Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Welcome to episode 43 of Dying to be Found.
Hi everyone, I'm Deb and I'm Shelby.
And we are so glad that you are here today as usual.
I love saying that our podcast is a family thing, so you never really know which family member I'm going to pull to tell our tales.
If you're a regular listener, Beth is currently off launching a new venture, which I'm going to let her tell you about when she returns.
But in the meantime, Shelby's here today.
We're going to try to bring you a story that's left open to your interpretation or you can possibly relate to.
If you do have a storyline for us, be sure to click on our show notes and click on the Linktree account.
This link will take you directly to our website, email and social media accounts.
So be sure to check that out.
In the meantime, Shelbs, how are you today?
I'm good.
It's kind of raining and a little dull outside.
I was planning on doing some Christmas decorating on the outside, I decorated inside probably a month and a half ago.
A month and a half ago before Halloween.
I did.
I had my tree up before Halloween this year.
But other than that, we went to the Christmas tree lighting downtown last night.
I live in a very beautiful hallmark town.
So it was just a very little intimate setting where they had the elementary school kids singing.
And then of course they had Santa and the tree lighting and it was really fun.
Good, good.
Yeah, you guys could probably contact the Hallmark channel and see if you can get a movie made there if you haven't already.
Oh, that's not a bad idea.
I did watch a lot of Hallmark over Thanksgiving when I was visiting family.
I love it.
Okay.
Well, I told you before I like to start things off with a question or something relatable to our story before jumping into our storyline.
So I'm going to ask you a question.
Are you a warm weathered girl or a cold weathered girl?
Warm weather for sure.
I love the beach.
I love just sitting in the sand and you know watching the kids play in the water and I'll go play with them.
So definitely warm weather.
I'm not looking forward to the January coldness.
Oh, I'm loving it already.
It's a bit nippy here where I'm at and guess what I have.
What do you have?
I have this wonderful blanket that you gave me a couple years ago.
It's a electrical throw.
Oh my God.
I love it.
Oh, I am just under the blankets today having a good day.
Yes, you can never go wrong with blankets as a gift.
Never.
Oh, yeah, you can't.
Well, I think you probably know if I had to choose, you know, I love the cold weather.
I think a little bit a little bit of that is the fact that I grew up up north.
So this time of year to me is absolutely delicious.
I love this weather.
I do live in the mountains.
So I'm going to say that I'm more of a mountain girl than a beach bum.
Nothing wrong with the beach.
You know, I love meeting up with you at the beach at least once a year, but you know,
I'm not going to get in that ocean.
That's for sure.
Entertain me for a minute because we're going to play would you rather go for it?
I think I already know this answer.
But if you had an opportunity to visit Alaska, would you rather take a cruise or go hiking
through the wilderness?
I would say take a cruise just because I've never been on a cruise.
Okay.
Yeah, that's sensible.
I know that you didn't you have one scheduled a couple years ago?
We did and then COVID.
Oh, yeah, I know that darn COVID.
We got a full refund.
That's good.
Well, today we are going to Alaska and we are going to be talking about Chris McCandless
today who was an infamous hiker who and I will say spoiler alert here.
Chris died in the Alaskan wilderness on August 18th, 1992.
And once I start telling you this Shelby, you may actually know who he is.
He's actually quite famous.
He is the subject of multiple outdoor enthusiast magazines plus a little book called Into the
Wild which was written by one of my favorite authors John Krocour.
I don't know if you read that book Shelbs.
Have you?
I don't believe so.
Have you heard of it though?
It sounds familiar.
Okay, it might sound a little bit more familiar as we go here.
This book is used in college level literature classes.
Sean Penn even directed a movie by the same name of Into the Wild.
I don't know if you ever saw the movie.
Ah, now that you say Sean Penn, I'm going to Google it, but I do think I've seen that movie.
No, don't Google it.
I want you to be surprised because that's how we roll on this podcast.
All right.
I'm going to give you a little bit of a background on him before we get started.
Christopher Johnson McCandless was born on February 12th, 1968 in El Segundo, California
to Billy and Walt McCandless, two successful entrepreneurs who encouraged Chris as he was
growing up to do well in school and to plan for his future.
Several articles that I read stated that Chris's dad was married to another woman when he met
Chris's mother, which when Chris got older, he didn't appreciate that very much.
So his household was said to be somewhat disruptive, but to me, I feel like just from everything
that I read for this case, Shelby, the majority of the problem was that there was a house
full, simply full of headstrong people.
You had three people in the house that were, you know what it means, too many cooks in
the kitchen.
I do.
Yeah.
So for the most part, I would say that the family life was what we would consider to
be normal, albeit of course some drama, but you know that every single family in this
world has at least a little bit of drama, right?
Oh, of course.
Well, Chris eventually graduated from high school in 1986 and went on to earn a bachelor's
degree from Emory University in Atlanta and double majored in history and anthropology.
So he was a pretty smart guy.
Yeah, absolutely.
He sounded like it.
Instead of pursuing an immediate career after graduation though, Chris planned a getaway
to Alaska to take on the wilderness for a few months.
I mean, Shelby, some of us backpack across Europe.
Some of us take a cruise, but Chris opted to take an Alaskan hike.
I think that's kind of cool.
That is really cool.
I would love to go backpacking across Europe, but visiting Alaska also sounds fun.
Yeah, let me tell you one of the reasons why Chris decided to venture over to Alaska.
According to his sister, Corrine, they were brought up in that tumultuous household that
I had mentioned and Corrine actually wrote a book called The Wild Truth, which I have
not read personally, so I cannot say exactly what went on, but Corrine describes a childhood
of emotional and physical abuse that she and her siblings, including Chris, endured.
So I had mentioned headstrong people in the house and according to Corrine, Chris planned
his travels very carefully to separate himself from his dysfunctional upbringing.
In fact, Shelby, he didn't even tell his parents goodbye before he left for his trip.
Wow.
I don't know if I could do that.
Seems he just wanted to get away.
Yeah, I guess so.
Chris even donated his life savings in the sum of just over $24,000 to a British charity
group consisting of multiple charities that advocate for ending global poverty.
Now that sounds like a good cause.
It does sound like a good cause.
Once Chris was free of all of his responsibilities, he assumed the name Alexander Supertramp as
he began an eccentric life as what I would call a survivalist.
So he dropped the name Chris and went by Alex, anybody whose path he crossed during his adventures.
He basically went by Alexander Supertramp.
Not sure where that last name came from, but I know that there is a music group by that name.
I was going to ask.
Yeah, I mean, that's all I can figure.
I never saw anything in any of the writings why he came up with that name.
That's a big change.
It is a big change.
It's not just a Chris to Alex.
Yep, Supertramp.
He spent the next couple of years traveling and living off the land, making his way through
Arizona and South Dakota.
He even traveled down the Colorado River, which I think is pretty cool.
I think it's got a lot of White Rapid River.
Yeah, Whitewater.
Yeah.
Okay.
So yeah, he did a lot of that.
Oh, that would be fun.
Have you ever been?
No, I've never been, but I've seen pictures of when you did.
Oh, yes.
Well, after Arizona and South Dakota, Chris moved on to Alaska to hike the Stampede Trail.
Along the way as he made his way there, he worked odd jobs to earn money and eventually
hitchhiked his way up into Canada and then over to Alaska to begin the biggest adventure
of his lifetime.
Shelby, do you have a bucket list?
I would like to say yes.
Like I have things I want to do, but I feel like I'm a little bit more spontaneous.
Okay.
Yeah, me too.
I think there's a couple things I would still like to do.
I actually marked one of those off when I went to DC.
I was able to go to Arlington Cemetery, which was on my bucket list.
If you've not had a chance to go there, Shelby, you really, really have to.
There's so much history there.
But oh my gosh, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
That's all I have to say.
Go find him.
He's in the Arlington Cemetery.
Wow.
So Chris had been living in the elements for a couple of years by now.
And according to some of his journals, there was an entry date of April 28th, 1992,
where he stated that he planned to reflect in a spiritual revolution in the Alaskan wilderness.
So basically Chris was, I think, in a crossroads of his life.
I mean, he was only 24 at the time, but his journal entries indicated,
I think, that he was really trying to separate himself from the civilized world.
So he was just minimalizing and getting rid of all of his material possessions
and living off the land for a little while.
Well, you know, in the beginning, you said that his parents were pretty successful.
And so maybe he grew up living a more lavish life and just wanted to let it go.
Very true.
He could have taken a philosophy class in school too.
I know that sometimes when you take a class, they tend to send you in different directions.
I have no, there's nothing concrete about that.
But you know, there's something along the way made him change his thought process for sure.
And his original intentions were to remain in Alaska only through July 1992.
So maybe a three-month trek just before heading back to the lower 48,
which by the way, if nobody knows what that is,
that would be the 48 states on the mainland of the continent of the United States,
while Alaska is kind of up there separated a little bit.
As Chris hitchhiked his way across Alaska,
a man by the name of Jim Galleon picked him up to help him along his route.
So that was nice. He picked up a hitchhiker along the way.
As an Alaskan resident, Jim could tell when Chris got in the car
that he was not fully equipped to tackle the Alaskan elements.
He even attempted to talk Chris out of this venture,
or at least drive him to encourage Alaska to get more supplies.
Chris's response to this, Shelby, was simply,
I'll be fine. No, thank you. I'll be all right. What do you think of that?
Wow. I wonder if he ever took a survivalist class
and maybe that's why he thought he'd be fine.
I don't know. Well, he was being reflective on his life.
So, and then he didn't plan on being gone for very long.
Right. I mean, three months is kind of a long time.
It is. As Jim dropped Chris off,
he did give Chris a pair of Wellington boots to help him keep warm.
So that was nice of him.
Oddly enough, though, Chris left his watch
along with the only map that he had.
He left those behind in Jim's car before they parted ways.
I don't know if that was on purpose.
I was going to say, because those are two very identifiable things for people,
the watch, because it's something that his family would recognize,
and the map, because it could potentially tell where he was actually going,
or maybe the route he was going to be taking.
Oh, yeah. He should have 100% had that map on him.
And you'll see why in just a couple of minutes.
Well, as Chris made his way through the Stampede Trail,
which is located in the Denali National Park and Preserve area of Alaska,
he came across bus number 142
that was once used by the Fairbanks Alaska City Transit System.
So he's basically hiking down this trail, Shelby,
and comes across an old bus.
The bus was deactivated from the fleet
and was deliberately placed on the Stampede Trail,
originally for work crews,
but was eventually left out for hikers who used it as a shelter or a base camp
as outdoor enthusiasts trekked the eight-mile strip of primitive land
along the Stampede Creek,
which also ran along the Teclanica River.
And Shelby, this river is going to play a very important part in Chris's fate.
Give me a little bit of goosebumps.
Oh, due to the harsh winter conditions,
plus sitting near the Teclanica River,
this trail is considered to be quite primitive and dangerous,
depending on the time of year that you're there.
You have cold frigid seasons, you have thawing seasons.
So when all the snow there starts to melt,
the Stampede Trail extends much further than the eight miles
of the most populated hiking areas,
and the conditions can worsen for hikers
who are not fully prepared and lack proper survival gear.
So this is where a little bit of the controversy of this story comes in, Shelby,
because according to experts,
Chris was one of these hikers who was ill-prepared to spend three months
in the Alaskan wilderness without the proper equipment and gear.
Sure, even the gentleman that picked him up recognized that.
Mm-hmm.
Well, I don't know how much you remember
when we went camping when you were young.
I mean, we did that quite a bit, actually.
But I practically, I mean, do you know how much equipment that we had to take
just to go to the state park and set up camp on the campgrounds?
We had a ton of stuff that we had to take,
and let alone for three months' time.
Mm-hmm.
I mentioned that Chris only planned to stay out there for around three months.
Well, here comes that thawing season that I had mentioned,
and this usually occurs somewhere around May.
So remember now, he entered the Alaskan wilderness back at the end of April,
so he is already going into May.
Yeah.
And that's when all the snow's going to start to melt
and the waters start building up a little bit.
Chris arrived in April just one month before that thawing season.
So I mentioned that he had also set up camp along the Teclinica River,
and according to his journals, he felt like he hit the jackpot
when he came upon that bus 142.
I'm going to keep referencing bus number 142
because it is a really, really critical piece of this story today.
But when he came across that bus, he thought,
well, this is a nice setup.
I'm just going to stay here for a little while to keep myself out of the elements
because it had been used for hikers and hunters and work crews in the past.
So he had a pretty good thing going.
Yeah, I think he was pretty lucky in the first place to find it.
Mm-hmm.
Well, as May approached, the Alaskan terrain began to thaw out
and the Teclinica River swelled from a small trickling creek
into a full-blown, 75-foot wide Whitewater Rapids River in just a matter of days.
I had a feeling that's what was going to happen.
Yep, sure did.
Well, historically, the Alaskan terrain by the Teclinica River
makes it virtually impossible to cross
no matter how skilled you are as a survivalist.
And Chris had made multiple attempts to cross the river
during the Alaskan thawing season, but was never successful
and ended up being forced back to his camping area by bus 142.
And I want to give you just a little bit of a perspective, Shelby,
on the amount of watershed that accumulated while Chris was setting up residents
because I found the measured precipitation during that time
because you know that's what I do.
I always look for more information.
Meteorologists documented a 20% above average precipitation
for this time of year, which equaled somewhere around 68 centimeters
or 26.77 inches of water accumulation in a very short period of time,
which could result in flash flooding.
These wet conditions were not a critical problem per se,
but Chris's food supply certainly was becoming an issue.
According to his journals, Chris only carried 10 pounds of rice with him
on this journey that he planned on spending three months on.
So 10 pounds.
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a lot, but you know,
you have to eat three times a day at least.
So I don't know how he was thinking that would last three months.
I guess he was just trying to, you know, not pack so much
so he didn't have a ton of weight on him while he was hiking.
Yeah, I'm wondering if maybe you'll bring this up later on,
but once the, you know, the river thawed out,
was he on the side of the river where it was easily accessible
to maybe the closest town or did he have to cross the river?
Nope, he had to cross that river to get back to civilization.
So that was part of, I guess I didn't really make that clear.
So thanks for asking that question.
Yeah, he had to cross the river just to get back to, you know,
his normal life and everything else
in the closest town in Alaska.
I'm not even sure how he ended up on that trail,
but obviously at the time of year he went,
he probably crossed just a regular little creek
that he didn't think anything about
and probably had no idea that river was going to swell up
as much as it did.
Well, if he had his map, maybe that would have shown
there was a large river there.
Yeah, and then to think about any movie of the wilderness
and people are trying to cross in the suspenseful time of that movie
is when you see them crossing the white water rapids
and getting swept away.
I mean, that's not unheard of in this area.
Chris also had trouble securing sustainable nutrients
from his surroundings.
He was able to get berries and occasionally he could snare something,
but he didn't have a ton of resources
that he could live off the land for a little while.
There was very little wildlife, very little vegetation in his area.
So it's believed that Chris did starve to death,
which is why experts believe that Chris was trying to cross that river
to get back to civilization like we mentioned.
Yeah, he would have gotten weaker and weaker
and that would have obviously lessened his chances
to be able to cross the river.
Absolutely, yeah,
because you definitely need to have some strength for that.
Well, I had to go look this one up too,
because this is not the first time that I've wondered this.
I've talked to some of my students
about how long somebody can live without food or water,
which is somewhere between one and three weeks.
If we had access to water,
we could potentially live up to one to two months
depending on our health, our body mass index and things like that.
But it seemed that Chris was showing a little bit of desperation
and so he was in the process of cutting that Alaskan trip short
to get back home again.
Oh, that's sad.
Yeah.
On September 6th, 1992,
a hunter came across Chris inside bus number 142.
According to his journal entries,
Chris likely died from starvation on August 18th, 1992,
based on his emancipated state,
which means Shelby, that he had lost a ton of weight
and would have appeared to be very malnourished.
I saw some conflicting results in some of the articles that I read
and gosh, I even have this book.
Shout out to my friend Olive,
who gladly handed this book over to me
because it is one of my favorite books and she hated it.
But I should have looked this one up.
He lived somewhere between 114 and 119 days out in the wilderness.
Chris was found inside a sleeping bag
and his body had already begun to decompose.
His normal body weight was somewhere around 140 pounds
when he first began the journey.
When he was found Shelby, he only weighed 67 pounds.
So he really did just waste away.
Wow.
Outdoor experts, along with the author of the book
Into the Wild by John Krocauer,
believed that Chris could have either starved to death
or had been poisoned by consuming potato seeds.
And I do remember that.
I was like, how could little tiny itty bitty seeds poison you?
Because apparently they have some high toxicity
and should not be consumed.
But I did find several articles
while I was looking all this up that kind of debunked this theory,
saying that the compounds found in potato seeds are non-toxic.
So there's a lot of controversy there.
I personally am not a science or math person.
So I was not going to go look up all those theories
on if he died from that or not.
I would say in my opinion,
it was definitely leaning towards starvation,
but I'm sure there were other elements involved.
John Krocauer later revised his theory
that Chris had died from poisonous potato seeds
based on those scientific findings.
And other experts debated if Chris was killed
by an ongoing exposure to black mold.
What do you think of that?
That's very interesting.
Yeah, you know black mold can kill you, right?
Yeah, did they find evidence in the bus?
Nope, nothing highly conclusive.
But think about how much wear and tear that bus has gotten
over the period of time that it was out there
and the elements and if there was an old mattress.
If you go look up the pictures,
you will see that it's in pretty bad shape
and you really don't want to stay there for too long.
I think one night would be fine,
but it's not an extended period of time.
It's not an extended stay, you know what I mean?
For sure.
All right.
Some other outdoor experts also stated
that Chris may have been malnourished
due to a high intake of lean meats,
which could have blocked other nutrients
that he ingested in smaller increments.
So basically if he killed a rabbit
or I think that he actually killed a caribou
at some point in time,
but if he was eating high volumes of meat
but didn't counteract that with some type of vegetable,
then that could have contributed to his malnourishment.
He may have been eating,
but it was not nourishing him the way that our bodies need it.
Does that make sense?
It does, that's interesting.
Aren't caribous pretty big?
Isn't that like a moose?
Ashley, believe it or not, Shelby,
I didn't put this in my notes,
but I do remember reading it.
Caribous are probably the size of a moose
and I believe Chris did write
that he had at some point in time shot a moose,
but as they found out later, it was a caribou.
And I will also tell you this,
he did live off of it for a little while,
but a lot of that meat rotted before he could store it away
or he probably honestly got maybe one or two meals out of it
and that was all.
Ugh.
There's been a lot of controversy surrounding Chris's death
from survivalist experts over the years
and some believe that he was just simply too inexperienced
to set out for such a daunting trek
without the proper preparation, which we had talked about
because again, he left his map behind
and he only brought books with him
and he did not even have a compass.
So he was just going out for a leisurely hike
and came across the bus,
decided he was going to hang for a while,
but didn't have any directional devices like a compass
or a map or anything to help him out.
Had he had that map Shelby,
he would have seen something on the map
that was giving him an area relatively close by too.
It was an aluminum basket that provided hikers with a cable
and some pulleys to cross the Teclinica River safely,
but it was located, I'm going to say,
I don't know about a mile upstream
from where the water broke out into smaller channels.
Wow, how unfortunate.
Very, yeah.
He was trying to cross the river probably at its widest peak
and clearly he probably didn't investigate the area very well,
even just to take a mile hike up that stampede trail
or up the river.
He just didn't do it.
He basically lounged for quite an extended period of time.
Right.
I wonder, it seems like they were,
the community was trying to take pretty good care
of the hikers and whatnot.
So I wonder why there weren't maps on the bus.
Yes.
You know what else I wonder?
How come no other hikers came across Chris
while he was there for three months?
That's what's surprising to me,
especially if the Alaskan authorities put that out there
specifically for hikers to take refuge in, you know,
bad weather.
But there was also a cabin about six miles away
that kept food stocked for hikers and other supplies
while hunters were in the area.
So anytime the hunters were out there,
there was a cabin.
It was like a community cabin
that was clearly marked on local maps.
Wow.
Other experts believe that Chris should have been able
to wait out the rise of the Teclanica River
and he should have eventually been able to pass.
However, I don't know if it was the timing.
And I think honestly on the days
that he was trying to pass at this point,
he was really losing a lot of energy
and really starting to feel the effects of starvation.
So I just think the timing was really off for him.
That is.
He seemed very excited to be going out on that adventure
and it's sad the way that it ended up.
Well, after his death,
experts surveyed the Teclanica River
and after researching the water flow from the melting snow
and ice that I had mentioned from that time of year,
they reached the conclusion
that Chris did not take the time to familiarize himself
with his surroundings
and chose one of the worst days of the year to try to pass.
Had he even gone a week earlier, Shelby,
I don't think we'd be talking about this case today.
Oh, when he was so young, I'm sure.
I know.
Well, let me give you some feedback
on Chris's journaling that he had written.
Apparently, I don't know,
I had mentioned the 114 to 119 days
that he was out in the Alaskan wilderness.
In all, Chris left 113 journal entries
during his time on the Stampede Trail
and he was extremely vigilant
about keeping up with those journals.
Shelby, if you were to read it from beginning to end,
I think that he probably started off
with quite a bit of optimism about this trip
and one of the entries nearing the beginning
of his adventures read and I'll quote,
the very basic core of man's living spirit is in his passion for adventure.
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences
and hence there is no greater joy
than to have an endlessly changing horizon
for each day to have a new and different sun unquote.
That's kind of nice.
Well, some people interpret this journal entry
to mean that everyone, you, me, and everyone, Shelby,
can benefit from a minimalist lifestyle.
I agree with that to a certain extent, absolutely.
I mean, we all have our nice house that we're living in,
but do we really need to fill it up with stuff?
According to his journals,
I had mentioned that Chris was also carrying
eight pounds of rice with him.
He also had a 22 caliber rifle,
which he did use to hunt if the hunting was available.
Otherwise, he lived off of berries that he could find.
As the days wore on,
Chris's journaling became less enthusiastic
because on July 5th, 1992,
the day that he had tried to cross the Teclinica River, Shelby,
he was forced back to bus number 142
and in his journal he wrote, quote,
rained in, river looks impossible,
lonely, scared, unquote.
So yeah, he's starting to kind of get in his head.
Now remember, he was only there between 114 and 119 days.
By day 107, Chris wrote, beautiful blueberries.
And afterwards, he only journaled tick marks or tally marks,
like he was simply counting days at that point in time.
He didn't even have enough energy at that point to write anything.
He did leave one message amongst his journal entries,
which read in block letters, quote,
I have had a happy life and thank the Lord.
Goodbye and may God bless all, end quote.
So, you know, there's a lot going on.
He is definitely doing some reflecting here.
And before he died,
Chris did leave one final note on the door of the bus,
which read, quote, attention possible visitors.
SOS, I need your help.
I'm injured, near death and too weak to hike.
I'm all alone.
This is no joke.
In the name of God, please remain to save me.
I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening.
Thank you, unquote.
And Chris signed his real name this time,
not Alex Supertramp, but he did sign his real name,
which was entered the month of August.
It didn't give a date.
I think at that point in time,
he had kind of lost track of the days,
but he did say it was August.
That's so sad.
Yeah.
Any thoughts on his journaling shelves?
I mean, it's just, you know, sad that he was so excited.
He was so young at 24 years old.
Who knows exactly what they want to do with their life.
So, you know, he wanted to take three months off and was excited.
And then just for, I can't tell you, you know,
how many times was probably going through his head.
Yep, I messed up.
Oh, yeah.
Well, his legacy has left somewhat of pop culture,
along with bus 142,
because as the popularity of this story intensified,
several hikers attempted to make their way to the same bus
where Chris perished.
And I mentioned that several magazine articles were written
along with that book and the movie reflecting
Chris McCandless's misfortunes in Alaska.
This seemed to create somewhat of a pop culture.
And over the years, many hikers came across that infamous bus 142.
It's said that somewhere over 100 people have visited the trail
every year where Chris was found.
Some hikers even had their pictures taken near the bus.
And one of those photos that I saw, Shelby,
there was a hiker that was posing in the exact same manner
that Chris was in his own photos.
Now, other hikers had to be rescued from the same area
where Chris McCandless met his fate.
In 2010, a 24-year-old Swiss hiker named Claire Ackerman
drowned while she attempted to cross the Teclanica River
close to the location where Chris had camped.
It's my understanding she was actually trying to get to that bus, Shelby.
But her fellow hiker said that she was not pursuing that campground.
Wow.
So again, you have a lot of speculations here on what was happening.
Was she going to look for that bus?
Was she not?
I have no idea.
Between 2009 and 2019, at least 15 search and rescues
were coordinated to locate hikers who went in pursuit of bus number 142.
Eight more hikers had to be rescued from the Stampede Trail,
plus one more drowning occurred.
So that's a shame that anybody, you know, even if they were,
I mean, it's like me going to Washington, DC and seeing all these monuments.
I get it.
It's historical.
It's really cool to see, but I'm not going to put myself in danger
to get there to look at it.
Absolutely not.
It seems like they need to move the bus closer to town
or put it in, I don't know, a museum or something.
Were you reading ahead on my notes?
Oh, no.
Literally, I was about to tell you.
Oh, they put it in a museum.
Yeah, guess what?
So on June 18th of 2020, Alaskan authorities removed that bus from the trail
due to the dangerous terrain and the amount of hikers
who continuously tried to reach the spot where Chris had passed away
and needed to be rescued.
And yes, Shelby, the bus now resides at the University of Alaska's
Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska.
So there you go.
That is an abridged version of Chris McCandless,
the infamous hiker who unfortunately perished in the wild Alaskan terrain
and had a lot of popularity following his adventure.
I did want to give you a side note on this.
The hunter who found Chris inside bus 142 was at some point
standoffish with the Alaskan authorities because in 2014,
he was shot to death when he used a vehicle in a threatening manner towards the police.
What?
He was using his vehicle as a deadly weapon and was shot down.
That's tragic.
Yeah, that's wild.
So many people are split on if Chris was simply being reckless
when he hiked out into the wilderness unprepared
or if he was just down on his luck.
Regardless, we would love to hear what our listeners have to think on this subject.
So by all means, DM us on Instagram at dying to be found
or shoot us an email at dying the number to the letter B found at gmail.com.
So otherwise, Shelby, that's the story of Chris McCandless.
Well, thank you for sharing.
I really enjoyed that story.
Great.
Are you ready for my teachable moment?
I am, but it is Shelby and cats and the said cat wants inside.
So I must go let her in.
I'll be back.
Okay, Shelby with cats.
We'll be right back.
I swear you all I'm going to start putting little stories in while she's away
because I used to have a lot of fun with this with Beth.
But again, we have a better platform now.
That doesn't drop like she used to.
I'm going to have to think of a story about Shelby with cats.
I'm back.
Okay, now I'm ready for our teachable moment.
All right, here we go.
Teachable moment.
I think this goes without saying that no matter what our hobby is,
we need to be prepared.
People who run marathons don't just wake up and decide
they're going to go jogging during the Boston Marathon or the Peach Tree Road Race.
They prepare for them for months in advance.
People who climb Mount Everest do the same thing and even take professional guides with them.
Same situation here.
Shelby, Chris to me seemed like a quite intelligent fellow
and he did well as a survivalist in Arizona and South Dakota
before he made his way to Alaska.
But those conditions were completely different.
So did he do his homework?
That we'll never know.
According to his journals, not as much as he probably should have.
So whether you're planning to hike across Europe,
take a rock climbing excursion,
or even plan a few months to hike the Appalachian Trail,
you need to understand what you're getting yourself into.
Read up on the conditions,
talk to experts,
and pack the proper equipment.
So that's it, Shelbs.
Short and sweet.
That's my teachable moment.
I like it.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
So with that being said,
are you going to say it or am I?
You can say it.
That is a wrap.
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