Into The Wild

[Redbow]

I finally watched the whole movie about a young man graduating from college then leaving his family behind and going out on his own while hitchhiking and roaming across America. Finally he ended up in Alaska where he died in an old bus way out in the wilderness. What a wasted life but I guess the guy did what he wanted to do and enjoyed doing that until he knew he was trapped and could not get out of the situation that he brought upon himself.

If there was a mirror in that old bus maybe he could have used it to signal aircraft with an SOS that he could see flying overhead at times. Sad to me indeed that the young man just wasted away out there all alone in the wilderness. Only two weeks after his death moose hunters found his body inside the old bus.

 

[BowSniper]

I wasn't aware there was a movie, but i read the book many years ago. Neat story for sure.


BowSniper

 

[oldfella1962]

I wasn't aware there was a movie, but i read the book many years ago. Neat story for sure.


BowSniper

I saw the movie and read the book. The movie sticks pretty close to the book story. The kid didn't do enough research before attempting this trip. Roughing it alone in Alaska is not uncommon at all, but you have to know what you are doing - you have to walk before you can run in other words, just like with any complicated endeavor.

 

[sinclair1]

My niece in Alaska visited the magic bus before it was removed. It’s been years since I watched it but seems like I posted about it back then.

 

[oldfella1962]

My niece in Alaska visited the magic bus before it was removed. It’s been years since I watched it but seems like I posted about it back then.

When I lived in Alaska, I knew guy (and his family) that lived in an old abandoned school bus covered in an insanely thick coat of spray insulation of some type. They have a lot of "off the grid" types up there.

 

[Redbow]

When I was younger I would not have minded living in Alaska at all off grid would have been fine. The first 9 and one half years of my life were off grid on the farm here in NC. I would not want to live up there all winter though I would get very restless waiting on warm weather to come back, to many months of being inside to suit me.

In the Bear scene during the movie I guess the Bear wasn't hungry enough to eat the guy but he was probably hungry enough to eat the Bear. No way I would try and kill a Grizzly with a .22 rifle. Maybe that scene was just throw in there but then again maybe the guy did encounter the Bear at the bus and wrote about it in the messages he left behind for others to read.

 

[Raylander]

Read the book long time ago. That dude was an idiot

 

[livinoutdoors]

Good story about living the free life, but yeah, the kid messed up. Oh well. Better than dying behind a desk i reckon?

 

[RamblinWreck88]

I picked up the book years ago, not knowing of the movie, but simply thinking it seemed like a good book. I finished it in about two days; I also enjoyed Jon Krakauer's books about mountaineering.

 

[Redbow]

Good story about living the free life, but yeah, the kid messed up. Oh well. Better than dying behind a desk i reckon?

Working behind a desk would surely have killed me years ago. I would not need the Alaska wilderness to do so.

 

[bighonkinjeep]

If you haven't read it then read the book.
Much better than the movie.

 

[Nicodemus]

When I lived in Alaska, I knew guy (and his family) that lived in an old abandoned school bus covered in an insanely thick coat of spray insulation of some type. They have a lot of "off the grid" types up there.

I was almost one of those back in 1974. To this day I still wonder....

 

[oldfella1962]

When I was younger I would not have minded living in Alaska at all off grid would have been fine. The first 9 and one half years of my life were off grid on the farm here in NC. I would not want to live up there all winter though I would get very restless waiting on warm weather to come back, to many months of being inside to suit me.

In the Bear scene during the movie I guess the Bear wasn't hungry enough to eat the guy but he was probably hungry enough to eat the Bear. No way I would try and kill a Grizzly with a .22 rifle. Maybe that scene was just throw in there but then again maybe the guy did encounter the Bear at the bus and wrote about it in the messages he left behind for others to read.

Alaska is full of bears. It wouldn't surprise me if he did have one poking around his campsite. Bears smell food from a long way off, so the longer you stay in one spot the more likely a bear will eventually smell food. It happened to me when I was cooking fish in a cabin that was unlocked. *
It was just a black bear and all I had was a .357 revolver. The funny thing is the closer a bear gets the smaller your gun seems! It's "inversely proportional" I guess.
* lots of people in Alaska kept the doors unlocked in unattended cabins in case people need emergency shelter. That way nobody has to break a window - or break down a door - to get inside.

 

[sinclair1]

I was almost one of those back in 1974. To this day I still wonder....

My sister moved to Alaska in 1973. She just moved out of the bush to Anchorage due to age.
All those years 800 miles from Walmarts.
She took part in some kinda tax base program to move there. Low interest loans or something, not sure, I was 5.

She’s tougher than I am. That house under snow for weeks to where you can’t open a door is a No! For me.
This is 1978

 

[Redbow]

When I was watching one of those programs it might have been The Last Alaskans one of the men who lived out in the wilderness told a greenhorn you just be careful out there, Alaska has a thousand different ways to kill you. I believe that.

 

[earlthegoat2]

What is even worse is that the kid has become a cult hero to a bunch more idiots

 

[menhadenman]

Read the book long time ago. That dude was an idiot

This is the most accurate account… I hitchhiked all around Alaska as a young man about that same time.

Some of the best all you can eat pancakes can be found for $4.99 at a restaurant probably 5 miles from where he died.

Hollywood did a good job for the viewer that’s never been around those parts.

 

[Redbow]

Hollywood always does a good job for the viewer that's their game. A restaurant so close to where he died what a shame but was that restaurant even open in the dead of winter?

 

[NCHillbilly]

I wouldn't say he wasted his life. He actually went and lived life on his terms and did what he wanted to instead of what he was told to do, which is more than 99% of us ever accomplish. If he had spent 30 more years miserable in a cubicle going home to a wife he hated and a stress-inducing mortgage, would that have been less wasted?
With that said, he wasn't very smart.

 

[menhadenman]

Hollywood always does a good job for the viewer that's their game. A restaurant so close to where he died what a shame but was that restaurant even open in the dead of winter?

Looks like I was off on my claim (had to look)… but the trail head he went in on was only a few miles west of Healy. It’s a tourist trap for Denali that’s pretty well travelled. And there was definitely some great all you can eat sourdough pancakes being served in the late 90s when I was hitchhiking those same roads.

My recollection was he humped back in on the Stampede trail and obviously backed himself into a corner.

Too bad he didn’t have @NCHillbilly with him, they’d be gaining weight on seven course meals