Saturday, August 8, 2015
Stampede Trail | First Views of Denali
The GoPro doesn't do a good job with it, but check out some pictures I'll post later. This is when we were first able to see Denali.
Stampede Trail | First Teklanika Crossing
Not great video here-the second crossing we filmed on the way back gives a much better sense of the current and the pack raft's performance. Check that one out also, but this was our first attempt to cross. Nick is waiting on the other side to grab the boat, but you really can't see him.
Friday, August 7, 2015
Stampede Trail | Locating the Trail After Savage Crossing
How to find the trail after crossing the Savage:
Stampede Trail | First River Crossing | Savage River
I wasn't sure at first, as you'll hear, but this is the Savage River.
Stampede Trail | ATV High Road
There do seem to be some benefits to the presence of ATVs along the east side of the Tek. The high road in this video allowed us to avoid a MAJOR pond. The question is: would that huge rut and pond be there at all without the ATVs? Not sure.
Stampede Trail | Bear bell
Can you hear my bear bell ringing in this one? Imagine hearing that in your right ear for 40 miles.:-)
Stampede Trail | First 1/4 Mile
Ignore the audio-apologies for that. I had the waterproof case on the GoPro, and you'll see why!
This is what we encountered no more than a couple hundred yards into the trail. We soon learned that this strategy was not going to cut it, but at this point we were still naive.
This is what we encountered no more than a couple hundred yards into the trail. We soon learned that this strategy was not going to cut it, but at this point we were still naive.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Bus 142 | The Complete Story of Our Trek
Fair Warning: The following is a LONG post with a detailed account of our trip to the bus and back. If you would rather see pictures and video, I'll be posting those later and linking them out from here. For now, I need to get this all down while it's fresh.
We had some flexibility with the exact departure time, and I knew weather was going to play a role. As we finished up dinner on our first night (August 1, 2015) and looked at the forecast, we knew we needed to get going the next day. We hurried back to the hotel and began the packing process.
When I finished loading the pack with all the gear and food, it weighed in the neighborhood of 60 pounds. To be honest, I had been figuring on more like 40, so this made me a little nervous. I have a significant amount of experience backpacking with a heavy pack, but that all came many years ago. I didn't do any specific training for this trip, other than my normal running routine. I knew I could hike 40 miles, but when I initially planned I was not anticipating carrying quite so much weight.
The next morning looked a little grey, cold, and ominous, and as we rattled down the unpaved Stampede Road, I can't say I was overly confident about the trip. We lost cell service about two miles from the end of the road, and as we exited the car and began to load up, feelings of isolation and anxiousness were attempting to trigger warning bells.
Reassuring myself that I had done my homework and prepared well, we set off down the trail. Within 50 yards we came upon a series of what amounted to ponds in the middle of the trail, and we had to laugh. One of the most talked and written about parts of the Stampede Trail is the water. I had read on many sites about the fact that I would ABSOLUTELY get very wet while making this trek. This happened immediately, and it was certainly a harbinger of what was to come.
At first we tried to navigate around these ponds, but we quickly found that was impossible. Still, we wasted a LOT of time at the beginning attempting to stay as dry as we could. After the first couple of hours, we had inured ourselves to the idea that we would be wet from the thighs down for the balance of the journey, and we henceforth saved ourselves a great deal of energy in plowing directly through all the muck.
And muck there was, aplenty. This trail is only dry at intervals for the first ten miles. It is often mired in bogs, beaver ponds, and muddy, knee-deep lakes that never dry. For some portions, the trail runs straight up stream and river beds, so we found ourselves walking in knee-deep, ice-cold water for long stretches of the hike. The longer we endured this, the less it phased us. By mid-day we had ceased to look for ways around all but the deepest looking ponds. There were a few that we had to steer clear of, and fortunately there tended to be paths that others had found around these.
There are two major river crossings on the trail, and we came to the banks of the Savage River at about the 7-mile mark. No bridges exist in the backcountry, so crossings are made at one's own risk and in any way that looks manageable. The Savage, while it runs fast and cold, is not particularly deep or risky, so we didn't use the pack raft for that one. I'll post some video of the crossing, but it was uneventful and relatively easy. Before we crossed we encountered a stone memorial to Claire Ackerman. Claire was a Swiss hiker who died in 2010 while trying to cross the second and far more dangerous of the two rivers, the Teklanika. You can read about her story here.
We thought it curious that the monument was at the wrong river, and we wondered if perhaps her friends who placed it thought the Savage was where she had drowned.
On the opposite side of the Savage, we had a tough time locating the trail, and this cost us some more time. As we tried to discern which way to go, we came across huge Grizzly tracks on the bank. There is no telling when they had been made, but they made us anxious to get back on track. With the aid of the GPS, we eventually were able to find the trail and continue. Three short miles later, we reached the Teklanika. THIS river was BY FAR my greatest concern about the journey. It is the Tek that trapped Chris McCandless at Bus 142 on the west side of the trail, and it is the Tek that stymies many of those who attempt this trip.
We heard it long before we saw it. After the Savage, the trail climbs mercifully onto a ridgeline that stays mostly dry, and the views of the surrounding Alaskan tundra improve significantly. As we walked along, mountains surrounding us, a beautiful canyon became evident on our right, and it was here that we began to hear the dull roar of the Tek. Down the ridge we came, and I knew what was coming: a big, fast river.
McCandless was able to cross this river easily when he first walked into the wild, as it was April and the land was still mostly frozen. These days, visitors to the bus often attempt the trip in April or May, when the Tek is not yet the raging torrent it becomes in the summer months. Glaciers feed the headwaters to this river, so when the weather is warm it REALLY gets going. Any recent rains exacerbate this problem, and when McCandless came back to the river in July he fell victim to just this perfect storm of poor conditions. It had been raining for days, and Chris felt--probably correctly-- there was no way he could get across. He returned to the bus, and soon thereafter ate something that caused his death.
When we got our first glimpse of the Tek, we knew we needed to scout for the best option to cross. In truth, I had learned this in my research. The Tek is what is known as a "braided river", meaning that depending on the time of year and the flow rate it can follow a number of different channels. Upstream from where the Stampede Trail meets the river (a place where there is a consistent, single channel, and heavy flow), the Tek braids out. Knowing this, we headed upstream to look for a better crossing spot. As we started, we saw a group on the OTHER SIDE! They waved to us and pointed upstream. This made us feel better about the idea that we could actually get across.
As we hiked we encountered a group of ATV riders who had passed us earlier on the trail. They told us that they had hoped to ride across the river but it was too high for them to make it. They would be turning back. We mentioned the group on the other side, and the ATV riders knew who we were talking about. The group were all Frenchmen, they said, and they had asked our ATV friends to ferry them across. When the ATV group scouted upriver and realized they could not, the Frenchmen pulled out their pack rafts and made it that way. "PACK RAFTS?!" we said. They had had the same plan we did, and it had worked! This was also VERY reassuring, but since we had never packrafted and the river was high and fast, we were still uncertain we would attempt the crossing.
Still, we asked the ATV riders where the French group had crossed, and when they showed us we went to the banks to blow up the raft and prepare to try. So, what's the danger in trying to raft across a river that is perhaps 50-75 yards wide? Well, the flow is quite fast, so managing to beach a packraft on the opposite side is no guarantee. The current can easily take the raft (and its contents) if you can't get it beached. Then there is also always the danger of flipping the raft (more on this later--it happened to the French group on the way back).
Just below this area of the Tek, the river drops into a deep gorge and becomes class V whitewater before going over a falls. All of these factors were racing through my inexperienced packrafting brain as we prepared to attempt the crossing. As I was inflating the raft Megan noticed another person (it turned out to be a group of 5 people) on the opposite bank, perhaps 100 yards further upstream from us. They also seemed to have a boat, and they were preparing to cross. One of their group also saw us and walked down the bank to try to talk (scream) across the river with us.
He told us they also had a packraft and had crossed the day before. After a bit more screaming back and forth, he told us he would try to help us beach on his side. He walked downstream, and Megan and I loaded up our backpacks into the raft. The plan was that I would ferry the packs across, carry the raft back upstream, then come back and pick up Megan.
With the packs loaded, and the raft in the water, I jumped in and Megan gave me a shove. Just like that I was in the current, and I was instantly relieved to find the raft performed very well. I knew immediately I could make it to the opposite shore, and I had someone there to catch me. I aimed for him and paddled like hell. It worked! I hit the shore, the dude grabbed the raft, and I was out! I was BEYOND ELATED! It was at this point I KNEW we could make it. Until beaching the boat I was completely unsure, but now I knew we could do it.
I thanked my new friend profusely for his advice and help, and I learned his name was Nick and he was from Fort Wayne, Indiana! He told me he loves Kentucky and had been to the Red River Gorge area to hike. Upstream we carried the boat, I confidently crossed back to Megan, and we easily crossed a third time together, with Nick taking some pictures and then helping us to beach again on the west bank.
Nick kindly pointed us towards the campsite their group had used the night before, we said our goodbyes and exchanged email addresses, and they were off to raft back across. Full of excitement and relief, we made camp early and relaxed a bit. I filtered some water from the Tek, set up the stove, and we cooked and ate our dinner on the river's edge, well away from our campsite. This is a standard and important part of backcountry procedure. All food stays away from the campsite, to avoid attracting bears (and other animals) to the place where you sleep. After dinner, I hung our bear bag in an odor-proof drybag high in a spruce tree about 100 yards outside camp in the opposite direction, and we bedded down for the night in the tent.
Alaska is known as the land of the midnight sun, and even in August (well after the summer solstice) there is no darkness until around midnight. We did our best to get to sleep at 9:00, because we wanted to get a very early start the next morning. I pulled out Into the Wild and read the section where Krakauer documents McCandless' journey up the same trail we were hiking. It was incredible and a bit surreal to be reading about the place where I was. To have the opportunity to be there was just beyond cool--I was living a dream. Eventually I headed off into actual dreamland, and at 4:00 a.m. I awakened to the bright light of early morning Alaskan sun. By 4:40 I had water from the Tek on to boil for coffee and oatmeal, and after retrieving the bear bag made breakfast.
Side note here: because the Tek is a glacially-fed river it is full of silt. It's opaque in any weather condition and looks turquoise in the sunlight. Before boiling I used the .1 micron water filtration system I bought at Quest before I left, and this little filter did wonders to clean up the water. Boiling would have made the water safe to drink, but the silt would have made for gritty meals. With the filter, I not only cooked with but also filled my 3-liter hydration pack and enjoyed the water all day. It was certainly cold enough!
By 6:40 we were on the trail, and since we were able to leave most of our gear at camp we made MUCH better time than we had the day before. The trail was also better on this day, as some more elevation gain brought us to another ridgeline that was fairly dry for much of the final 9 miles. This is not to say that we didn't get wet again, and there were several stream crossings that day, but in general the going was easier. It was about an hour into this day that I looked up and was absolutely stunned to see DENALI looming in the distance! No matter how many times I see this mountain--the tallest in North America at 20,322'--my breath is always a little bit taken away.
Because it is so often shrouded in clouds and is large enough to create its own weather patterns, only 30% of visitors to the area ever get to see Denali while there. That's a shockingly low number, and this day had afforded us a chance to be one of the lucky few! This filled my heart with excitement, and we stopped several times at points where we a particularly good view to take some selfies with the mountain. A sunny day, a drier hike, and views of this amazing mountain made for fast going. At 9:30 I knew we were close. I could see on the GPS map that we were right on top of the bus area--it would just be a matter of rounding a corner and finding ourselves there.
At 9:34 we did just that. As the trail took us left and into a clearing, I found myself face to face with the bus...and eight French guys! They were just rousing themselves from a night of camping next to the bus, and we greeted them but gave them space to wake up. I put my pack down and wandered a bit, exploring the area where Chris had spent over 100 days in the Alaskan bush by himself.
It was incredibly beautiful, this spot that he chose. The bus was clearly the main draw, but right next to the shelter runs the Sushana River, a crystal clear and peacefully running stream that surely provided Chris all the drinking and cooking water he could want. All around are huge mountains, flanked by rolling tundra that at this time of year is brimming with wild blueberries (we picked and ate these!), rose hips, and cranberries. Krakauer describes the land as a "fecund riot" in the summer, and that is precisely what we found.
Once we had given the French guys their space to awaken and get going, we began to chat with them as they packed up to leave. We talked for a while, enjoyed each other's reflections on the trip out and the bus, snapped a few pictures of each other, and off they went. Finally, I could examine and explore the bus.
I don't think words can do the place justice--at least mine cannot--and the meaning it has to so many people is evident in the numbers who try to visit and the messages they inscribe. There are several improvised "guest books", pads of paper that people have left behind with their writings. In addition, there is writing all over the interior of the bus, with messages from hundreds of people who have made it to the bus over the last 20 years. Carine McCandless, Chris' sister, has visited by helicopter on several occasions (I'm unsure about whether or not she has ever made the hike), and Sean Penn came by air as well when he was preparing to make the movie. I don't think Penn signed anywhere, but I found and photographed Carine's writings.
I'll upload lots of video and images of the bus' interior and exterior, as well as the surrounding area, in later posts.
It seems that almost everyone who makes it there leaves something behind, and many leave more than just their signature. The bus is stocked with a wide variety of backcountry survival tools, food, and reading material. I had thought a lot before I made the trip about what I wanted to leave for others, and I settled on my favorite book by Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air. Many of my former students will roll their eyes and remember my obsession with and love for this book:-). I thought it a fitting tribute to Chris to leave a book, because the heaviest part of his own pack as he traveled into the wild were the books he took with him.
By all accounts, Chris was a VERY intelligent young man, and he was an avid reader. He loved Tolstoy, Emerson, and Thoreau, but he was equally fond of writers like Louis L'Amour and Michael Crichton. As Krakauer says, Chris was no literary snob--he just loved to read. So, I left a book, with a message on the inside cover recommending it to all who pass this way.
After a bit more time exploring the bus, we needed to start the long hike back. At 11:20 we left, and by 2:30 we were back to the Tek, having passed the French group along the way. The met us again as we packed up camp, and we discussed our respective plans to re-cross the Tek and trek out. They planned to cross and camp, hiking out the following day. We planned to cross and go, hiking a total of 28 miles on this day. It was not a pleasant prospect to face 10 more miles after having just hiked 18 to the bus and back, but after successfully navigating back across an even more swollen Teklanika, we rested for about an hour, filtered more water, and off we went at about 4:30.
It was painful, and the going was rough, but we made it. Again the GPS saved us from losing the trail a couple of times, and we emerged abruptly at 8:50 that evening into the parking lot at 8-mile lake. It was a truly wonderful feeling to throw the pack in the trunk and sit in the car. We were absolutely exhausted and covered in muddy water. It was time to head back to civilization. We had done it, and we had made it back to tell the tale.
We drove back to the pizza place in front of our hotel, made it JUST in time to get their last five slices of pizza, hobbled back to the room, and collapsed into bed. The next day was spent in recovery mode, trying to get the muscles that had been so taxed to work again and treating the various trail wounds we had. I won't get into all that, but suffice it to say that the forty-mile hike with the packs, through muddy ponds and bogs, did not do wonders for our bodies.
That evening we went to dinner at a popular restaurant in Healy, and guess who we ran into?! Our French friends! We were all happy to see each other and talk about the journey in a safer and more relaxed environment. They told us that their journey back across the Tek had not been as uneventful as ours. One of their packrafts had flipped, and the guy inside had barely been able to grab the backpack he was ferrying across before the raft had been carried away by the current.
They lost a raft! We had both rented our rafts, and they had had to pay $1400 that morning to the rental company for their lost boat. They were quite cheery and circumspect about this misfortune, however, saying "Hey, it's just money, and the important thing is we are all safe." The key to their RV rental had also been in the pack the guy had saved as the raft floated away, so they were all relieved not to have that added stress.
We talked for a while, and I remembered this time to get a picture with them before we parted ways. Thanks very much to our French friends for all their companionship and assistance!
Thanks also to everyone who read this post; I know it's a long story, but I wanted to tell it as completely as I could while it was fresh in my mind. What I'll do next is post a bunch of video and images, linking those smaller posts out to this one eventually for use in my class.
If you're finding my blog online because you're researching the bus 142 trip, PLEASE RENT/BRING A PACKRAFT! It is a very do-able crossing in the boat, and there is no sense in risking your life and becoming one of the 5-6 rescues Alaskan State Police/Rescue have to do each year in this area.
If you fly into Fairbanks, rent from Mark at Northern Alaska Packraft
If you fly into Anchorage, rent from John at PacRaft Alaska.
Both are great guys who will get you a safe and sturdy boat to cross the Tek.
If you have any questions or want to discuss the trip, feel free to email me at clark.pollitt@kcd.org.
Success! | A Journey of Willpower
First thing's first: I made it! We made it! If you're just here to see if we managed to get across the Teklanika, navigate to the bus, and make it back alive, you can stop reading here. We did it!
Below and beyond in this blog I will be documenting the various parts of the journey. I'll be using this as a resource for my class, so I'll be tinkering with and building the blog over the next few days and weeks. I have a lot of video, images, and thoughts to share, so it will take a while to piece all this together. I'll begin with some reflections on the trek into the Alaskan backcountry.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Made it to Anchorage
Saturday, July 25, 2015
I am just under a week away from my Cox Family Teacher Development Award trip to Alaska now, and I'm starting to get that feeling in my stomach. It's the feeling I get when I am both excited for and nervous about something--the feeling of anticipation. I can feel this trip coming, settling around me, creeping closer.
Last night when I returned from teaching my KCD Summer Stretch courses, I went outside to practice setting up the tent. I unearthed and fired up up the Whisperlite backcountry stove that Megan gave me for Christmas many years ago (when we had fewer children and grand ambitions of more wilderness camping). I first learned how to use the Whisperlite when I worked one summer after college as a backcountry guide for a company called Wilderness Ventures, but I hadn't had to put one together to light in many years. It worked; I remembered! I have a kitchen table filled with camping equipment, as I attempt to inventory, organize, and prepare.
That last word provides a good segue for me to mention Chris McCandless. In my own preparations for this trek, I have read a LOT of articles, blog posts, and online commentary about Chris. I have actually been putting off writing this first post on my own blog, because I was not sure--and still am not--that I have anything to add to the extensive and decades-long conversation about this man. The truth is that I am less interested in judging his decisions than I am in thinking and reading about his story.
Like many, I find his life and his post-graduate decisions to be a subject of great curiosity. As an aficionado of Jon Krakauer's work, I think Krakauer has told and continues to tell Chris' story in his typically engrossing and compelling journalistic style. I say continues to tell, because Krakauer--like every great writer--knows that the work of writing is never truly FINISHED. Great writing takes on a soul of its own, begins to breathe, and demands constant revisiting and revision. As this living document interacts with the world in which it exists, it experiences the human condition of an ever-changing environment, and the writer must find a way to make it fit in the context of a new and different world. The puzzle pieces of the story are constantly being re-shaped by the evolving understanding of the world around them, and it is the writer's duty to find a way to make them fit back together.
The story of Chris McCandless will never be finished. Since his Outside magazine article about McCandless was first published in 1993, Krakauer has advanced no fewer than five theories about what ultimately lead to the man's demise. The story seems to haunt Krakauer, and given the amount of research required to write the book and the firestorm of debate it has ignited, it's not surprising that he has repeatedly returned to the unanswered questions surrounding McCandless' death.
You can read about the history of Krakauer's struggle to explain the tragedy here: http://www.adn.com/article/20150211/krakauer-offers-new-theory-how-mccandless-died
However you feel about Chris after reading Into the Wild or watching Sean Penn's tremendous cinematic depiction of the same name, there can be no denying that McCandless' life and death have generated an incredible amount of interest around the world. Do a quick Google search about Fairbanks Bus 142, and you'll find people from many countries--mostly YOUNG people, like Chris--who feel compelled to write about McCandless and/or make a pilgrimage to the bus where he spent his final days.
So here I sit on the Saturday before I leave, trying to make some sense of and articulate my own preoccupation with Alaska, McCandless' story, and the bus. Among the open tabs on my browser are pages with downloadable .GPX files of the Alaskan wilderness, reviews and tips on how to use a packraft, and Erik Halfacre's excellent site on all things Stampede Trail. Strewn about the computer table beside my morning coffee are my GPS unit, the GoPro that I plan to use to document my journey, my Petzl headlamp, my Garmin watch, and a variety of cords and manuals. I will be heading into the backcountry as prepared and as loaded with the proper gear as I possibly can be, because I know that planning and preparation are key to surviving in the backcountry.
I have a fair amount of experience with backcountry travel. I'm not an expert by any stretch, but I have spent weeks in the wilderness in the past, leading teenagers on backpacking trips with Wilderness Ventures (note: the company is now called Wilderness Adventures). We all came out alive and healthy, and I plan to do the same after my trek to bus 142.
One of the chief complaints people have about Chris is that he walked into the wild recklessly unprepared. It's a chorus that you hear ringing particularly loudly among Alaskans, many of whom seem to regard McCandless with varying degrees of contempt and mockery. It cannot be argued that Chris lacked many of the basic supplies that most would consider essential in the Alaskan bush. Chris was not MOST, however, and I think it is his singularity that lays the foundation upon which almost all the post-mortem furor is based. Did he have a RIGHT to do what he did? Was what he did RIGHT? Clearly it is not my place to answer these questions, and I feel lucky simply to have read about Chris' story and to be able to think about the issues that have grown from it.
Krakauer has provided me both the window into Chris' life and the inspiration to make make my own trip to the bus. I first read the book in 1997, but it wasn't until recently that I decided I would like to make this trip. Kentucky Country Day School, where I teach seventh grade English, has an innovative program that allows teachers to dream big and apply for summer grants for travel and professional growth. I have used Krakauer's Into Thin Air for many years in my class, and I have always wanted to find a way to integrate Into the Wild.
After traveling to Alaska with my family last summer and visiting the Denali area, I was inspired to re-submit a grant proposal to visit the bus. It was approved, and I was awarded the Cox Family Award. It is with those funds and some supplementary professional development money that I will make my trip. I'll use my own personal experiences walking in McCandless' footsteps to try to bring the book and Chris' story to life with my students.
I believe that Chris' countercultural and free-wheeling nature will resonate with them, and I think they will gravitate towards and sympathize with his desire to live life on his own terms. Because they are still quite young, some of Chris' actions won't make sense them, and I think we will be able to generate some excellent discussion and writing as we try to hash those ideas out in class.
Will I make it to the bus and back alive to do this work? I think so. Many people have tried to dissuade me from taking this trip, and Alaskans in general seem to be reticent even to discuss it as a possibility. It is true that there have been a number of hiker rescues in this area over the past twenty years, as others before me have found themselves in trouble as they made the journey. I feel like I have done some fairly extensive reading and research, learned from their errors, and prepared well. Still, if anything seems even remotely perilous during the trek, I will abandon plans to visit the bus and return alive.
Throughout my research, two items of concern loom largely in my mind: bears and the Teklanika River. The Alaskan bush is well-known grizzly country, and I am a bit anxious about possible encounters with a bear. Unlike McCandless, I am not a gun owner, so I plan to arm myself with bear spray. According to everything I have read, this spray provides the best defense against an attack. To prevent an attack, I have purchased several "bear bells", which I will hang on my pack. These bells will constantly ring as I hike, alerting all animals to my presence and hopefully preventing my startling or coming too near any bears.
The Teklanika is a different sort of beast. It is this river that can be said to have indirectly caused McCandless' own death. He had made up his mind to walk out of the wilderness and re-join society in the late summer of 1992, but the Teklanika was by that time a raging torrent of snow and glacial melt. Chris elected to return to the bus and wait for the river to recede or freeze over again. It was during this crucial period of time that his game seemed to be too scarce and he inadvertently consumed a plant that ultimately lead to his death.
My plan to cross the river has taken many twists and turns over the past few months. At first, I watched videos of many people successfully wading across the waist-deep waters, and I thought confidently that I could make it. After reading about and watching videos of many people falling in, however, I decided I needed to take a different tack. The river runs FAST and cold in the summer, and I have no interest in showing up in the Alaskan news headlines as yet another boneheaded victim of the Tek. I investigated a helicopter ride, but that avenue failed to pan out for a variety of reasons. I feel glad it did, because I want to make the trip by foot.
What I have settled on to cross the river is a packraft. These lightweight boats can be carried to a water crossing, inflated, and then quickly deflated on the opposite side. The paddle breaks down for easy backpack transport as well. Barring a flip in the raft, I should be able to ferry myself and my pack across the river. That's the plan, at least. I have a raft rental secured with Mark at Northern Alaska Packrafts, who has been very responsive and helpful in our email exchanges.
So, off I will rush to Louisville International Airport this Friday, right after my final week of summer classes conclude. I'll board a plane to Minneapolis and then one to Anchorage, arriving in the early morning hours of the first day of August. With me will be all that I feel that I need to make my own trip into the wild and walk as Chris did to Bus 142. I'll be blogging here during and after the trip to Alaska, recording pictures, video, and my thoughts as I make the trek. I hope to come back with plenty of first-hand experiences to inspire my students to engage with McCandless' story and Krakauer's book.
Last night when I returned from teaching my KCD Summer Stretch courses, I went outside to practice setting up the tent. I unearthed and fired up up the Whisperlite backcountry stove that Megan gave me for Christmas many years ago (when we had fewer children and grand ambitions of more wilderness camping). I first learned how to use the Whisperlite when I worked one summer after college as a backcountry guide for a company called Wilderness Ventures, but I hadn't had to put one together to light in many years. It worked; I remembered! I have a kitchen table filled with camping equipment, as I attempt to inventory, organize, and prepare.
That last word provides a good segue for me to mention Chris McCandless. In my own preparations for this trek, I have read a LOT of articles, blog posts, and online commentary about Chris. I have actually been putting off writing this first post on my own blog, because I was not sure--and still am not--that I have anything to add to the extensive and decades-long conversation about this man. The truth is that I am less interested in judging his decisions than I am in thinking and reading about his story.
Like many, I find his life and his post-graduate decisions to be a subject of great curiosity. As an aficionado of Jon Krakauer's work, I think Krakauer has told and continues to tell Chris' story in his typically engrossing and compelling journalistic style. I say continues to tell, because Krakauer--like every great writer--knows that the work of writing is never truly FINISHED. Great writing takes on a soul of its own, begins to breathe, and demands constant revisiting and revision. As this living document interacts with the world in which it exists, it experiences the human condition of an ever-changing environment, and the writer must find a way to make it fit in the context of a new and different world. The puzzle pieces of the story are constantly being re-shaped by the evolving understanding of the world around them, and it is the writer's duty to find a way to make them fit back together.
The story of Chris McCandless will never be finished. Since his Outside magazine article about McCandless was first published in 1993, Krakauer has advanced no fewer than five theories about what ultimately lead to the man's demise. The story seems to haunt Krakauer, and given the amount of research required to write the book and the firestorm of debate it has ignited, it's not surprising that he has repeatedly returned to the unanswered questions surrounding McCandless' death.
You can read about the history of Krakauer's struggle to explain the tragedy here: http://www.adn.com/article/20150211/krakauer-offers-new-theory-how-mccandless-died
However you feel about Chris after reading Into the Wild or watching Sean Penn's tremendous cinematic depiction of the same name, there can be no denying that McCandless' life and death have generated an incredible amount of interest around the world. Do a quick Google search about Fairbanks Bus 142, and you'll find people from many countries--mostly YOUNG people, like Chris--who feel compelled to write about McCandless and/or make a pilgrimage to the bus where he spent his final days.
So here I sit on the Saturday before I leave, trying to make some sense of and articulate my own preoccupation with Alaska, McCandless' story, and the bus. Among the open tabs on my browser are pages with downloadable .GPX files of the Alaskan wilderness, reviews and tips on how to use a packraft, and Erik Halfacre's excellent site on all things Stampede Trail. Strewn about the computer table beside my morning coffee are my GPS unit, the GoPro that I plan to use to document my journey, my Petzl headlamp, my Garmin watch, and a variety of cords and manuals. I will be heading into the backcountry as prepared and as loaded with the proper gear as I possibly can be, because I know that planning and preparation are key to surviving in the backcountry.
I have a fair amount of experience with backcountry travel. I'm not an expert by any stretch, but I have spent weeks in the wilderness in the past, leading teenagers on backpacking trips with Wilderness Ventures (note: the company is now called Wilderness Adventures). We all came out alive and healthy, and I plan to do the same after my trek to bus 142.
One of the chief complaints people have about Chris is that he walked into the wild recklessly unprepared. It's a chorus that you hear ringing particularly loudly among Alaskans, many of whom seem to regard McCandless with varying degrees of contempt and mockery. It cannot be argued that Chris lacked many of the basic supplies that most would consider essential in the Alaskan bush. Chris was not MOST, however, and I think it is his singularity that lays the foundation upon which almost all the post-mortem furor is based. Did he have a RIGHT to do what he did? Was what he did RIGHT? Clearly it is not my place to answer these questions, and I feel lucky simply to have read about Chris' story and to be able to think about the issues that have grown from it.
Krakauer has provided me both the window into Chris' life and the inspiration to make make my own trip to the bus. I first read the book in 1997, but it wasn't until recently that I decided I would like to make this trip. Kentucky Country Day School, where I teach seventh grade English, has an innovative program that allows teachers to dream big and apply for summer grants for travel and professional growth. I have used Krakauer's Into Thin Air for many years in my class, and I have always wanted to find a way to integrate Into the Wild.
After traveling to Alaska with my family last summer and visiting the Denali area, I was inspired to re-submit a grant proposal to visit the bus. It was approved, and I was awarded the Cox Family Award. It is with those funds and some supplementary professional development money that I will make my trip. I'll use my own personal experiences walking in McCandless' footsteps to try to bring the book and Chris' story to life with my students.
I believe that Chris' countercultural and free-wheeling nature will resonate with them, and I think they will gravitate towards and sympathize with his desire to live life on his own terms. Because they are still quite young, some of Chris' actions won't make sense them, and I think we will be able to generate some excellent discussion and writing as we try to hash those ideas out in class.
Will I make it to the bus and back alive to do this work? I think so. Many people have tried to dissuade me from taking this trip, and Alaskans in general seem to be reticent even to discuss it as a possibility. It is true that there have been a number of hiker rescues in this area over the past twenty years, as others before me have found themselves in trouble as they made the journey. I feel like I have done some fairly extensive reading and research, learned from their errors, and prepared well. Still, if anything seems even remotely perilous during the trek, I will abandon plans to visit the bus and return alive.
Throughout my research, two items of concern loom largely in my mind: bears and the Teklanika River. The Alaskan bush is well-known grizzly country, and I am a bit anxious about possible encounters with a bear. Unlike McCandless, I am not a gun owner, so I plan to arm myself with bear spray. According to everything I have read, this spray provides the best defense against an attack. To prevent an attack, I have purchased several "bear bells", which I will hang on my pack. These bells will constantly ring as I hike, alerting all animals to my presence and hopefully preventing my startling or coming too near any bears.
The Teklanika is a different sort of beast. It is this river that can be said to have indirectly caused McCandless' own death. He had made up his mind to walk out of the wilderness and re-join society in the late summer of 1992, but the Teklanika was by that time a raging torrent of snow and glacial melt. Chris elected to return to the bus and wait for the river to recede or freeze over again. It was during this crucial period of time that his game seemed to be too scarce and he inadvertently consumed a plant that ultimately lead to his death.
My plan to cross the river has taken many twists and turns over the past few months. At first, I watched videos of many people successfully wading across the waist-deep waters, and I thought confidently that I could make it. After reading about and watching videos of many people falling in, however, I decided I needed to take a different tack. The river runs FAST and cold in the summer, and I have no interest in showing up in the Alaskan news headlines as yet another boneheaded victim of the Tek. I investigated a helicopter ride, but that avenue failed to pan out for a variety of reasons. I feel glad it did, because I want to make the trip by foot.
What I have settled on to cross the river is a packraft. These lightweight boats can be carried to a water crossing, inflated, and then quickly deflated on the opposite side. The paddle breaks down for easy backpack transport as well. Barring a flip in the raft, I should be able to ferry myself and my pack across the river. That's the plan, at least. I have a raft rental secured with Mark at Northern Alaska Packrafts, who has been very responsive and helpful in our email exchanges.
So, off I will rush to Louisville International Airport this Friday, right after my final week of summer classes conclude. I'll board a plane to Minneapolis and then one to Anchorage, arriving in the early morning hours of the first day of August. With me will be all that I feel that I need to make my own trip into the wild and walk as Chris did to Bus 142. I'll be blogging here during and after the trip to Alaska, recording pictures, video, and my thoughts as I make the trek. I hope to come back with plenty of first-hand experiences to inspire my students to engage with McCandless' story and Krakauer's book.
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