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.