours away for four years I never made the effort.
|
| Yet another reason to always go for it, right now.
|
| Although the bus is no longer there, I'm sure I'll make a trek to
| the spot anyway, and I'm sure Chris will continue to inspire me
| throughout my life.
|
| "Happiness is only real when shared" - Chris McCandless
|
| Here's my account of my hike into the bus in 2009
| http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| What a great resource, your website.
|
| While he doesn't have much in common with Chris, I was inspired
| at an identity level when I first read Rolf Potts' Vagabonding
| as a teen and other pieces of his work like
| https://rolfpotts.com/storming-the-beach/.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| > Every time the sound track from the movie comes on I get
| tingles down my spine ...
|
| I don't think I've heard any of those songs since I saw the
| movie when it was in theaters, but you've reminded me how much
| they've stuck with me. Eddie Vedder's vocals are so raw and
| vulnerable and there couldn't have been a better choice.
|
| I'm going to listen to the soundtrack this afternoon -- thanks
| for the reminder. I'm also looking forward to reading your
| travelogue.
| topherPedersen wrote:
| Wild!
| [deleted]
| EL_Loco wrote:
| There's an interesting piece called "Chris McCandless from an
| Alaska Park Ranger's Perspective"
|
| http://nmge.gmu.edu/textandcommunity/2006/Peter_Christian_Re...
|
| "Some like McCandless, show up in Alaska, unprepared, unskilled
| and unwilling to take the time to learn the skills they need to
| be successful. These quickly get in trouble and either die by
| bears, by drowning, by freezing or they are rescued by park
| rangers or other rescue personnel-but often, not before risking
| their lives and/or spending a lot of government money on
| helicopters and overtime. 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 a good map he could have walked out of his
| predicament using one of several routes that could have been
| successful."
| m463 wrote:
| I remember a friend of mine moved to Montana for a time long
| ago.
|
| He told me they gave him a brochure (maybe at the dmv?),
| describing how montana was different - distances were vast,
| services were sparse and basically that you needed to take it
| seriously.
|
| I would imagine that goes 10x for alaska.
|
| Oh yeah, and I've listened to enough episodes of Joe Rogan to
| realize bears... well, they are never accurately portrayed in
| the media.
| sinker wrote:
| Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go
| out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for
| months at a time, that it's no one else's business?
|
| McCandless didn't ask for a book to be written about him. Why
| should anyone care one way or another that an individual they
| didn't know decided to do something for his own sake with
| little effect on anyone else.
|
| If I, or anyone, decide tomorrow they'd like to take a very
| long walk in the woods and not return for six months, why does
| society at large need to weigh in on that? It's not a question
| of moral or ethics. People are consistently smug, morally
| prescriptive, and hindsight-ridden whenever the topic of
| McCandless comes up.
| loosetypes wrote:
| Is it not a question of whether the given wilderness is a
| part of society?
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| It could be no one else's business in a world where park
| rangers don't have to assume that people want to be saved
| when they are in life-threatening danger. That's not the
| world we live in and there's no realistic way around that.
| sinker wrote:
| That would be a valid point if McCandless had made a pact
| with rangers that if he were come into serious trouble,
| they should rescue him immediately.
|
| Of course, he made no pact. He went out alone, died alone
| and his body was found incidentally by a group of hunters.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| It sounds like you have the whole social contract of
| society fundamentally backwards.
|
| _Everyone_ has a pact with rangers that they should be
| rescued immediately. That's literally what rangers do.
|
| The exact same thing works with a doctor or an EMT. You
| make it sound like if someone started choking in a
| restaurant you would expect the EMT to say "well he never
| made a pact with me to rescue him from choking to death"
| so the guy dies.
| tw04 wrote:
| >with little effect on anyone else.
|
| I'm guessing the two hunters who had to find his decomposing
| body, and the officers who had to remove it, might feel
| slightly different than you do. That's ignoring his parents
| and sibling(s).
|
| It's easy to say "it's my own business" but to pretend like
| his actions didn't affect any others is awfully self-centered
| of him and you.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Sure, here's a thought experiment for you about how we could
| allow people that think your way to opt out:
|
| You go to a special facility and we explain how this works.
| You don't want to be part of the social contract in which,
| for example, you'd get rescued if you get lost in the
| wilderness and would otherwise die - and in exchange we agree
| that we'll accept that you want out of the contract. You get
| a period of time to think about it properly and make sure you
| want to go through with this before you have to make a final
| decision. Maybe there's a piece of paper to sign, or you just
| make a solemn declaration to a recording device.
|
| And then you're quietly euthenised and we incinerate the
| body. Because if you don't want to be part of the social
| contract then that's definitely the simplest way for us to
| handle it and you're clearly OK with that.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| why not just let them go into the wilderness and make sure
| they understand that no one is coming to rescue them?
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| That's not a thing that exists. You cannot go into the
| wilderness (at least not in America) and sign a DNR to
| not be rescued.
|
| Your safety is always the responsibility of the
| government no matter how suicidal you are.
| sinker wrote:
| This is a nonsense reply that doesn't address what I
| actually said.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| It is absolutely a question of moral and ethics. This point
| of view regularly gets good people killed. Dead serious.
|
| You cannot wander off into the wilderness with no preparation
| expecting to cause no undue burden and danger to society for
| the exact same reason that you cannot jump off a building or
| shoot yourself in the middle of the street and expect it to
| be no one else's business.
|
| You are willfully endangering wilderness personnel and
| spending enormous sums of public money when you get in
| trouble or die in the wilderness because you were unprepared.
|
| There's no waiver you can sign and send to the forest service
| that says "Hey, I have no idea what I'm doing but I like it
| that way and don't bother rescuing me or recovering my body
| because I'm trying to be one with nature or something"
|
| Yours is a very dangerous attitude to have in the outdoors.
| It is not the 1700s anymore. It is literally always someone's
| job to do their absolute best (e.g. the government's best) to
| rescue you or to recover your body if you get in trouble no
| matter where you are on Earth, no matter how dangerous.
|
| It's incredibly irresponsible to think that you have no
| effect on the world around you in an age of GPS and
| helicopters.
| sinker wrote:
| Heading out into the wilderness for months at a time alone
| is an extreme event. So is flying in a wingsuit, or
| downhill skiing in a remote location full or rocks, or free
| soloing a difficult mountain. One one hand, you can say,
| "Think of society, think of the people who would bear the
| responsibility of cleaning up after your death if you were
| to fail."
|
| On the other hand, there are always people who are going to
| pursue extreme ventures. But given how few people are
| willing to enter into life or death scenarios like I
| described, I don't find the the argument that these people
| have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state
| very convincing.
| saulrh wrote:
| From the root post: > but often, not before
| risking their > lives and/or spending a lot of >
| government money on helicopters > and overtime.
|
| Every search and rescue operation the forest service mounts
| is a bunch less actual work they can get done protecting and
| preserving nature for the rest of us.
| sinker wrote:
| This response comes up every time, but it seems backwards
| to me and comes off more as rationalization for smugness
| than a legitimate point, something along the lines of,
| "Will someone think of the children?"
|
| Yes, it would be better if SAR services were never needed,
| but they serve the public, it's not the public that serves
| SAR when they decide to step outside.
|
| It'd be one thing if McCandless were willingly and
| flagrantly putting his life in danger with the expectation
| that he could dial a number and be rescued at any time -
| but that didn't happen did it? He played it out to the end
| starving to death.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| He never intended to die out there. His journal makes
| that abundantly clear. He starved because he ate poison
| berries.
|
| He absolutely would have dialed a number to come rescue
| him if the technology was available, which it wasn't
| because it was 1992 in central Alaska.
|
| He also did require expensive rescue anyway. You think
| they just left his body in that bus after it was
| discovered? Absolutely not, plus there are no roads there
| anymore, so they had to fly his body out in a very
| expensive helicopter ride.
| jfengel wrote:
| I think the GP's post should be read as "He's not a romantic
| hero. He was just stupid, and he died because of it." That
| is, it's not addressed to McCandless himself, but to Jon
| Krakauer for painting him as having some kind of life lesson
| to teach. And to fans of the book who romanticize it.
|
| McCandless didn't ask for any of that, and I concur that he
| was welcome to commit suicide his own way. But it was
| suicidal, and everybody knew it, so it is necessary to add
| the cautionary tale whenever he's brought up. It would be
| best, as you say, if we all just ignored him.
| bilegeek wrote:
| I agree that it would be best to ignore him, because I
| concur that the story of McCandless is seen too often as
| romantic instead of cautionary.
|
| However, it didn't seem to me that Krakauer painted
| McCandless as too rosy. He seemed to integrate both the
| accomplishments and the stupidity that led to those
| accomplishments pretty well.
|
| He seemed to show McCandless as a very capable and nice
| person, who in stubborn hubris abandoned and hurt his
| family and ended up dying. Not holding him up as a flawed
| hero like many fans of the book, and not sneering at him
| like many (rightly) do. A self-condemning tragedy, not an
| exultation or condemnation.
| sinker wrote:
| The romanticization is in the portrayal not the reality of
| it. Without Jon Krakauer, no one would know McCandless'
| name or story, because McCandless wasn't out to glorify
| himself or bring fame, money, etc. to himself. He really
| was just some kid looking to escape what he saw as a life
| of oppression. He wasn't asking to be looked upon as an
| model, and he most likely would have acted differently if
| he knew his life would be scrutinized by strangers decades
| after.
| grecy wrote:
| These kind of hyperbolic statements don't do much to educate,
| they're over sensationalized.
|
| > _These quickly get in trouble and either die by bears, by
| drowning, by freezing or they are rescued by park rangers or
| other rescue personnel-but often, not before risking their
| lives and /or spending a lot of government money on helicopters
| and overtime_
|
| Since 1992, only two people have died trying to reach the bus,
| they both drowned in the Tek (which was hard for me to cross,
| at 6 foot 2 and 185 lbs). One in 2010, and one last year.
|
| As for the number of rescues:
|
| "The state carried out 15 bus-related search and rescue
| operations between 2009 and 2017, authorities say" [1]
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53106441
|
| For what it's worth, I lived in the Yukon for 4 years. I've
| been bison hunting at -45C, I've spent months hunting, hiking
| and fishing all over the Yukon and a ton of time in Alaska too.
| I know what it takes.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| You're completely right to point this out, but this
| particular subject and individual seems to be a fulcrum for
| the sort of people who say things like, "kids these days...".
|
| The most common thing I hear, by far, from members of the
| public at search and rescue fundraisers is, "why do you go to
| all that trouble for stupid people?" It's a question almost
| always delivered with the self-satisfied smugness of someone
| who has no idea that they're already suffering the atrophying
| effects of not venturing outside of familiar territory often
| enough.
|
| McCandless surely made mistakes and errors in judgement. He
| certainly underestimated what he was getting in to. In that,
| he has something in common with hundreds of thousands of
| casual hikers, mountain bikers, kayakers, and visitors to
| national parks every year. There are vanishingly few entries
| in the annual _Accidents of North American Mountaineering_
| where the people involved are unimpeachable in terms of their
| preparedness or skill. In almost every case, there 's
| _something_ that someone could point to that the victim did
| wrong, and if not, then there 's always the fallback that
| they were dumb to be doing it to begin with.
|
| If he hadn't died, nobody would know his name. Statistics
| caught up to him. Statistics will catch a few other people
| every year while far more visitors to the same area will
| escape without consequence.
|
| The dynamics of this subject on HN in particular are really
| sort of obvious, given that McCandless has come up at least
| half-a-dozen times on HN over the years, a site not known for
| its enthusiasm for the outdoors. The treatment here is often
| about as embarrassing as someone might imagine the topic of
| machine learning to be on a forum for mushroom pickers.
| shkkmo wrote:
| The quote is from an essay by an Alaskan Park Ranger not a
| "member of the public".
|
| When people get into trouble, there is usually a something
| that could been done either in preparation or by exercising
| better judgement. McCandless didn't just miss a couple of
| esoteric preparation steps, he failed to take extremely
| basic precautions like bringing a map or sanity checking
| your plans with someone who has experience in the area.
|
| As explained in the essay that quote is from, Alaskans get
| frustrated by the glorification of McCandless because he
| didn't show basic respect for the wilderness he claimed to
| love.
|
| > The dynamics of this subject on HN in particular are
| really sort of obvious, given that McCandless has come up
| at least half-a-dozen times on HN over the years, a site
| not known for its enthusiasm for the outdoors. The
| treatment here is often about as embarrassing as someone
| might imagine the topic of machine learning to be on a
| forum for mushroom pickers.
|
| Give the comments in this thread a read rather than
| projecting your own misconceptions and you will find there
| are a number of people with personal experience with
| wilderness and the Alaskan wilderness is specific.
| ghaff wrote:
| >In almost every case, there's something that someone could
| point to that the victim did wrong
|
| In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of
| compounding mistakes. (The victim didn't have a lot of
| experience, went out in worsening weather, lost the trail,
| and didn't have the gear to survive overnight.)
|
| On the other hand, it's easy to identify "mistakes" in
| retrospect. Someone got caught in an avalanche so they
| "clearly" shouldn't have been somewhere that they could get
| caught in an avalanche--even if the danger was just
| moderate and the danger in that particular area is often
| moderate.
|
| Which also speaks to your statistics comment of course.
| There are various levels of danger to many activities and
| you can reasonably reduce your chances of something going
| wrong but not eliminate them.
|
| And, also of course, many people who don't participate in
| many of those activities see them as unreasonably
| dangerous. And, depending upon their political views, may
| think rescuing mountain climbers or even winter hikers as a
| waste of societal resources.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| > _In fact, with many accidents, it 's often a matter of
| compounding mistakes._
|
| Yep! One of my favorite elements to many backcountry
| accidents is what mountaineers call "summit fever". It's
| a prevalent bug in human psychology. It gets people into
| trouble in the wilderness all the time, and it has a
| close cousin in tech circles, the "sunk cost fallacy".
| wool_gather wrote:
| I was on a day hike up a mountain several years back with
| a group of friends and acquaintances. Some of the folks
| had _really_ been wanting to get to the top of this
| particular mountain -- it 's known for its views. It was
| late spring, and we had beautiful weather until we got
| maybe 3-4 miles in, closing in on the top. At that point
| there was thick snow still on the ground, it started to
| get foggy, and (I can't remember exactly why) the trail
| became harder to recognize.
|
| We were equipped for a quick afternoon hike, nothing more
| -- some of us I think just had t-shirts and shorts -- and
| some of us started to get nervous. Others really wanted
| to keep going to the top, especially since we knew we
| were close (though not how close).
|
| We did end up turning around and heading down after just
| a few hundred feet of walking in the snow. I wonder about
| our decision from time to time -- were we smart or overly
| cautious? Would it have been fine or a disaster? I guess
| there's no easy answer -- you can't know what _would have
| happened_.
| milesvp wrote:
| Most people have a blind spot in poker. They think they
| won simply because they took the pot, when in reality
| they lost because the pot odds were too low to give them
| a positive expected value. The problem extends to
| analyzing hands after the fact. It's too easy to see the
| final outcome, and say, oh, I knew I should have folded,
| when the reality might be, no calling was the right thing
| to do given the information you had at the time. Playing
| a lot of poker taught me to ignore the feeling that I
| played wrong simply because I lost the pot, and instead
| analyze what happened, and whether or not I missed some
| key piece of information, or misinterpreted some
| behavior.
|
| I would say, based on the information you had at the
| time. You made the smart play. Don't second guess based
| on possibly being closer than you realized, you were far
| enough that you couldn't see the end, that means (and
| most people don't realize this) that without any other
| information, you had even odds that you were at no more
| than the half way point (in terms of either time or
| distance). Maybe you can look back, and can say, "oh, I
| knew x at the time, I just forgot to take that into
| account, and it would have been enough to change the
| risk/reward equation. But any other analysis is dangerous
| to dwell on.
| acangiano wrote:
| It was the right call because even if you were overly
| cautious, you can always go back again.
| rmrm wrote:
| Saw this outsode the wilderness plenty of times as well.
| Hiking back down from half dome. At 5pm, miles from the
| summit groups in flip flops and a small water bottle,
| clearly exhausted and not sure what they were in for,
| asking if the were close. Nope, turn around folks and
| enjoy your walk.
| grecy wrote:
| No doubt it's a polarizing topic, and I understand why
| people (especially Alaskans) get angry about him going into
| the wilderness unprepared.
|
| The bus was moved for "public safety", which raises a
| bigger question of safety, and personal choice. Should we
| stop people climbing mountains, paddling whitewater,
| skydiving or even just eating bacon all in the name of
| "public safety"?
|
| Who gets to decide that we're much better off sitting at a
| desk for life and never doing anything "risky"?
|
| Some people have decided a long life is better than going
| after your dreams, even if that long life is unfulfilling
| and full of regrets. That's fine with me.
|
| I'm perfectly happy to let people live whatever life they
| choose, and it feels strange people won't let me (or get
| angry about Chris) living the life we want.
|
| We all have many choices in this life, and it seems people
| get angry when others make different choices than
| themselves.
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of
| search and rescue personnel, and costing the public
| hundreds of thousands of dollars.
|
| You get the benefits of your risky fun but a large part
| of the costs are externalized.
|
| I don't want to live in a risk-less, fun-less society
| either but there are limits. As long as society is
| footing the bill, society has an interest in imposing
| limits.
|
| I'm perfectly happy letting you do whatever you want, as
| long as you are not endangering the public, and you bear
| the costs. I'd be all for a system where you can opt out
| of health and safety restrictions, with the caveat that
| it also opts you out of health and safety programs, like
| publicly-funded search and rescue.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Public safety costs are a sunk cost (staff are on call,
| vehicles are paid for), they will exist regardless.
| Society should bear the cost of reasonable exploration
| efforts by citizens, even by those who are unknowingly
| underprepared. That is a muscle we should be expected to
| flex as humans. The best way to learn is to do.
|
| I would agree that after your second or third rescue
| though, you're becoming a nuisance and should bear some
| of the cost.
| [deleted]
| luckylion wrote:
| > Public safety costs are a sunk cost, they will exist
| regardless.
|
| No. Overtime, helicopter flight hours aren't a sunk cost.
|
| > Society should bear the cost of reasonable exploration
| efforts by citizens, even by those who are unknowingly
| underprepared.
|
| The issue here is in that one important word: reasonable.
| Exploring your neighborhood? Certainly. Exploring a mine
| shaft without a rope? Maybe a bit less so?
|
| > The best way to learn is to do.
|
| Or ask people that know stuff. Or read a book, or a
| pamphlet. There's plenty of options other than "whatever,
| the other will take care of me, I don't want to think and
| prepare, preparation is boring".
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > Or ask people that know stuff. Or read a book, or a
| pamphlet. There's plenty of options other than "whatever,
| the other will take care of me, I don't want to think and
| prepare, preparation is boring".
|
| These are all valid forms of education, but all
| suboptimal to going through the motions. You should
| strive to be prepared, but also assume you don't know
| everything you need to know and de-risk accordingly.
| luckylion wrote:
| Of course, but the original comment was about the guys
| doing virtually nothing to be prepared, that is "I'm
| going to live in the remote wilderness. I have a sleeping
| bag and a pound of rice, what else could I possibly
| need".
|
| There's always some risk in everything, it cannot be
| avoided, but we really don't need people to learn by
| doing it from zero understanding of that risk, we have
| plenty of things they can learn from the comfort of their
| bed. If they then still want to go do the real thing,
| they'll be much less likely to require rescuing, because
| they will not just walk into the woods without a map
| going "I'll just use Google Maps if I get lost".
| ghaff wrote:
| You posit two examples at pretty far poles of the risk
| equation. How about doing winter hiking up high peaks in
| the Northeast US? Or whitewater kayaking? Or rock
| climbing?
| luckylion wrote:
| I'd say that also depends on how you're prepared. If you
| don't want to prepare or think safety is boring and you
| want that extra kick of adrenaline, sure, go for it, but
| I'd also prefer if you make sure that you're not going to
| be requiring a rescue operation and a life time of
| support for that little extra kick.
|
| Or we could just tax it accordingly so it gets pretty
| expensive to do, but the risk is priced in. Want to
| remove the helmet and swimming vest or go winter hiking
| naked? Sure, just pay here and off you go.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm assuming people are at least reasonably well prepared
| (while understanding that many aren't). But there is a
| level of danger in any case.
| mattmanser wrote:
| What's reasonable about it? Those places have been
| explored. There's far less dangerous ways to experience
| nature and the wilderness too.
|
| I also don't see how the cost is sunk, it's proportional
| to the number of rescues they have to carry out, plus you
| risk the rescuers lives.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of
| search and rescue personnel,_
|
| This is the standard answer everyone gives, and it makes
| no logical sense. I worked search and rescue, and have
| plenty of friends that have it as their full-time
| occupation.
|
| Search and rescue personal are trained professionals, who
| willingly signed up for that career, and who love being
| in the back-country. They know full and well what they're
| getting into, and going out and rescuing people is the
| definition of their chosen career. If there was nobody to
| rescue, they wouldn't be able to support themselves doing
| what they love.
|
| In fact when there are no rescues for a while they go out
| in their helicopters and practice all the "dangerous"
| stuff putting their "lives in danger". So even if there
| was nobody to rescue, they'd still be out there.
|
| Following on from your logic, it only makes sense we
| should ban open fireplaces and cigarettes in houses
| because that's the leading cause of house fires, which
| then put fireman's lives in danger.
|
| > _and costing the public hundreds of thousands of
| dollars_
|
| Please don't exaggerate, it detracts from the discussion.
|
| The average heli rescue costs around $10k (heli's are
| smack on $1k/hr), and in many jurisdictions if the person
| getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the
| bill, not the public.
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| > Following on from your logic, it only makes sense we
| should ban open fireplaces and cigarettes in houses
| because that's the leading cause of house fires,
|
| That's an amusing example to me, because indoor and
| outdoor fireplaces of any kind are in fact banned in my
| city, since it's densely built with lots of wood
| buildings, and because of air quality concerns, my city
| has deemed they are not worth the risk.
|
| > which then put fireman's lives in danger.
|
| And yes, the firemen will be the first to give you an
| earful if you don't respect the fire safety code.
|
| > following from your logic [...], we should ban [...]
| cigarettes
|
| Nice strawman though. I said it was in society's interest
| to set limits, I made no argument as to what exactly the
| limits should be. That's not my decision or yours, as
| long as it's public resources that are at stake, it
| should be a democratic process.
|
| > The average heli rescue costs around $10k (heli's are
| smack on $1k/hr), and in many jurisdictions if the person
| getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the
| bill, not the public.
|
| In that case, as I said, if they are footing the bill, I
| really have no problem with it.
| allannienhuis wrote:
| Here in Vancouver, we're really close (15 minute drive
| for a lot of people) to dangerous mountainous terrain
| that is really popular with inexperienced hikers and so
| generate a high volume of search and rescue calls.
|
| The S&R folks are really adamant that they do not want to
| charge end-users for rescues, because that means that
| people will wait longer before calling them, resulting in
| more deaths and even higher overall costs because the
| rescues become more complicated.
| ar_turnbull wrote:
| Also worth pointing out that as frequent as things like
| avalanches and outdoor rescues may seem -- the higher
| risk is often driving the highway to the trailhead. It's
| a risk that we've come to accept as a society. We don't
| even think about it anymore.
|
| Many who spend their lives in the mountains say that with
| proper training they'd rather do the risky activity
| (where there are many known ways in which risk can be
| mitigated) than die in some random / tragic car accident
| (where you can do everything right but still die).
|
| BTW, fellow Canadian (Calgary) here, "hey" from the other
| side of the Rockies :-)
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| That's a decent point, and I expect they know better than
| me since I'm no S&R specialist.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > and in many jurisdictions if the person getting rescued
| was doing something stupid, they foot the bill, not the
| public.
|
| "Are liable to the public to reimburse" rather than
| "foot"; the distinction is critical because the rescued
| individual may not have the resources to actually pay or
| may be impossible to collect from. The more expensive the
| rescue is, naturally, the more likely this is to be the
| case.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| FWIW search and rescue in most of the US (and, I think,
| Canada) is volunteer-based and funded mostly by donations
| from the community. Some areas have laws that allow for
| them to recover rescue costs from people found to be in
| some way negligent. Even the most notorious of these
| areas (New Hampshire) doesn't tend to charge exorbitant
| amounts of money.
|
| This is overall a really good system and the volunteers
| love doing it and are happy to do it. It struggles a
| little bit in areas with communities that can't afford to
| donate much to a SAR team.
| msla wrote:
| > The bus was moved for "public safety"
|
| They removed the bus so it couldn't act like a moron
| magnet anymore. They didn't remove the location, they
| didn't fence it off, they didn't ban hiking. They didn't
| even impose an IQ test or a basic competency quiz for
| hiking. Anyone who wants to go out there and re-enact the
| McCandless Experience is still free to do so, and they're
| even still free to call SAR when their horrible lack-of-
| a-plan begins to cause them the predictable amount of
| personal discomfort.
| newacct583 wrote:
| > Should we stop people climbing mountains, paddling
| whitewater, skydiving or even just eating bacon all in
| the name of "public safety"?
|
| Probably not, but neither should we be leaving bait out
| for them either.
|
| They didn't infringe on anyone's rights here. The
| mountains and whitewater and sky and bacon are all still
| there. They moved a bus.
| riffraff wrote:
| Please consider that when people put themselves at risk
| it's rarely just them.
|
| There are collective costs to people getting hurt and
| needing to be saved, and it's not a black/white thing: we
| enforce safety belts, we remove dangerous rocks and trees
| looming on roads and so on all the time.
|
| The bus was evaluated as an hazard that encourages
| unprepared people to do something and get hurt, it may be
| a bad call, but it's not just a restriction of "people
| should be free to choose".
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I'm on a forum that's very outdoorsy (it's for an outdoor
| hobby and most of the best locations to do it are in BFE)
| and this story hit there too. While there's less ivory
| tower smugness, possibly a reflection of user demographics,
| McCandless is not exactly a popular figure over there
| either. It's understandable for an amateur to be under-
| prepared because you don't know what you don't know. It's
| understandable to be experienced and get into a crap
| situation because you planned to wing it and one of the
| variables you based your assumptions on changed. It's much
| less forgivable to be an amateur and also plan on winging
| it. The dude knew he hadn't lived in that environment
| before. He knew that he couldn't get food the ways he was
| accustomed to. He tried to dodge the stupid tax but he was
| so flagrant about it that luck couldn't justify not
| auditing him.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| The ranger wasn't referring just to the bus but to all the
| people who do things like this.
| ska wrote:
| This is off base - the article is about McCandless and people
| like him, not specifically people who have later gone to find
| his bus.
|
| It's opinionated, but not far out there. He (McCandless) died
| due to a combination of poor preparation and compounded
| mistakes; it was almost certainly avoidable. There is an
| interesting question of how much responsibility individuals
| should take for this sort of thing.
| catalogia wrote:
| That quote is not referring exclusively to people who try to
| reach the bus and there's nothing hyperbolic about it. Alaska
| State Troopers conduct several hundred search and rescue
| missions each year (https://dps.alaska.gov/AST/SAR/Home),
| that number probably goes up when you include federal and
| state park rangers as well.
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| What are you on about? The ranger is not talking about the
| bus, he's talking about ill-prepared young men visiting
| Alaska's wilderness in general.
| matwood wrote:
| It's people being ill prepared in general. When I lived in
| Colorado I did a lot of hiking, and was always prepared to
| spend the night if needed.
|
| Now I live on the coast and the most cut off I feel is when
| I go offshore fishing (particularly in a smallish center
| console). Even though you have a few friends with you, once
| you get 30+ miles offshore all you see in any direction is
| water. Going offshore fishing is more about preparation
| than almost anything else.
| jmull wrote:
| I think it's pretty clear this isn't just about the bus.
|
| It's the general issue of people who have the idea to live in
| or travel through the wilderness (worthy, IMO), but attempt
| it without a reasonable attempt at preparation.
|
| It's worth calling out.
|
| These people endanger their own lives -- I think
| unintentionally in most cases.
|
| And they endanger the rescue workers whose job it is to help
| people in trouble, whatever the reason.
|
| Hopefully calling this out will catch the attention of at
| least some of the right people, and there will be a few less
| of them and their rescuers injured or worse.
| colpabar wrote:
| Did you show up at the Yukon without a map? Did you go
| hunting at -45C without a jacket? Did you try to fish without
| a rod?
|
| No one is saying it's impossible to do what Chris attempted,
| but lots of people do say that he might not have died if he
| planned ahead a bit.
| [deleted]
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Even if the ranger _were_ referring only to the bus, does two
| search and rescue operations _per year_ not prove the point?
| brailsafe wrote:
| Into the Wild certainly inspired me to increase my exposure to
| the wilderness, on top of many years watching Survivorman. I only
| grew up car camping, so it's a slowish process of acquiring the
| necessary skills through longer and more challenging summit day
| hikes in coastal BC, and soon multi-day backpacking as I aquire
| necessary gear. I was never particularly taken by the
| transactional feedback loop of life, and I think the McCandless
| story sort of re-affirmed that in some way. The only things I've
| done that approximate his path were a few long and short term
| trips that I've taken with no real plan, nowhere to be, and no
| place or time to be back. It's not for everyone, but you build a
| lot more confidence if yiu can make it through.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Seems like they could easily put it into a museum. Or just some
| plot of land in a nearby town with a plaque. Hopefully that's
| where it ends up.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Yeah a musuem more accessible that explains in detail every
| rescue attempt resulting from it would be a nice set up,
| especially when combined with a ranger station or similar
| public wilderness awareness teaching effort. Let the full scope
| be told about his life and motivations but also that his fate
| was totally preventable.
|
| It would dramatically change the concept but a home town
| located musuem would have a full circle effect to it and his
| life.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Or just some plot of land in a nearby town with a plaque.
| Hopefully that 's where it ends up_
|
| The recreation of the bus used to film the movie is in Healy,
| AK. It's exactly what you describe. And it looks so similar to
| the real thing I have a hard time telling them apart.
| _greim_ wrote:
| Or put it in a meadow along some easy trail near Anchorage. Let
| people hike to it there.
| TimesOldRoman wrote:
| If we were to do a New Deal-type shift away from the military
| industrial complex, could the National Guard be pointed at
| cleaning up "litter" like this? Corps of Engineer-type work being
| pointed at infrastructure cleanup, which includes cultivating and
| caring for natural resources, seems like a fantastic use of tax
| dollars.
| KenanSulayman wrote:
| It was the Alaskan National Guard who removed the bus. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.dvidshub.net/news/372418/alaska-national-
| guard-a...
| peter303 wrote:
| That part of Alaska is not serious wilderness by Alaskan
| standards. It is near vacation homes and hunting lodges a major
| roads.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| One of my friends lived in Healy, Alaska, the nearest town to the
| bus.
|
| He said that a lot of people came to the area trying to relive
| McCandless' journey. Locals called them "pukers" because they
| would go into the woods and within a few days of attempting to
| forage for food, would inevitably eat or drink something
| contaminated or one of the various mildly poisonous plants in the
| area, begin vomiting, and give up and return to town (hopefully).
|
| I always thought of McCandless' story as a cautionary tale. I
| _don 't_ think it means we should compromise on our ideals, but I
| _do_ think it means we need to build skills and awareness. There
| are causes worth dying for, but most of the time dying can and
| should be avoided.
| mikorym wrote:
| As a South African growing up in a rural area, I always saw
| _Into the Wild_ as an example of how Alaskans--or other people
| who don 't die in the woods--with common sense are thrown under
| the bus in favour of general Americans with more gripping
| stories that unfortunately revolves around a couple of stupid
| decisions.
|
| It's a great story to make a movie about, but isn't the daily
| life of an Alaskan a great story too? It appears that it isn't
| seen as a cautionary tale at all, but an instruction on how to
| "go back to nature".
| kerkeslager wrote:
| What McCandless attempted (and failed at) was entirely
| different from what most Alaskans are doing. He was trying to
| detach himself from dependence on the rest of civilization.
|
| I've spent a lot of time in harsh wilderness. I've climbed
| Andes peaks, camped in deserts in the southwestern US, slept
| in tents in the Appalachian mountains in February in sub-zero
| temperatures. At no point was I ever not dependent on
| civilization. I always wore manufactured protective gear,
| slept in manufactured shelters, ate the products of
| agriculture, drank water I had hauled in from the modern
| water treatment. I know a lot of the local edible plants, but
| even when I've made a salad of garlic mustard and morels, it
| has always been an option to go to the store if I was still
| hungry afterward, or go to the doctor if I got sick from what
| I had eaten.
| starpilot wrote:
| Most Alaskans live in towns with lives similar to that of
| other Americans. They go to work, buy groceries, do laundry,
| watch TV. Not a "great" story except in the sense of
| celebrating the ordinary.
| satori99 wrote:
| For someone like me who has rarely seen snow in my 45 years
| on this planet, getting a glimpse of an ordinary life in
| extraordinary climate is quite interesting.
| 0x38B wrote:
| I guess, but as a kid, I practically lived in the thick
| woods around our house.
|
| As a boy, it was awesome to live in a place where carrying
| a khukuri (or small sword) wasn't so out of the ordinary,
| and I have fond memories of bushwhacking trails, coming
| home smelling of earth and picking the inevitable spiders
| out of my clothes.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > I guess, but as a kid, I practically lived in the thick
| woods around our house.
|
| You were just enjoying nature and going back to the
| safety of civilization at night. McCandless was trying to
| break his dependence on civilization entirely. There's
| nothing wrong with what you were doing, I do it myself.
| But it's not the same thing.
| starpilot wrote:
| I lived like that growing up in Virginia. Mid-Atlantic
| has many areas like this. Minus the Nepali souvenirs
| though.
| scruple wrote:
| And I had the same experience growing up in rural
| southeastern Ohio. Bushwhacking, spending a lot of time
| in and near rivers and streams, walking the fields,
| hunting small game. The specific place where I grew up
| has largely lost most of this, minus the water. I wonder
| if other places have lost pieces of it, too.
| livueta wrote:
| I've always thought of Dick Proenneke[1] as what McCandless
| could have/should have been. Despite attempting a similar
| thing (go detach from civilization as much as possible,
| though Proenneke didn't take it to the same extreme),
| Proenneke was actually prepared and talented in the kinds of
| crafts necessary to have a good life in the wilderness - guy
| was a crazy-good outdoorsman in general, on top of great
| carpentry/woodworking[2]/general jury-rigging.
|
| The best part is that he took an 8mm camera and filmed a lot
| of his work, including building his cabin from almost
| entirely indigenous materials. Those films ended up as the
| (PBS-involved?) documentary _Alone in the Wilderness_ [3].
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke
|
| [2] https://www.nps.gov/lacl/learn/historyculture/proennekes-
| cab...
|
| [3] https://youtu.be/iYJKd0rkKss (partial)
| kerkeslager wrote:
| Totally agreed. _Alone in the Wilderness_ is such an
| inspiration to me.
| lioeters wrote:
| This. Every time McCandless comes up - and bless him for
| his youthful misadventure - I think of the documentary
| Alone in the Wilderness.
|
| It's one of my favorite films of all time, and have watched
| it numerous times. He had the right training and planning,
| knowledge, skills, equipment and support (a friend visisted
| regularly with supplies) to achieve it successfully.
|
| I love that the film footage was recorded by himself, some
| of it is just gorgeous scenery. He demonstrates the hard
| work necessary to build everything for survival.
| l_t wrote:
| IMO (having only watched the film), preparation was meaningless
| because McCandless had a mentality that led him _toward_ risk
| -- a kind of death wish. He escalated his personal risk more
| and more, and eventually suffered the inevitable consequences.
|
| But, I get the impression that in his own head, he didn't feel
| a choice in the matter, or rather the alternative was worse.
|
| Therein lies the true "moral" of the film, as I personally
| interpreted it: McCandless was trapped in his own head, no
| matter how far he traveled he couldn't escape his own
| mentality. The tragedy is that it seems he himself realized
| this too late. But, who knows -- personally, I imagine him
| being at peace with his decision and the ultimate result.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| It's been over a decade since I read the book and saw the
| film, so what I am about to say may be a product of my
| imperfect memory rather than the reality of the book and
| movie, but here goes anyway:
|
| I see how you got the impression that McCandless was trapped
| in his own risk-addicted thinking from the movie, but I think
| that impression is editorializing on the part of the
| filmmakers.
|
| I'm a rock climber and it's my experience that the risk
| taking in rock climbing isn't a death wish. On the contrary,
| it's a _life_ -wish, a desire to experience life to its
| fullest even if that means risking your life. You _will_ die
| --risking death is not a risk. The greatest risk you take is
| dying without achieving your deepest desires and dreams.
|
| This is a pretty common view in the rock climbing community,
| and I think that Jon Krakauer, a mountaineer the author of
| the _In To the Wild_ book, probably held a view of risk
| similar to my own, which is why the book presents a much more
| sympathetic view of McCandless ' risk-taking.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| I climb too, and I agree with your perspective.
|
| When I read the book I felt McCandless was a romantic.
| Naive perhaps, and his death was unnecessary, but he lived
| his life on his own terms to a degree which is relatively
| rare today.
| discreteevent wrote:
| Same here. It was a romantic drive. Not even really for
| an adrenaline rush which is partly what something like
| base jumpers are after. And even then, only some of them
| could be said to have a death wish.
| l_t wrote:
| Interesting, it sounds like I should read the book.
|
| For what it's worth, the "death wish" thing wasn't meant to
| be pejorative -- maybe I should have used a different term.
| I like your "life-wish" phrasing better, thank you for that
| perspective.
| akamia wrote:
| I worked with a guy who used to live in the area and he also
| had an interesting perspective. He explained that there were
| many people who lived in remote homes that needed to have
| water, fuel, etc. trucked in from town. Sometimes they would
| encounter one of these people half dead. They'd had to waste
| some of their limited resources helping them get to safety.
| This led to a lot of anger.
| lopmotr wrote:
| This is such an arrogant and narrow minded attitude that's
| strangely popular. Just because they happen to encounter more
| people in trouble than most of us, doesn't mean those people
| don't deserve help.
|
| Imagine seeing a homeless person begging in the street and
| getting angry because he wants your help when he should have
| just not made all those "stupid" "unprepared" decisions that
| led to it. Or imagine someone having a heart attack and
| getting angry because they should have had a better diet and
| exercise throughout their life - it's their own stupid fault
| that they're dying and why should I bother helping them. Or a
| suicidal person - just get a therapist or stop thinking those
| stupid thoughts that make your problem worse. Almost all
| causes of death are preventable or at least delay-able. Most
| of us will die earlier than we could have because of our own
| unnecessary pleasure-seeking actions.
| msla wrote:
| > Imagine seeing a homeless person begging in the street
| and getting angry because he wants your help when he should
| have just not made all those "stupid" "unprepared"
| decisions that led to it.
|
| I don't know that people get dumped into the Alaskan
| wilderness for being unable to pay medical bills.
|
| > Or imagine someone having a heart attack and getting
| angry because they should have had a better diet and
| exercise throughout their life - it's their own stupid
| fault that they're dying and why should I bother helping
| them.
|
| Never hang around ER nurses.
|
| > Or a suicidal person - just get a therapist or stop
| thinking those stupid thoughts that make your problem
| worse.
|
| _Really_ never hang around ER nurses.
| ip26 wrote:
| People are usually pretty willing to help when they are in
| a secure position. But when you start assuming a lot of
| risk to help someone, outright foolishness is harder to
| stomach.
|
| You might say when offering help saddles you with risk, it
| accelerates compassion fatigue
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion_fatigue)
| jdhawk wrote:
| this is the slow version of idiots falling into the grand
| canyon trying to get a great selfie.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| Or Rattlesnake Ledge in Washington.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Yeah, that's a crazy dangerous place that is often very
| overcrowded on a weekend near Seattle.
| marssaxman wrote:
| It is definitely often crowded, but what about it is
| "crazy dangerous?"
| regulation_d wrote:
| If you're going to Healy, AK, chances are you're not just
| doing it for the gram.
|
| I remember reading Into The Wild in my twenties and feeling a
| strong connection to Alex. Even if going to the bus wasn't a
| wise decision, I feel it's only human to want to cultivate
| those types of connections. I never went to the bus, but I
| was definitely curious what Alex was experiencing in the
| final days of his life.
|
| I agree with GP that it's a cautionary tale, but it's more
| than that. It's caused thousands of people to think more
| about the way they live their lives. Seems a bit more
| substantive than simply trying to get a selfie, don't you
| think?
| dhosek wrote:
| There's a significant trade in people who go to the top of
| Everest "for the gram." I think you're underestimating the
| willful foolishness of people. The Last Week Tonight
| episode on Everest is useful viewing.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bchx0mS7XOY
| kerkeslager wrote:
| Everest is even worse than "doing it for the gram". It's
| not just that they're doing it for attention that's
| disgusting. It's that they're literally trying use wealth
| to buy achievement without doing the actual work of
| achievement.
|
| It used to be that Everest was a crowning achievement in
| a mountaineer's career. To top out, you would have to
| climb many, many other mountains in preparation, building
| skills, physique, and relationships with other
| mountaineers.
|
| But now people regularly reach the top of Everest as
| their first (and often last) summit. If you have never
| reached the top of a major mountain before, you're a
| beginner mountaineer. And if Everest is summitted by
| dozens of beginner mountaineers every year, it's a
| beginner mountain. The primary barrier to Everest now is
| amassing ~$40k in expendable income to pay sherpas to
| drag you to the summit.
|
| It's worth noting that what the sherpas do is still
| extraordinary.
| brudgers wrote:
| To me, a celebrity bus is not more substantive than the
| Grand Canyon. This would include _Furthur_ if it still
| existed. YMMV.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| I don't think the person you are responding to was saying
| that a celebrity bus is more substantive than the Grand
| Canyon.
|
| I think they were saying that going to a place because it
| has meaning for an ideal of breaking dependence on
| society is more substantive than going to a place so you
| can take a picture to get attention on the internet. It's
| not about the place, it's about your reasons for going
| there.
|
| The Grand Canyon is a place with incredible splendor, and
| I am sure there are people who go there for substantive
| reasons too.
| brudgers wrote:
| The bus is famous for a best selling book and a Hollywood
| movie. It's what Eco might call "hyperreal." It signifies
| breaking dependence on society not a breaking of
| dependence. The Grand Canyon doesn't require knowing the
| story. It forces acceptance that one does not and cannot
| know the story.
|
| Admittedly, that doesn't make for a good movie.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| I'd like to respond to what you're saying, but I don't
| understand it. Would you mind clarifying?
| brudgers wrote:
| Are you familiar with Eco's work?
| staycoolboy wrote:
| > "pukers"
|
| That's really funny.
|
| On the one hand, I feel a satisfying connectedness when I visit
| a real-life place mentioned in a book: I traveled the Spanish
| countryside after reading "The Sun Also Rises", and got lost in
| the countryside and drank red wine on the hills. I also visited
| the killing fields in Cambodia after reading "The Killing
| Fields" and "Swimming to Cambodia". It was fucking terrifying
| that this happened in my lifetime.
|
| On the other hand, I can see how stressful this is for locals,
| like both in Alaska and Spain who aren't asking for the influx.
| But at least in Cambodia, it is an important historical legacy
| and it brings revenue.
|
| I've come to the conclusion for myself that I don't want to
| bother the locals just for my own satisfaction unless the
| target destination has been built with concern and sensitivity,
| and not for exploitation. Even the latter case is still
| subjective: are the streets of Paris' tourist-traps
| exploitative and annoying? What about the shops around Giza's
| pyramids? Both locations seemed to be unhappy about the
| tourism. I spoke with a shop owner in Panama and he said the
| locals love/hate tourists: the dollars are important, but the
| psychological impact of having their homes be fishbowls is not
| insignificant.
| david422 wrote:
| I read The Killing Fields. It makes me really appreciate my
| little bubble of safety in the world. It was totally surreal.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I grew up in an area where tourism was the only industry. I
| think you under-estimate how many people in those places have
| drank the cool-aid and think they are sharing something
| special with the world. Everyone else gets out or gets
| addicted to something. That said, this was a first world
| country where people could mostly get out if they didn't like
| it.
|
| That said, it's a terrible industry and is only marginally
| more ethical than cutting down mountains and polluting rivers
| for coal in my opinion.
| dekhn wrote:
| I spent a month on an ice field and glacier in Alaska and let
| me tell you, that state is no joke. We nearly lost a couple of
| my team to a glacial runoff river that we crossed, I have a
| permanent scar from devil's club. Fortunately we didn't get
| poisoned (the onyl thing we ate that was local was some
| blueberries). It was really amazing being only ~50-60 miles
| from Anchorage in the most isolated place I'd ever been
| (chugach ice fields)
|
| We did have an interesting experience- an encounter with Dick
| "Black Ass" Griffith (his nickname came from the frostbite that
| removed his back parts) who adventured all over just on the
| money that Alaska gives to its citizens every year.
| 0x38B wrote:
| Speaking of devil's club - what really sucks is scrambling in
| the brush down a hill (I did a lot of that in 15 years
| there), slipping, and grabbing a nice spiky devil's club as
| you reach out to catch yourself...
|
| But the nature is amazing, and now that I compare it with
| other places, just plain good for the soul.
| dekhn wrote:
| yes, that's exactly what happened to me- well, i didn't
| grab it, just brushed against it while bush-whacking. A
| whole section of my skin turned red, then black, then
| sloughed off, and I still have a big scar 20+ years later.
| herdodoodo wrote:
| Let's pretend his passion was Nascar driving...
|
| Christopher McCandless sets off, from California in an old car he
| rebuilt himself (he replaced the fenders and painted it), on a
| trip to the Daytona 500. He only gets across the state line when
| he runs out of fuel because he forgot to fill it up. Instead of
| simply walking to the nearest gas station or flagging down help
| he decides to push his car over an embankment and set it on fire.
| He then proceeds to walk on foot to the nearest car lot (which
| happens to be in Mexico for some reason, mostly because he burned
| up his map in the car and he's been taking backroads.) He finds
| an old bicycle in a garbage dump and uses that.
|
| He finally gets to the car lot and buys a fixer-upper for $50.
| Before leaving the car lot he has to change a tire, which he
| replaces with the solid rubber donut. He buys fuel and heads off
| to the Daytona 500 again. Only he's heading deeper into Mexico
| and eventually ends up broken down in front of, "Autodromo
| Internacional de la Jolla" due to no water in the radiator. The
| engine block has seized up. Luckily, there's a race about to
| start. Christopher...er "Alexander Superspeeder", who changed his
| name, pays the $125 entry fee for the race.
|
| Unfortunately, Alexander Superspeeder doesn't have a race car. He
| does however have an old bicycle still. He uses the bicycle to
| race. He makes it only 3 laps before he is too tired to steer
| straight and veers off into a race car and is killed.
|
| Some Jew picks up his story and writes a book about his life and
| how he followed his dreams. Another Jew makes a movie about it.
| Armchair racers around the world adore him.
|
| The End.
| topherPedersen wrote:
| That makes sense to move the bus actually. Christopher McCandless
| died there, so why would the tourist fare any better? Sort of sad
| to see them move the bus, but it's probably the right thing to
| do. Would be nice to see them move it to a safer location that
| people can still visit.
| duxup wrote:
| >so why would the tourist fare any better?
|
| The sad part is even a little preparation and caution would
| save most of them. That area isn't particularly dangerous or
| impossible to escape. McCandless just didn't prepare much at
| all, he could have potentially gotten out / help, had he
| bothered to know about his surroundings / or prepared.
|
| The scale of dangers and etc can be hard for folks to
| understand who aren't ready... but that area / situation was
| hardly notably dangerous.
| scythe wrote:
| I was surprised that a bus needed to be removed because it was
| dangerous. Apparently you have to cross a river to get to it --
| that was killing people.
|
| The stories of McCandless's journey suggest that we should
| consider the psychology of self-harm and suicide when we ask
| about his motivations. He ignored even the most basic
| precautions, which considering his education and age should
| reveal something other than mere stupidity. He seemed to _want_
| to put himself at risk of harm -- leaving food behind, refusing
| assistance from locals, and not even learning to preserve meat,
| so the animals he killed could not feed him. It seems like his
| being at constant risk of death by starvation and exposure was
| not an accident.
| cowboysauce wrote:
| I think you're drastically underestimating how stupid and over-
| confident people can be. He had a college education, but that
| doesn't teach you the survival skills needed to live in the
| wilderness. McCandless spent a few years bumming around the
| United states before traveling to Alaska which likely gave him
| a false sense of security in his survival abilities.
|
| Most people living in western nations have no idea of how
| unforgiving the wilderness can be, nor do they understand the
| amount of effort that it can take to survive. The amount of
| tourists who think that national parks are just the outdoor
| equivalent of Disney Land is shocking.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > He had a college education, but that doesn't teach you the
| survival skills needed to live in the wilderness.
|
| I can vouch for that. I don't even know how to set a snare or
| how to prepare a rabbit if I caught one.
| yardie wrote:
| > considering his education and age should reveal something
| other than mere stupidity.
|
| College will prepare you for some things, outdoor survival
| isn't one of them.
| jxramos wrote:
| Ha, I thought only technical knowledge requires intelligence.
| Besides... "I could teach anybody ... to be a farmer. ... You
| dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add
| water, up comes the corn.".
|
| The old Asimov mechanic story comes to mind too
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2884684
| ben165 wrote:
| I'm somehow sad reading about it. It was one of my destinations
| ony my list. This guy inspired my to travel the world.
|
| Thanks Alexander Supertramp :)
| moate wrote:
| Some unprepared wannabe who got himself killed because of how
| unprepared he was is your hero? Weird choice.
|
| Also, as the great Dr Henry Jones jr. said, "it belongs in a
| museum!" That thing was responsible for many deaths over the
| years, and would be better suited as a safe attraction to visit
| by all the white suburbanites sick of how fake their existence
| is. Maybe with a plaque stating how many rescue missions had to
| be sent out because of novices not knowing what they're doing.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Makes me sad and happy to see that, cause of changing a
| tragic story but also good to protect people. It's a 9 hour
| hike from Healy and the bus location is on Google maps.
| tasuki wrote:
| He survived for 113 days in the wilderness, not too bad. He
| was unprepared, yes, but it also seems he knew that what he
| was doing was risky, and he seems to have been ok taking that
| risk. I'm not quite sure - why judge him negatively?
| xenihn wrote:
| I think I get it. Everyone knows his name, but no one knows
| the names of people who lived and died trying to rescue
| people like him.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, don't leave us hanging after suggesting such moral
| failing with so much contempt.
|
| How many people actually die trying to rescue people like
| him?
| notatoad wrote:
| surviving 113 days in the wilderness isn't that great of a
| feat. if you were prepared, and had done a bare minimum of
| research and planning beforehand, you could manage not to
| die.
|
| it wasn't that what he did was risky, it's that what he did
| was _unnecessarily_ risky. if he wasn 't so stupid about
| it, it would have been a lot less risky. taking on a
| challenge is admirable, but taking it on without any
| respect for the difficulty of the thing you're attempting
| is dumb.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| This is just internet forum backseat driving. I'm sure
| the average hard-boiled HNer could've outlasted him with
| their innate wilderness intuitions -- probably have even
| watched a few survival videos on Youtube --, but Chris'
| story is also about a guy who wanted to march away from
| the trappings of society. I wouldn't be surprised if he
| died at day 113 even if he was 2x or 4x as prepared. He
| would have just went deeper quicker.
|
| But pearl clutching about the risks someone else decided
| to take is incredibly petty. And odds are, as a fellow HN
| jockey who posts every day like myself, you aren't taking
| nearly enough.
| moate wrote:
| Because he was a 24 year old putz who's grand life
| philosophy was basically the same as every 24 year old
| suburban white dude: the world sucks, I should run away to
| a simpler time.
|
| This man is not a hero. That's my problem with him. When
| <nameless random idiot> dies backpacking because they don't
| know what the fuck they're doing, they don't become a weird
| folk hero. This guy should have been a nameless statistic.
| There is no wisdom here, only a warning.
|
| But still schmucks be going up and getting
| trapped/injured/dead in Alaska because "oh, there's a bus
| up there where some hiking n00b died!"
|
| Just stop. Stay home. Hike your local 5 mile park. You're
| not a survivalist. And if you are, you're probably not
| fighting me on HN comments about how you're the exception
| to my point. You're out wearing a grisly bear pelt and
| riding a wolf or something.
| mrep wrote:
| > Because he was a 24 year old putz who's grand life
| philosophy was basically the same as every 24 year old
| suburban white dude: the world sucks, I should run away
| to a simpler time.
|
| As a white dude who grew up in suburbia and was recently
| 24, where are you getting this because I nor any of my
| suburban white friends think that?
| BeetleB wrote:
| > He survived for 113 days in the wilderness, not too bad.
|
| That's one way to frame it. The other way is simply to say
| that it took him 113 days to starve to death. Lest anyone
| have the wrong impressions from the book/movie, he didn't
| die because he ate poisonous berries that messed up his
| digestive system. He simply burned more calories than he
| consumed.
|
| I'm not one of those who think negatively of him. He
| himself wrote something to the effect of not having regrets
| and being grateful he went on this journey when he knew he
| was probably going to starve to death. Who am I to
| criticize him for it? He lived the way he wanted to, and
| when it was clear it was leading to his death, he was at
| peace with that.
| BelleOfTheBall wrote:
| A lot of people judge him negatively because of what
| happened post his death: a non-fiction book about him, a
| feature film, hundreds of imitators, a cult of "hard
| survival". This lead to people dying, getting malnourished,
| government funds being spent on rescuing them.
|
| However, he never knew and never will know any of that
| happened. All he cared about is the journey, how is he
| possibly responsible for inspiring unprepared people to go
| into the woods? It's not like he's a still-living lifestyle
| blogger who goads people into doing this. He's not a hero
| but he's not deserving of all the flack he gets.
| catalogia wrote:
| Alaska has the most missing people per capital of any US
| state, a few times higher than the natural average. Not all
| of that is attributable to the wilderness, but much of it is.
| Nature isn't like a Disney movie, but many people don't seem
| to appreciate that.
| matwood wrote:
| As a friend of mine likes to say, "never forget that nature
| is always trying to kill you."
| starpilot wrote:
| Mandatory YER GONNA DIE posting requirement now satisfied.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Nature is exactly like a Disney movie. It's incredibly
| beautiful at times, and tragic in others. Either way, you
| might end up with an impactful story.
| jxramos wrote:
| In 1992 the bus was inhabited by 24-year-old adventurer Chris
| McCandless, who eventually died of starvation. ...
| The 1940s bus was brought to the remote trail about 60 years ago
| by a road crew, Mr Walker said.
|
| Interesting so the fella didn't bring it, just serendipitously
| found and inhabited it for the shelter it provided? Did he die in
| the bus itself?
| catalogia wrote:
| Yes, his corpse was found in the bus, probably a few weeks
| after he died.
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