“It’s some kind of internal thing within them that makes them go out to that bus. I don’t know what it is. I don’t understand. What would possess a person to follow in the tracks of someone who died because he was unprepared?” Those are the words of one state trooper in Alaska. And he has a point – why are people willingly trekking the now-famous trail that led one young man to the end of his life?
Source: medium.com
It all started in 1992 when two moose hunters found an abandoned bus in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. In that rusty bus, they found the body of a 24-year-old man named Chris McCandless, a hitchhiker who left everything behind him to pursue a life off-the-grid. The 2007 film ‘Into the Wild’ (a fantastic movie, if you ask me) depicted the life before and up to his last breath. It clearly had an impact on viewers because it led to something of a cultural phenomenon. Ever since the film, people wanted to find that abandoned Fairbanks City Transit bus number 142, which has just recently been airlifted out of its original spot. Why? Because for years, it left people stranded, injured, and some were even killed.
Scroll all the way down if you want to see what McCandless’ sister has to say about why he left home in the first place…