Summarizer

Chris McCandless leaves Carthage for Alaska on April 15, 1992. Along the way, he hitches with a trucker named Gaylord Stuckey for nearly a thousand miles in the state of Alaska itself. On his second day hiking the trail, he comes across the Teklanika River. In April, the river is tiny and easy to cross, not anywhere near the rapid it becomes in August when Alex tries to cross back over it. Alex leaves the bus on May 5 to head west, seeking game and hoping to hike 500 miles to the tidewater. Unfortunately, melting snow makes the hiking too hard and he returns to the bus for the summer. The bus is actually only 30 miles from the main highway, 16 from another road and within 6 miles of at least four other cabins.  He decides to return on July 3rd but is stopped by the slew of Beaver Ponds blocking the Stampede Trail on which he hiked in. Only a half mile away there is a basket on cables and pulleys to cross the river, which McCandless had no way of finding without the kind of map McCandless has. Initially annoyed at the company, Krakauer remarks on how lonely the area seems and how much he would have disliked having been alone. When they reach the bus, they find a variety of animal bones and the remains of the moose McCandless was unable to cure. Much of Krakauer’s hate mail regarding his Outside Magazine article was directly related to the fact that the initial moose hunters said the remains belonged to a caribou. However, Krakauer’s party finds that this is not the case. Inside the bus, Krakauer finds books, supplies, and remnants of unmade clothing. There are remnants of his stay everywhere, including clothing, pots and pans, and the knife sheath given to him by Franz.