Killjoy was here: AK Natl guard removes “magic bus” from wilderness, Stampede Trail.

[Jong Lafitte]

Didn’t see this elsewhere so sorry if it’s a double.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dai...thorities.html

Probably need to close Denali and Mt. Washington, at least. This is why we can’t have nice things, or, even rusty old things.

I guess it’s not a natural feature and was attracting some unprepared people. Seems like it’s more significant than just garbage left by a company but there’s been lots of needless deaths.

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[Jong Lafitte]

Sorry, tried to edit. Can’t delete.

[beer30]

Agreed, sounds like it needed to go.

[AdironRider]

I know Krakauer is a good writer and all, but I cannot understand the deification of some jaded rich kid getting himself killed by being a moron.

[hawkgt]

Daughters fav book. Think she did this pic at 11 or 12??? Can’t remember

[Danno]

I know Krakauer is a good writer and all, but I cannot understand the deification of some jaded rich kid getting himself killed by being a moron.

I don't deify the kid at all. But there is still something very profound in the book and in his experience that spoke to me, like it spoke to many others.

I think search and rescue was tired of rescuing people. Kinda sucks that they had to take the bus, but I understand it.

[Peruvian]

yeah, cause there is no way folks are going to try and hike to find the spot where the bus used to be.

[Danno]

yeah, cause there is no way folks are going to try and hike to find the spot where the bus used to be.

totally. but possibly/hopefully less of them?

[Dantheman]

I don't deify the kid at all. But there is still something very profound in the book and in his experience that spoke to me, like it spoke to many others.

Most jaded rich kids just OD or wrap their fancy car around a tree. Donating $24,000 to OXFAM (almost $50k in 2020 dollars) and then trying but failing to live alone in the Alaskan wilderness is worthy of some degree of respect.

yeah, cause there is no way folks are going to try and hike to find the spot where the bus used to be.

Entirely possible, but probably still for the best.

[hawkgt]

a enterprising individual should offer to buy the bus and put it in front of a bar or brewery.

[Jong Lafitte]

How is this trail so dangerous if you can drive an old crappy bus there? I mean if people really are gonna just go, can’t they set it up to its former bus-drive-able glory? Footbridge over the river?

Some different arguments here:


https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventu...ka-wilderness/


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[Jong Lafitte]

a enterprising individual should offer to buy the bus and put it in front of a bar or brewery.

Not a bad idea, I mean, there is a replica of the bus in Healy at a brewery. Apparently. Awesome pic btw.

As to the actual hulk, I think it’s creepy a dude died in there. I mean, did they even change the mattress? Gross. Maybe give it to the family as long as they agree not to put it back up there? They could put it in a place more accessible but still remote enough to evoke the spirit of the idea, whatever that is. I dunno.

As we speak, at least one party is planning on going up there with a memorial. Guaranteed.

My vote: “Magic bus dispensary”

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[bennymac]

yeah, cause there is no way folks are going to try and hike to find the spot where the bus used to be.

but that fact, delivered with smug sarcasm, doesn’t mean they should just shrug and leave it there.

And I’m guessing you don’t know that the spot is otherwise void of attraction compared to nearby areas.

I bet a lot of people went there for the Instagram shot in front of the bus - any pictures taken there now will look like someone standing on a random fire road in a nondescript area

I’m guessing this stops over 99% of the people who would have made the trip. Saves probably one life per decade and saves lots of headaches for local search and rescue.

[frorider]

I bet a lot of people went there for the Instagram shot in front of the bus - any pictures taken there now will look like someone standing on a random fire road in a nondescript area

+1000

[highangle]

Yep. It was an "attractive nuisance" if ever there was one, a gravity well for SAR callouts.
National Guard Blackhawks and Pararescue Jumpers are really a hella expensive way to get cats out of trees. Villard/Random House owes the State of Alaska and the Alaskan SAR community a rather large debt. No shit.

That said, the original Outside article came out a couple months before my first visit to Alaska, and is woven into my first impressions of the Great Land.
I like the movie because the bulk of it is one of the more charming Boy Meets World stories I've seen on film, before, you know, CC dies of starvation like any other wild animal who just didn't get a chance to learn all it needed to know in time.

[Kopi_Red]

I know Krakauer is a good writer and all, but I cannot understand the deification of some jaded rich kid getting himself killed by being a moron.

My thoughts exactly.

[Danno]

How is this trail so dangerous if you can drive an old crappy bus there? I mean if people really are gonna just go, can’t they set it up to its former bus-drive-able glory? Footbridge over the river?

Some different arguments here:


https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventu...ka-wilderness/


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I think it's the river crossing that is so dangerous, and I don't think there's a well defined road to the bus.

[bennymac]

Bus was dragged there by a D8 back when it was a mining area. Axle broke on the bus so they left it behind - was used by local hunters as a shelter.

Often the same people who shook their heads at the urbanites doing their first ever overnight backpacking trip by going to the Alaskan wilderness are also the same people shouting “leave the bus there why you gotta be a killjoy! it’s just a bus bro! build a bridge and a trail”

Why can’t we have nice things? Many answers to that - Instagram is on the list. Krakauer is not.

[highangle]

I think it's the river crossing that is so dangerous, and I don't think there's a well defined road to the bus.

You can move around a lot easier in Interior Alaska in the winter. That's what the native peoples did, preferring to camp on a fish gathering spot all summer, if they could.

Easier to skid a broken down camper/bus/trailer over the snow and frozen rivers with a Bombardier or a Nodwell for your secret moose camp.

[CarlMega]

Gotta admit - it has great patina and looks the part.

[bennymac]

They should put the bus at the nearby brewery where there currently is a replica bus. People can get fodder for their Instagram without local SAR having to pluck dead bodies outta the river.

Or put a chairlift in over the river and have park rangers patrol the area for bears. Sell condos. Build a flow trail around the bus. Put a 5G tower up. Start a bus142 cryptocurrency. It’s what McCandless would have wanted.

[Brownski]

I spent two summers working down the road from there in the nineties, after the Outside article but before the book. Me and the other seasonal workers had mostly read the story and were aware of what happened and the location but there wasn’t this mania to go visit the site that there is now. The river is definitely the big hazard out there. Some days it’s ford-able and other days it’s just not.

[east or bust]

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and think I got something out of reading it. But never, not once, have I ever had a shred of an inkling to visit the site.

Would have been cool to leave it there but fully understand the decision to remove it. The parking it at a local brewery idea is pretty funny and probably valid.

I know Krakauer is a good writer and all, but I cannot understand the deification of some jaded rich kid getting himself killed by being a moron.

Don’t really understand this notion. Would it be different if he never had a dollar to his name? I mean, if you read the book and that’s what you got out of it I guess we’re on different wavelengths. Did he really die because he was a moron? He definitely went into Alaska unprepared but there’s not much doubt in my mind that he would have made it through had he not consumed seeds that science at the time didn’t even acknowledge as poisonous.

[iceman]

Wasn't there a stream flow gauge with a cable across the river and a basket or something to stand or sit in like a mile upstream from the bus? But McCandless never went up that way and didn't know about it? I read that book a long while ago but I seem to recall that.

[TahoeJ]

I bet a lot of people went there for the Instagram shot in front of the bus - any pictures taken there now will look like someone standing on a random fire road in a nondescript area

I was about to say exactly this.