13 ms·

How Chris McCandless Died

208 points by dctoedt 13y ago

malloreon 13y ago
Obligatory quotes from McCandless' wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless): Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian wrote: "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] had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament [... ] Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide.[11]" Sherry Simpson, writing in the Anchorage Press, described her trip to the bus with a friend, and their reaction upon reading the comments that tourists had left lauding McCandless as an insightful, Thoreau-like figure: "Among my friends and acquaintances, the story of Christopher McCandless makes great after-dinner conversation. Much of the time I agree with the "he had a death wish" camp because I don't know how else to reconcile what we know of his ordeal. Now and then I venture into the "what a dumb--" territory, tempered by brief alliances with the "he was just another romantic boy on an all-American quest" partisans. Mostly I'm puzzled by the way he's emerged as a hero[13]"
- cpncrunch 13y ago
  I think the point is that he was an independent thinker, and thus was disillusioned by all the BS in modern society. Sure he made some mistakes and he had some back luck, but he chose to find meaning in his life instead of being another sheep. Can you say the same for your own life?
  - deleted 13y ago
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  - lrm242 13y ago
    Give me a break. The guy was most certainly not an independent thinker. Nor was he a critical thinker. Nor did he have any respect for the challenge he was taking on. He was an angst ridden teenage boy captured in an twenty something's body that never learned the difference between fantasy and reality. Most importantly, he never learned that in the real world there are consequences for stupid actions.
    - Zimahl 13y ago
      This. The previous comment is the reason why McCandless is such a polarizing figure. Those who prepare and go on a quest without suffering negative consequences are somehow derided for not being independent thinkers, somehow cheapened for not risking enough. "Adventure is just bad planning." - Roald Amundsen
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        I like to think of adventure as good planning combined with inherently difficult circumstances. The first treks to the poles were quite the adventure, yet they were also highly methodical and carefully planned.
      - wwweston 13y ago
        The good admiral has a point, but I don't think it gets to the heart of the McCandless drama. For that, I think I'd look to Norman Maclean's _Young Men and Fire_ where he talks about smoke jumpers: "It is very important to a lot of people to make unmistakably clear to themselves and to the universe that they love the universe but are not intimidated by it and will not be shaken by it, no matter what it has in store. Moreover, they demand something from themselves early in life that can be taken ever after as a demonstration of this abiding feeling... "For many former Smokejumpers, then, smokejumping is not closely tied up with their [eventual] way of life, but is more something that is necessary for them to pass through and not around and, once it is unmistakably done, does not have to be done again. The 'it' is within, and is the need to settle some things with the universe and ourselves before taking on the 'business of the world,' which isn't all that special or hard but takes time. This 'it' is the something special within that demands we do something special, and 'it' could be within a lot of us." If people here are reading this and haven't already realized some parallels between not just McCandless and smokejumpers but also entrepreneurs I'd be surprised. Now, you can draw distinctions between McCandless and smokejumpers, too: the later train and drill and prepare, probably as well as Amundsen could be satisfied with. And their work has a practical end. But their work is still an adventure because they also operate in an area of high risk, and as a result they sometimes pay a high cost. And they don't do this job for entirely practical reasons. They do it because they have a need for an internal narrative that settles certain things and establishes a kind of identity, they do it because they need something off the beaten track for middle class success. McCandless was clearly looking for that. I think it's fair to ask if he'd been a little less romantic about it and a little more thoughtful whether he might have had both his survival adventure and his survival. Then again, unless you're Batman or some other protagonist whose superpower is acute anticipation by authorial fiat, it's mitigated by the limits of the best laid plans.
  - guywithabike 13y ago
    If having "some bad luck" and living a "meaningful life" means I die of starvation / poisoning alone in a forest, then I guess you can count me out.
  - vecter 13y ago
    How was Chris's life more meaningful than everyone else's?
  - untog 13y ago
    he chose to live a meaningful life instead of being another sheep. Can you say the same for your own life? Yeah, I can. Most of us can. 'Sheep' is such an over-used term that covers so much. Getting a full time job for a company doesn't make your a 'sheep', you can still leave a happy and meaningful life. People say (though I have no personal experience) that having children is the most meaningful thing you can do in your life. If you do, maybe nothing else matters? The point is, it's ironic to me that you're deriding all the "BS in modern society". To me, the biggest load of BS in modern society is this first world preoccupation with "meaning", "purpose" and all that other junk. The vast majority of people out there don't even have the time to stop and think about these things. None of us can judge what McCandless did with his life because none of us are him and know how he felt as he was dying. But if I was him, I would have regrets.
    - base698 13y ago
      I don't believe sheep is overused when a huge population of people are pursuing material gains for people who don't care. The short list of what this leads to: depression, hopelessness, addiction, dietary diseases, and other first world problems. All trying to keep up with the Joneses. There are more meaningful pursuits.
      - untog 13y ago
        There are more meaningful pursuits. Like Chris McCandless's one that resulted in death? Seriously, you can't hold him up as an idol of a 'better life' when his life was cut short very, very prematurely. I'm not qualified to judge whether depression and dietary diseases are better than death, but I think it's at least worth debating. And few people pursue material gains for the purpose of simply having them. Like I said, for a great many people in the world, being a parent is hugely meaningful. It leads them to pursue material gains in order to provide for their children and watch them grow in comfort. That does not make them 'sheep'. If they are then everyone is a sheep. You are an "anti-'sheep'" sheep.
        base698 13y ago
        I'm not saying to hold him up as an idol. I'm just saying, if you aren't happy and you are "successful" then you may have to rethink your approach. Happiness is hard and a lot of work, and I know a lot of people never figure it out. If you're trying what consumer culture is offering and you're miserable, then maybe try something else? I would highly debate it's few. There's a reason AdBusters struck such a nerve.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    The irony of your post is that his death is a vivid demonstration of one reason why humans engage in flock behavior: to develop social memory of what's safe to eat. Those who stayed with the flock lived meaningful lives--they got jobs they had kids, they propagated their genes. He didn't live a meaningful life--he died painfully in his 20's in the woods because he ate a lethal dose of neurotoxins.
    - base698 13y ago
      Better stay in your manufactured suburban home and eat plastic wrapped pastries like everyone else.
      - hga 13y ago
        You could still stay at the edge of the flock and follow a zillion people who've "gone back to nature" ... but the nature of post-hunter-gatherer agriculture. Stick to growing plants and raising animals we're on very solid grounds WRT short term toxicity vs. "This wild stuff doesn't seem to be deadly" and then accidentally find out the conditions and dosages in which it turns out to be. The flock itself has value; you don't have live with someone else, but as jusben1369 points out, if he'd so much as broken his leg falling down the steps of the bus he'd have ended up just as dead. Regular contact with a neighbor would have saved him, but he had no reserves and no margin for error.
        base698 13y ago
        I'm just pointing out that some risk is necessary and complete risk aversion can lead to undesirable outcomes. A lot of people here probably moved far from their home base to work at a startup for example. Some were exposed to completely new cultures and lost comforts of home because of it. If they did what their family or friends did they would have stayed home and not took the risk. People from my home state think California is an awful place. I moved here for work and couldn't imagine living anywhere else--imagine if I'd of took their word.
        deleted 13y ago
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Can you say the same for your own life? Hmm, yes.
- runjake 13y ago
  This point has been rehashed again and again and again every time McCandless is mentioned. We get it. Aside from that, what is your point? Did you even bother to read the article, which despite mentioning this detraction, has nothing to do with it? Or were you just looking for easy upvotes?
  - jere 13y ago
    >Did you even bother to read the article, which despite mentioning this detraction, has nothing to do with it? In fact, it invalidates those criticisms against McCandless.
    - billybob255 13y ago
      It doesn't really invalidate them, it says that if you eat the seeds while malnourished the ODAP can kill you. It doesn't mention anything about him dying in an unforeseen accident, he went into the Alaskan bush unprepared and died of malnutrition. If he brought a map he could've walked to safety when he started to realize his plight.
      - jere 13y ago
        >he went into the Alaskan bush unprepared and died of malnutrition. If he brought a map he could've walked to safety when he started to realize his plight. Did you actually read the article? That's not what it says. It suggests he became paralyzed by a neurotoxin, an event which no one could have foreseen at the time. Having a map wouldn't have cured his paralysis. I'm not even convinced he was lost.
        jlgreco 13y ago
        The neurotoxin killed him in his weaken state. A weakened state he found himself in because he was starving already, basically from rabbit-starvation. Because he was unprepared. Yes, had he not eaten the seeds, he (possibly) would still be alive... but he still would have been an idiot.
- deleted 13y ago
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- Zimahl 13y ago
  Mostly I'm puzzled by the way he's emerged as a hero I tend to agree with the sentiment although I appreciate the his quest. As a side note, I can understand how someone gets into a sticky situation in the theme of adventure. A friend's little brother (in his 20s, lot so little) decided to hike the Appalachian Trail this summer. Unfortunately he found out about a month in that he was ill-prepared for the calories it takes to hike the sometimes over 20 miles-per-day and the physical toll as well. He had to quit much earlier than expected.
- mhartl 13y ago
  Read the article.
- freerobby 13y ago
  Why are judgmental quotes like these "obligatory?" The whole thesis of the article is that regardless of the value judgments of what McCandless did, it was not in fact arrogance that killed him, nor was it possible to correct his ignorance until a scientific discovery was made two decades after his death.
  - jeltz 13y ago
    Additionally a scientific discovery made by people investigating his death. If he had not died we probably would still not know about this.
- deleted 13y ago
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- grecy 13y ago
  It certainly is a very dividing topic. I estimate that the comments on my personal trip to the bus [1] are split 50/50 between people that admire Chris' story, and people that think he was a dumbass. I think the argument boils whether Chris was unprepared (mentally and equipment-wise) to go into the Alaskan wilderness. If you read "Into the Wild", and the newer "Back to the Wild" book which has entries from his diary and photos from his cameras, I think it's clear Chris was very prepared mentally - he knew exactly what he was trying to do, and he knew exactly how dangerous it was. He spent months working out, climbing mountains with his heavy pack, and researching wild edible berries and game in preparation for what he wanted to do. This shows he had a clear mind going in. So essentially, he was trying to do something dangerous, with the minimum amount of gear possible. This is no different from the countless people that attempt to climb Everest or K2 without oxygen and perish in the attempt. Those people are not considered dumb asses. Neither are the countless thousands and thousands that perish getting out there and pushing themselves as best as they can. A person's level of preparedness for any life adventure is clearly their own choosing. Who are we to say that someone was foolish for attempting to push the boundaries of what they thought they were capable of? Even worse, if someone were to be the first to summit some mountain or other without oxygen, they would be hailed a hero. If they died, they'd be a dumb ass. The outcome should not have any baring on if they were "prepared enough" or not - only they can make that choice for themselves. -- As a side note, have you even spent any time in Alaska or with Alaskans? I live up here. If you were to go more than 10 yards from a highway and didn't have a quad, rifle, chainsaw, axe, saw, three pairs of boots, sixteen gloves, spare everything, spare gasoline, 300lb wall tent & stove, sat phone and a spot satellite messenger and you so much as broke a fingernail, Alaskans would very quickly point out you're a complete dumb-ass for being so horribly unprepared. Even worse, you go by yourself. [1] http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus
  - rosser 13y ago
    I'm sorry, but if you think you can climb Everest without oxygen, and die in the attempt, you were a dumb-ass. Full stop.
    - grecy 13y ago
cpncrunch 13y ago
Into the Wild is probably one of the best movies I have ever watched. It's a very powerful and emotional story.
- sspiff 13y ago
  I agree, and it had a great soundtrack. In real life, it was a silly death though.
grecy 13y ago
I made my own personal pilgrimage to The Magic Bus in summer '09 [1]. It's an extremely special place like none other I've visited. Completely coincidentally, one of my close friends where I now live in the far North was with the girl who tragically drowned trying to cross the Tek River in summer 2010. Also co-incidentally, just today I gave an interview for someone writing an article on the anniversary of Chris' death. She was at the Tek river a few days ago, and watched three backpackers get swept downstream, luckily without major injury. It's amazing how this place and Chris' story have impacted so many people's lives. I'm making plans now to go back in the winter/spring, when the river will be frozen and the scenery will be spectacular. [http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus] EDIT/UPDATE: I'll add that there is no doubt in my mind Chris helped me find the courage to quit my Software Engineering job, sell all my stuff and spend 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina. No doubt it was the best decision of my life so far.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  What did you do for the Darién Gap? I've thought about making a similar trip a few times, but have never really gotten far into the planning stages.
  - grecy 13y ago
    I loaded my Jeep into a shipping container and ocean freighted it. It's much cheaper (~$800) and easier (~1 week) than you might think, and well, well worth it. My report is: http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-pt-1 http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-pt-... And there are much more up to date reports and costs at http://wikioverland.org/Pan_American_Highway http://wikioverland.org/Pan_American_Highway If you're serious about this kind of travel, http://wikioverland.org http://wikioverland.org has everything you need to know.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Awesome, thanks!
mpyne 13y ago
The author posits that it wasn't stupidity that killed McCandless for eating a plant not known to be toxic, but rather ignorance. However the reason he (and the rest of us) were ignorant of the danger of the potato seed is that the potato seed isn't dangerous to anyone except those in a severe caloric deficit and still undergoing physical exertion. In other words he applied knowledge gained in one situation (normal persons eating potato seed) to a situation far outside of the experiments that seemed to show no issues with potato seed. Call it ignorance instead of stupidity if you want, but he's still just as dead (and apparently wouldn't have died had he maintained something other than a caloric deficit which must have eventually led to his death anyways).
- glibgil 13y ago
  If he didn't eat the wild potato seeds, he would have survived the 18 days until help came. He would have survived on squirrels and porcupines. The wild potato seeds poisoned him. He died from complications of paralysis. No one should eat wild potato seeds, ever, just to be sure they don't become permanently paralyzed. Young men are the highest risk group. This is new information. No one knew this before. I don't know how to help you understand the article better. You got it very wrong.
  - rralian 13y ago
    Well, you really don't know that he would have survived. He put himself in a precarious position and as others have said, he could have succumbed to any number of other dangers.
    - glibgil 13y ago
      He would have survived. As other people have said he could have survived any number of ways (eating squirrels, porcupines) all while enjoying any number of comforts (sitting by the fire, sleeping, reading). You don't really know that he would not have survived.
      - dandelany 13y ago
yawgmoth 13y ago
I highly recommend reading Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild if this story interests you - it's the story of McCandless in all its gory detail.
loser777 13y ago
It's interesting to note that Jon Krakauer also wrote Three Cups of Deceit, when Three Cups of Tea was required summer reading for me in high school. Funny how opinions about people change--though in this case it's sad instead of angering.
stevehawk 13y ago
holy hell.. "How Chris McCandless Died" is such a bad title considering at the very end it says - "there is ample reason to believe that McCandless contracted lathyrism from eating those seeds". So he /may/ have died that way. Jon Krakauer just really wants to believe that McCandless could have survived if he hadn't been a dumbass.
- ajarmst 13y ago
  Well, "could have survived is [s]he hadn't been a dumbass" is a valid comment about an astonishing number of human deaths.
jeltz 13y ago
It was interesting to learn that people still eat the grass pea, which was the plant containing ODAP used in the concentration camp. Apparently what causes most deaths by ODAP poisoning is that it survives droughts better than most crops making starving people eat it. The very group most susceptible to the poisoning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathyrus_sativus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathyrus_sativus
tdees40 13y ago
My one issue with this is that he was, by all accounts, alarmingly thin before the seeds did him in, and winter hadn't even arrived yet. It's hard to imagine him surviving the winter, seeds or not. So while the seeds obviously shortened his life, I doubt it was by a very large factor.
- grecy 13y ago
  He never planned to stay the winter. He was just going to wait another month or two until the river level dropped, then he could just hike out the same way he hiked in.
northband 13y ago
I read about Chris back in '94 or so and was moved. I sold everything I had and decided to head out into the Colorado wilderness. However, while working and saving for my trip I saw Phish and ended up going on Phish tour '95 instead. Whether you head into the wilderness or follow your favorite band - IMO life on the road is a great building block for life. There's hardly a period that goes by where I don't somehow think about my time spent on the road. (...and I still see Phish every year ;-))
jusben1369 13y ago
I wonder if we aren't starting to miss the forest for the trees here. Perhaps this is the true, final reason. However, if he'd fallen down the steps on that bus and broken his leg he would most likely be dead. He basically put himself in a position where he had such a small margin for error that it's not all that surprising he didn't make it. I backpacked Central and South America for quite some time pre-internet and pre mobile. There were a lot of people who were removing themselves from their environments and doing some wonderful self discovery. There was also the odd, additional person, who was so completely reckless that it seemed inevitable that something bad would befall them. I've always thought of those people whenever I've bumped into stories on Chris MacCandless.
- zerooneinfinity 13y ago
  Yea I mean the entire debate shouldn't even be about whether he was stupid to do this. Because of him, we are able to say in hindsight that travelers should be weary of these kinds of things.
narfquat 13y ago
Hmm, I wonder what other types of otherwise harmless food stuffs can become detrimental given the correct physiological conditions of the consumer? How do we even go about humanely testing that sort of thing?
- ballard 13y ago
  It depends on loads of factors. Also, differentiation between acute toxicity (would kill within a month) or chronic issues (inflammation, deficiency, hormone altering, etc).
kqr2 13y ago
Did he eat the seeds raw? This paper suggests it may be possible to reduce the toxin through simple means: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291097-0010%28199605%2971:1%3C50::AID-JSFA545%3E3.0.CO;2-J/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291097-00... Ordinary cooking and pressure cooking of pre-soaked seeds were found to be most effective in reducing the levels of all the natural toxicants examined... These findings and the high water solubility suggest that a simple and effective means of detoxifying Lathyrus by removing this neurotoxic amino acid may be practicable.
meritt 13y ago
This warning was also recently added to the Wikipedia Page for Hedysarum alpinum. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hedysarum_alpinum&diff=570431498&oldid=542725679 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hedysarum_alpinum&... There's even a bit of back and forth as people argued about mentioning McCandless in the page :)
lpvn 13y ago
For everyone who liked 'Into the Wild' I suggest the documentary 'Once I Was a Champion' that tells the story of Evan Tanner, a mma fighter who died in a pilgrimage in the Californian Desert. Evan, an avid travelller just like Chris, was also a person who had trouble finding his place in this world and suffered from depression and a deep sense of alienation.
samstave 13y ago
Is there any way to prepare the seeds for consumption that destroys the compound responsible for this; e.g. boiling into a mush? Just curious if there was a way that, rather simply, these could have been made completely edible had Chris done it.
waterlesscloud 13y ago
" Krakauer took a poor misfortunate prone to paranoia, someone who left a note talking about his desire to kill the “false being within,” someone who managed to starve to death in a deserted bus not far off the George Parks Highway, and made the guy into a celebrity. Why the author did that should be obvious. He wanted to write a story that would sell." Well, if there's one thing I'm sure about, it's that selling books wasn't why Krakauer was compelled to tell that story. Reading Krakauer's accounts of his own life, in both Into The Wild and in Eiger Dreams, it's pretty clear he felt the same urge to challenge himself with the wilderness that McCandless did, and that the books are Krakauer's attempts to understand that drive. Those books are mainly journeys of self-understanding that happen to be available for other people to read.
fixermark 13y ago
So some new scientific knowledge has come out of this unfortunate death. That's good.
bostonpete 13y ago
Am I reading this correctly: "EXTREMELY WEAK. FAULT OF POT[ATO] SEED." McCandless wrote "POT SEED" and the author inferred that he meant potato seed? Is that a given...? Also, doesn't this author seem a bit sloppy? First, he asserts in an 8400-word article that McCandless died from sweet pea seeds, which he shrugs off because he was on a tight deadline. Then he says he made a "rash" decision to suggest in his book that the wild-potato seeds contain swainsonine?
- glibgil 13y ago
  It is a given. McCandless meant to write potato seed. Krakauer wasn't sloppy. He was right. He knew that wild potato seeds killed McCandless. He just didn't know how. Krakauer pursued the analysis himself to determine what toxin was present in the seeds. That's not good enough? Man, everyone's a critic.
Evgeny 13y ago
Call me a cynic, but this is about the guy who went to live into the wilderness underprepared and full of noble ideas and died, either from poisoning or from hunger. Now he has his own wikipedia page and inspires people. I mean, wouldn't one rather admire someone who tried a similar thing, but was prepared and succeeded?
- Goladus 13y ago
  I mean, wouldn't one rather admire someone who tried a similar thing, but was prepared and succeeded? Do you have any examples? Ted Kaczynski doesn't count. I have one: Sooyong Park. You know why he's not widely admired? Because people don't know much about him because no one's been able popularize a good narrative about him. Some it it is just marketing, and the extent to which he succeeded or not is a minor detail. Also, what Park did was dangerous, too, filming tigers in the Siberian wilderness. He easily could have died accidentally in similar fashion to McCandless. He was prepared be he still could have been killed many times.
_mulder_ 13y ago
I'm disappointed by the hypocrisy of most of these negative HN comments. How can you be so quick to rubbish what McCandless achieved, calling him stupid and unprepared, then go straight back to reading the next "Why I sold my home to Bootstrap my dating App" blog post to grace the front page or "How I finally achieved my dream" and then be full of praise and admiration. Don't you see, McCandless was a young guy with a dream and a philosophy and actually had the balls to go and try it for himself. He's become a bit of a cult icon because he showed exactly the same disregard for the rules and society norms that make Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Richard Branson such heroes. To everyone commenting along these lines, I look forward to not-reading your next blog post; "How I could have done x, if only I'd tried"
adrianwaj 13y ago
Never knew he was injured at the end as well, that may have put him into a catabolic state. But he was ahead of his time.. "rewilding" is a hip thing to do now.

208 points by dctoedt 13y ago

Obligatory quotes from McCandless' wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless): Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian wrote: "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] had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament [... ] Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide.[11]" Sherry Simpson, writing in the Anchorage Press, described her trip to the bus with a friend, and their reaction upon reading the comments that tourists had left lauding McCandless as an insightful, Thoreau-like figure: "Among my friends and acquaintances, the story of Christopher McCandless makes great after-dinner conversation. Much of the time I agree with the "he had a death wish" camp because I don't know how else to reconcile what we know of his ordeal. Now and then I venture into the "what a dumb--" territory, tempered by brief alliances with the "he was just another romantic boy on an all-American quest" partisans. Mostly I'm puzzled by the way he's emerged as a hero[13]"

cpncrunch 13y ago
I think the point is that he was an independent thinker, and thus was disillusioned by all the BS in modern society. Sure he made some mistakes and he had some back luck, but he chose to find meaning in his life instead of being another sheep. Can you say the same for your own life?
- deleted 13y ago
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- lrm242 13y ago
  Give me a break. The guy was most certainly not an independent thinker. Nor was he a critical thinker. Nor did he have any respect for the challenge he was taking on. He was an angst ridden teenage boy captured in an twenty something's body that never learned the difference between fantasy and reality. Most importantly, he never learned that in the real world there are consequences for stupid actions.
  - Zimahl 13y ago
    This. The previous comment is the reason why McCandless is such a polarizing figure. Those who prepare and go on a quest without suffering negative consequences are somehow derided for not being independent thinkers, somehow cheapened for not risking enough. "Adventure is just bad planning." - Roald Amundsen
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      I like to think of adventure as good planning combined with inherently difficult circumstances. The first treks to the poles were quite the adventure, yet they were also highly methodical and carefully planned.
    - wwweston 13y ago
      The good admiral has a point, but I don't think it gets to the heart of the McCandless drama. For that, I think I'd look to Norman Maclean's _Young Men and Fire_ where he talks about smoke jumpers: "It is very important to a lot of people to make unmistakably clear to themselves and to the universe that they love the universe but are not intimidated by it and will not be shaken by it, no matter what it has in store. Moreover, they demand something from themselves early in life that can be taken ever after as a demonstration of this abiding feeling... "For many former Smokejumpers, then, smokejumping is not closely tied up with their [eventual] way of life, but is more something that is necessary for them to pass through and not around and, once it is unmistakably done, does not have to be done again. The 'it' is within, and is the need to settle some things with the universe and ourselves before taking on the 'business of the world,' which isn't all that special or hard but takes time. This 'it' is the something special within that demands we do something special, and 'it' could be within a lot of us." If people here are reading this and haven't already realized some parallels between not just McCandless and smokejumpers but also entrepreneurs I'd be surprised. Now, you can draw distinctions between McCandless and smokejumpers, too: the later train and drill and prepare, probably as well as Amundsen could be satisfied with. And their work has a practical end. But their work is still an adventure because they also operate in an area of high risk, and as a result they sometimes pay a high cost. And they don't do this job for entirely practical reasons. They do it because they have a need for an internal narrative that settles certain things and establishes a kind of identity, they do it because they need something off the beaten track for middle class success. McCandless was clearly looking for that. I think it's fair to ask if he'd been a little less romantic about it and a little more thoughtful whether he might have had both his survival adventure and his survival. Then again, unless you're Batman or some other protagonist whose superpower is acute anticipation by authorial fiat, it's mitigated by the limits of the best laid plans.
- guywithabike 13y ago
  If having "some bad luck" and living a "meaningful life" means I die of starvation / poisoning alone in a forest, then I guess you can count me out.
- vecter 13y ago
  How was Chris's life more meaningful than everyone else's?
- untog 13y ago
  he chose to live a meaningful life instead of being another sheep. Can you say the same for your own life? Yeah, I can. Most of us can. 'Sheep' is such an over-used term that covers so much. Getting a full time job for a company doesn't make your a 'sheep', you can still leave a happy and meaningful life. People say (though I have no personal experience) that having children is the most meaningful thing you can do in your life. If you do, maybe nothing else matters? The point is, it's ironic to me that you're deriding all the "BS in modern society". To me, the biggest load of BS in modern society is this first world preoccupation with "meaning", "purpose" and all that other junk. The vast majority of people out there don't even have the time to stop and think about these things. None of us can judge what McCandless did with his life because none of us are him and know how he felt as he was dying. But if I was him, I would have regrets.
  - base698 13y ago
    I don't believe sheep is overused when a huge population of people are pursuing material gains for people who don't care. The short list of what this leads to: depression, hopelessness, addiction, dietary diseases, and other first world problems. All trying to keep up with the Joneses. There are more meaningful pursuits.
    - untog 13y ago
      There are more meaningful pursuits. Like Chris McCandless's one that resulted in death? Seriously, you can't hold him up as an idol of a 'better life' when his life was cut short very, very prematurely. I'm not qualified to judge whether depression and dietary diseases are better than death, but I think it's at least worth debating. And few people pursue material gains for the purpose of simply having them. Like I said, for a great many people in the world, being a parent is hugely meaningful. It leads them to pursue material gains in order to provide for their children and watch them grow in comfort. That does not make them 'sheep'. If they are then everyone is a sheep. You are an "anti-'sheep'" sheep.
      - base698 13y ago
        I'm not saying to hold him up as an idol. I'm just saying, if you aren't happy and you are "successful" then you may have to rethink your approach. Happiness is hard and a lot of work, and I know a lot of people never figure it out. If you're trying what consumer culture is offering and you're miserable, then maybe try something else? I would highly debate it's few. There's a reason AdBusters struck such a nerve.
- rayiner 13y ago
  The irony of your post is that his death is a vivid demonstration of one reason why humans engage in flock behavior: to develop social memory of what's safe to eat. Those who stayed with the flock lived meaningful lives--they got jobs they had kids, they propagated their genes. He didn't live a meaningful life--he died painfully in his 20's in the woods because he ate a lethal dose of neurotoxins.
  - base698 13y ago
    Better stay in your manufactured suburban home and eat plastic wrapped pastries like everyone else.
    - hga 13y ago
      You could still stay at the edge of the flock and follow a zillion people who've "gone back to nature" ... but the nature of post-hunter-gatherer agriculture. Stick to growing plants and raising animals we're on very solid grounds WRT short term toxicity vs. "This wild stuff doesn't seem to be deadly" and then accidentally find out the conditions and dosages in which it turns out to be. The flock itself has value; you don't have live with someone else, but as jusben1369 points out, if he'd so much as broken his leg falling down the steps of the bus he'd have ended up just as dead. Regular contact with a neighbor would have saved him, but he had no reserves and no margin for error.
      - base698 13y ago
        I'm just pointing out that some risk is necessary and complete risk aversion can lead to undesirable outcomes. A lot of people here probably moved far from their home base to work at a startup for example. Some were exposed to completely new cultures and lost comforts of home because of it. If they did what their family or friends did they would have stayed home and not took the risk. People from my home state think California is an awful place. I moved here for work and couldn't imagine living anywhere else--imagine if I'd of took their word.
        deleted 13y ago
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Can you say the same for your own life? Hmm, yes.
runjake 13y ago
This point has been rehashed again and again and again every time McCandless is mentioned. We get it. Aside from that, what is your point? Did you even bother to read the article, which despite mentioning this detraction, has nothing to do with it? Or were you just looking for easy upvotes?
- jere 13y ago
  >Did you even bother to read the article, which despite mentioning this detraction, has nothing to do with it? In fact, it invalidates those criticisms against McCandless.
  - billybob255 13y ago
    It doesn't really invalidate them, it says that if you eat the seeds while malnourished the ODAP can kill you. It doesn't mention anything about him dying in an unforeseen accident, he went into the Alaskan bush unprepared and died of malnutrition. If he brought a map he could've walked to safety when he started to realize his plight.
    - jere 13y ago
      >he went into the Alaskan bush unprepared and died of malnutrition. If he brought a map he could've walked to safety when he started to realize his plight. Did you actually read the article? That's not what it says. It suggests he became paralyzed by a neurotoxin, an event which no one could have foreseen at the time. Having a map wouldn't have cured his paralysis. I'm not even convinced he was lost.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        The neurotoxin killed him in his weaken state. A weakened state he found himself in because he was starving already, basically from rabbit-starvation. Because he was unprepared. Yes, had he not eaten the seeds, he (possibly) would still be alive... but he still would have been an idiot.
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Zimahl 13y ago
Mostly I'm puzzled by the way he's emerged as a hero I tend to agree with the sentiment although I appreciate the his quest. As a side note, I can understand how someone gets into a sticky situation in the theme of adventure. A friend's little brother (in his 20s, lot so little) decided to hike the Appalachian Trail this summer. Unfortunately he found out about a month in that he was ill-prepared for the calories it takes to hike the sometimes over 20 miles-per-day and the physical toll as well. He had to quit much earlier than expected.
mhartl 13y ago
Read the article.
freerobby 13y ago
Why are judgmental quotes like these "obligatory?" The whole thesis of the article is that regardless of the value judgments of what McCandless did, it was not in fact arrogance that killed him, nor was it possible to correct his ignorance until a scientific discovery was made two decades after his death.
- jeltz 13y ago
  Additionally a scientific discovery made by people investigating his death. If he had not died we probably would still not know about this.
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grecy 13y ago
It certainly is a very dividing topic. I estimate that the comments on my personal trip to the bus [1] are split 50/50 between people that admire Chris' story, and people that think he was a dumbass. I think the argument boils whether Chris was unprepared (mentally and equipment-wise) to go into the Alaskan wilderness. If you read "Into the Wild", and the newer "Back to the Wild" book which has entries from his diary and photos from his cameras, I think it's clear Chris was very prepared mentally - he knew exactly what he was trying to do, and he knew exactly how dangerous it was. He spent months working out, climbing mountains with his heavy pack, and researching wild edible berries and game in preparation for what he wanted to do. This shows he had a clear mind going in. So essentially, he was trying to do something dangerous, with the minimum amount of gear possible. This is no different from the countless people that attempt to climb Everest or K2 without oxygen and perish in the attempt. Those people are not considered dumb asses. Neither are the countless thousands and thousands that perish getting out there and pushing themselves as best as they can. A person's level of preparedness for any life adventure is clearly their own choosing. Who are we to say that someone was foolish for attempting to push the boundaries of what they thought they were capable of? Even worse, if someone were to be the first to summit some mountain or other without oxygen, they would be hailed a hero. If they died, they'd be a dumb ass. The outcome should not have any baring on if they were "prepared enough" or not - only they can make that choice for themselves. -- As a side note, have you even spent any time in Alaska or with Alaskans? I live up here. If you were to go more than 10 yards from a highway and didn't have a quad, rifle, chainsaw, axe, saw, three pairs of boots, sixteen gloves, spare everything, spare gasoline, 300lb wall tent & stove, sat phone and a spot satellite messenger and you so much as broke a fingernail, Alaskans would very quickly point out you're a complete dumb-ass for being so horribly unprepared. Even worse, you go by yourself. [1] http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus
- rosser 13y ago
  I'm sorry, but if you think you can climb Everest without oxygen, and die in the attempt, you were a dumb-ass. Full stop.
  - grecy 13y ago

cpncrunch 13y ago

Into the Wild is probably one of the best movies I have ever watched. It's a very powerful and emotional story.

sspiff 13y ago
I agree, and it had a great soundtrack. In real life, it was a silly death though.

grecy 13y ago

I made my own personal pilgrimage to The Magic Bus in summer '09 [1]. It's an extremely special place like none other I've visited. Completely coincidentally, one of my close friends where I now live in the far North was with the girl who tragically drowned trying to cross the Tek River in summer 2010. Also co-incidentally, just today I gave an interview for someone writing an article on the anniversary of Chris' death. She was at the Tek river a few days ago, and watched three backpackers get swept downstream, luckily without major injury. It's amazing how this place and Chris' story have impacted so many people's lives. I'm making plans now to go back in the winter/spring, when the river will be frozen and the scenery will be spectacular. [http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus] EDIT/UPDATE: I'll add that there is no doubt in my mind Chris helped me find the courage to quit my Software Engineering job, sell all my stuff and spend 2 years driving from Alaska to Argentina. No doubt it was the best decision of my life so far.

jlgreco 13y ago
What did you do for the Darién Gap? I've thought about making a similar trip a few times, but have never really gotten far into the planning stages.
- grecy 13y ago
  I loaded my Jeep into a shipping container and ocean freighted it. It's much cheaper (~$800) and easier (~1 week) than you might think, and well, well worth it. My report is: http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-pt-1 http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-pt-... And there are much more up to date reports and costs at http://wikioverland.org/Pan_American_Highway http://wikioverland.org/Pan_American_Highway If you're serious about this kind of travel, http://wikioverland.org http://wikioverland.org has everything you need to know.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Awesome, thanks!

mpyne 13y ago

The author posits that it wasn't stupidity that killed McCandless for eating a plant not known to be toxic, but rather ignorance. However the reason he (and the rest of us) were ignorant of the danger of the potato seed is that the potato seed isn't dangerous to anyone except those in a severe caloric deficit and still undergoing physical exertion. In other words he applied knowledge gained in one situation (normal persons eating potato seed) to a situation far outside of the experiments that seemed to show no issues with potato seed. Call it ignorance instead of stupidity if you want, but he's still just as dead (and apparently wouldn't have died had he maintained something other than a caloric deficit which must have eventually led to his death anyways).

glibgil 13y ago
If he didn't eat the wild potato seeds, he would have survived the 18 days until help came. He would have survived on squirrels and porcupines. The wild potato seeds poisoned him. He died from complications of paralysis. No one should eat wild potato seeds, ever, just to be sure they don't become permanently paralyzed. Young men are the highest risk group. This is new information. No one knew this before. I don't know how to help you understand the article better. You got it very wrong.
- rralian 13y ago
  Well, you really don't know that he would have survived. He put himself in a precarious position and as others have said, he could have succumbed to any number of other dangers.
  - glibgil 13y ago
    He would have survived. As other people have said he could have survived any number of ways (eating squirrels, porcupines) all while enjoying any number of comforts (sitting by the fire, sleeping, reading). You don't really know that he would not have survived.
    - dandelany 13y ago

yawgmoth 13y ago

I highly recommend reading Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild if this story interests you - it's the story of McCandless in all its gory detail.

loser777 13y ago

It's interesting to note that Jon Krakauer also wrote Three Cups of Deceit, when Three Cups of Tea was required summer reading for me in high school. Funny how opinions about people change--though in this case it's sad instead of angering.

stevehawk 13y ago

holy hell.. "How Chris McCandless Died" is such a bad title considering at the very end it says - "there is ample reason to believe that McCandless contracted lathyrism from eating those seeds". So he /may/ have died that way. Jon Krakauer just really wants to believe that McCandless could have survived if he hadn't been a dumbass.

ajarmst 13y ago
Well, "could have survived is [s]he hadn't been a dumbass" is a valid comment about an astonishing number of human deaths.

jeltz 13y ago

It was interesting to learn that people still eat the grass pea, which was the plant containing ODAP used in the concentration camp. Apparently what causes most deaths by ODAP poisoning is that it survives droughts better than most crops making starving people eat it. The very group most susceptible to the poisoning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathyrus_sativus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathyrus_sativus

tdees40 13y ago

My one issue with this is that he was, by all accounts, alarmingly thin before the seeds did him in, and winter hadn't even arrived yet. It's hard to imagine him surviving the winter, seeds or not. So while the seeds obviously shortened his life, I doubt it was by a very large factor.

grecy 13y ago
He never planned to stay the winter. He was just going to wait another month or two until the river level dropped, then he could just hike out the same way he hiked in.

northband 13y ago

I read about Chris back in '94 or so and was moved. I sold everything I had and decided to head out into the Colorado wilderness. However, while working and saving for my trip I saw Phish and ended up going on Phish tour '95 instead. Whether you head into the wilderness or follow your favorite band - IMO life on the road is a great building block for life. There's hardly a period that goes by where I don't somehow think about my time spent on the road. (...and I still see Phish every year ;-))

jusben1369 13y ago

I wonder if we aren't starting to miss the forest for the trees here. Perhaps this is the true, final reason. However, if he'd fallen down the steps on that bus and broken his leg he would most likely be dead. He basically put himself in a position where he had such a small margin for error that it's not all that surprising he didn't make it. I backpacked Central and South America for quite some time pre-internet and pre mobile. There were a lot of people who were removing themselves from their environments and doing some wonderful self discovery. There was also the odd, additional person, who was so completely reckless that it seemed inevitable that something bad would befall them. I've always thought of those people whenever I've bumped into stories on Chris MacCandless.

zerooneinfinity 13y ago
Yea I mean the entire debate shouldn't even be about whether he was stupid to do this. Because of him, we are able to say in hindsight that travelers should be weary of these kinds of things.

narfquat 13y ago

Hmm, I wonder what other types of otherwise harmless food stuffs can become detrimental given the correct physiological conditions of the consumer? How do we even go about humanely testing that sort of thing?

ballard 13y ago
It depends on loads of factors. Also, differentiation between acute toxicity (would kill within a month) or chronic issues (inflammation, deficiency, hormone altering, etc).

kqr2 13y ago

Did he eat the seeds raw? This paper suggests it may be possible to reduce the toxin through simple means: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291097-0010%28199605%2971:1%3C50::AID-JSFA545%3E3.0.CO;2-J/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291097-00... Ordinary cooking and pressure cooking of pre-soaked seeds were found to be most effective in reducing the levels of all the natural toxicants examined... These findings and the high water solubility suggest that a simple and effective means of detoxifying Lathyrus by removing this neurotoxic amino acid may be practicable.

meritt 13y ago

This warning was also recently added to the Wikipedia Page for Hedysarum alpinum. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hedysarum_alpinum&diff=570431498&oldid=542725679 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hedysarum_alpinum&... There's even a bit of back and forth as people argued about mentioning McCandless in the page :)

lpvn 13y ago

For everyone who liked 'Into the Wild' I suggest the documentary 'Once I Was a Champion' that tells the story of Evan Tanner, a mma fighter who died in a pilgrimage in the Californian Desert. Evan, an avid travelller just like Chris, was also a person who had trouble finding his place in this world and suffered from depression and a deep sense of alienation.

samstave 13y ago

Is there any way to prepare the seeds for consumption that destroys the compound responsible for this; e.g. boiling into a mush? Just curious if there was a way that, rather simply, these could have been made completely edible had Chris done it.

waterlesscloud 13y ago

" Krakauer took a poor misfortunate prone to paranoia, someone who left a note talking about his desire to kill the “false being within,” someone who managed to starve to death in a deserted bus not far off the George Parks Highway, and made the guy into a celebrity. Why the author did that should be obvious. He wanted to write a story that would sell." Well, if there's one thing I'm sure about, it's that selling books wasn't why Krakauer was compelled to tell that story. Reading Krakauer's accounts of his own life, in both Into The Wild and in Eiger Dreams, it's pretty clear he felt the same urge to challenge himself with the wilderness that McCandless did, and that the books are Krakauer's attempts to understand that drive. Those books are mainly journeys of self-understanding that happen to be available for other people to read.

fixermark 13y ago

So some new scientific knowledge has come out of this unfortunate death. That's good.

bostonpete 13y ago

Am I reading this correctly: "EXTREMELY WEAK. FAULT OF POT[ATO] SEED." McCandless wrote "POT SEED" and the author inferred that he meant potato seed? Is that a given...? Also, doesn't this author seem a bit sloppy? First, he asserts in an 8400-word article that McCandless died from sweet pea seeds, which he shrugs off because he was on a tight deadline. Then he says he made a "rash" decision to suggest in his book that the wild-potato seeds contain swainsonine?

glibgil 13y ago
It is a given. McCandless meant to write potato seed. Krakauer wasn't sloppy. He was right. He knew that wild potato seeds killed McCandless. He just didn't know how. Krakauer pursued the analysis himself to determine what toxin was present in the seeds. That's not good enough? Man, everyone's a critic.

Evgeny 13y ago

Call me a cynic, but this is about the guy who went to live into the wilderness underprepared and full of noble ideas and died, either from poisoning or from hunger. Now he has his own wikipedia page and inspires people. I mean, wouldn't one rather admire someone who tried a similar thing, but was prepared and succeeded?

Goladus 13y ago
I mean, wouldn't one rather admire someone who tried a similar thing, but was prepared and succeeded? Do you have any examples? Ted Kaczynski doesn't count. I have one: Sooyong Park. You know why he's not widely admired? Because people don't know much about him because no one's been able popularize a good narrative about him. Some it it is just marketing, and the extent to which he succeeded or not is a minor detail. Also, what Park did was dangerous, too, filming tigers in the Siberian wilderness. He easily could have died accidentally in similar fashion to McCandless. He was prepared be he still could have been killed many times.

_mulder_ 13y ago

I'm disappointed by the hypocrisy of most of these negative HN comments. How can you be so quick to rubbish what McCandless achieved, calling him stupid and unprepared, then go straight back to reading the next "Why I sold my home to Bootstrap my dating App" blog post to grace the front page or "How I finally achieved my dream" and then be full of praise and admiration. Don't you see, McCandless was a young guy with a dream and a philosophy and actually had the balls to go and try it for himself. He's become a bit of a cult icon because he showed exactly the same disregard for the rules and society norms that make Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Richard Branson such heroes. To everyone commenting along these lines, I look forward to not-reading your next blog post; "How I could have done x, if only I'd tried"

adrianwaj 13y ago

Never knew he was injured at the end as well, that may have put him into a catabolic state. But he was ahead of his time.. "rewilding" is a hip thing to do now.