Into the Wild

By Jon Krakauer Cycle 19 pg. 46-61

            Jon Krakauer had gotten a letter for his article about Chris (referred as Alex) McCandless’s fate from a man who stated that he knew Chris and that if he could get any facts about his death.  Ronald Franz met Chris when he was eighty years old in 1992 and offered Chris a lift in Salton City, which is about fifty miles away from Palm Springs.  Chris told Franz that lived by Oh-My-God-Hot springs but Franz didn't know where that was even though he lived in these parts for six years. Oh-My-God-Hot was about a two hundred person community beyond the fringe, and was a post-apocalypse vision of America.  There were hippies and other people all living out of their cars by a geothermal well that was piped into a pair of shallow steaming pools.  Franz had spent most of life in the army and on New Years Eve of 1957, while he was away, a drunk driver hilled his wife and only child in a car accident.  After that Franz felt lost and started to unofficially adopt Okinawa boys and girls, eventually having fourteen in total, and paying for two to go to schools in Japan and Philadelphia.  When Franz met McCandless his parenting instincts went into effect again.  Franz gave McCandless rides to do laundry and to grill some steaks while McCandless said he was just doing it until spring so that he could go to Alaska.  Franz taught Chris how to be a leatherworker, and Chris soon made himself a leather belt that had his initials, C.J.M., a skull and crossbones, a two lane blacktop, a no u-turn sign, a thunderstorm making a flash flood that floods a car, a hitchhiker’s thumb, an eagle, the Sierra Nevada, salmon in the Pacific, Pacific coast Highway, the Rocky Mountains, Montana wheat fields, South Dakota rattlesnake, Westberg’s house, Colorado River, a gale in the Gulf of California, a beached canoe by a tent, Las Vegas, initials T.C.D., Morro Bay, Atoria, and the letter N for North.  Early in February, McCandless said he was going to San Diego to make money, so Franz offered him a lift.  On Feb 19, McCandless called Franz and told him a happy 81^st birthday.  McCandless remembered the date because he turned 24 seven days earlier.  On February 28, he mailed a postcard to Jan Burres saying he was heading for Alaska by March 1^st.  On March 5^th, Chris sent a card to Burres and Franz saying that he was in Seattle as a hobo, and that a boxcar guard threatened to shoot Chris for catching a ride.  Chris said that he had the last laugh since he went back on it 5 minutes later.  A week later Chris came back to Franz’s place since there was no work up in the Northwest and since he was arrested for jumping on a boxcar again.  Chris’s friend Westerberg offered Chris back his job in Grand Junction, Colorado and Chris accepted.

Fringe – the outer extreme part of an area, group, or sphere of activity.

            Ronald Franz (not his real name since he wishes to remain anonymous) shows a compassion for McCandless that no other person has.  Franz’s loss of is wife and only child have left a void in his mind and heart that McCandless has seemed to fill.  Franz thinks of McCandless as his grandson and wants him to prosper and do something with his life.  He is showing great care to McCandless for everything he does.

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer Cycle 18 Reading Assignment 23-46

            In October 1990, three months after McCandless left Atlanta, a National Park Service ranger named Bud Walsh was sent into the wilderness of Lake Mead National Recreation Area to give an estimate of how rare the bear-paw poppies were in that location.  While he was resting on a hill he saw a blue tarp covering a vast object sticking out of the soil.  When he pulled off the tarp he found an old yellow Datsun with a note on the window that said, “ This piece of shit has been abandoned.  Whoever can get it out of here can have it.”  Inside of it were a guitar, a razor, $4.50, and 25 lbs. of rice.

            The Datsun was Chris McCandless’s.  He had arrived in the area on July 6 and ignoring posted warnings, he drove out to the sand riverbed.  It was 120 degrees Fahrenheit outside, yet Chris set up camp there.  On one night, a thundercloud appeared overhead and caused a flash flood.  Chris had enough time to get his tent and belongings out of the way before the surge hit.  The wave wasn’t strong enough to push the Datsun away so all the water did was get the engine wet.  Chris tried to start up the engine right after the flood but the engine was wet so all it did was just drain his battery.  Faced with the decision of abandoning the car or looking for help with the rangers, he decided to ditch the car.  He saw it as a positive way to shed unnecessary weight so he burned his $125 and buried his rifle.  He loaded a few stuff into his backpack and began to hitch hike around Lake Mead on July 10, but due to the heat he almost got heat stroke.  Luckily for him a passing boater gave him a lift to Callville Bay.  He hiked through Sierra, Nevada ad at the end of July he got a ride from a man who called himself Crazy Ernie.  Ernie offered Chris a job at his ranch in Northern California and Chris accepted.  After working there for 11 days, Chris knew that he wasn’t going to get paid so he stole a bike and pedaled into Chico.

            Chris went to Arcata, California and a pair of drifters picked him.  On August 10, McCandless was ticketed for hitchhiking and strangely he gave his parents real address.  His parent had no idea where he was, but once they got the ticket in the mail, they were really concerned about what Chris was doing.  One of the neighbors was the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, and he told the family of a private investigator named Peter Kalitka.  Kalitka contract worked for the CIA and DIA so he was the best there was.  He started the search for Chris with the ticket lead in California and chased down any lead form Europe to the northern part of Africa.  In December he learned from inspection of tax records that Chris had given his entire college fund to OXFAM.

            As Kalitka was looking for Chris, he was already hitching east across the Cascade Range, and into Montana.  Outside of Cut Bank he met Wayne Westerberg and began to work for him.  Once Wayne was jailed, Chris left for a warmer area.  On October 28, he got a ride from a long-haul trucker into Needles, California.  He then walked to Topock, Arizona and bought a secondhand aluminum canoe so that he could paddle down the Colorado River into the Gulf of California.  Chris paddled through the U.S. Army’s highly restricted Yuma Proving Ground.  On December 2, he reached the Morelos Dam and the Mexican Border.  He snuck through the floodgates and then got confused in the irrigation canals.  On December 10 after being lost, Alex gets a ride from some duck hunters who drop him off in El Golfo de Santa Clara.  He paddled down the coast and on December 14, he hauled the canoe up the beach, climbed a sandstone bluff, and set up camp.  He stayed there for 10 days, until high winds made him go into a cave where he stayed for 10 more days.  On January 16, 1991, Chris ditches the canoe after it is beached and then heads north.  He was caught trying to sneak back into the U.S. without an I.D. so he was jailed but was let out because of a story he made up.  On February 3, Chris went to Los Angeles to get an I.D. but had to return to the road since there was to many people.  On February 24, seven and a half months after ditching the Datsun, he unearths the items that he buried with it.  He then lived on the street with the bums in Las Vegas.

            Chris stopped writing his personal journal so not much is known after he left Las Vegas in May 1991.  He probably spent July and August on the Oregon coast where he complained the fog and rain was intolerable.  In September he hitched down US Highway 101 into California.  In early October he was in Bullhead City, Arizona.  Chris stayed in Bullhead for two months and in a letter to Westerberg in October he said, “It’s a good place to spend the winter and I might finally settle down and abandon my tramping life for good.”  When Chris wrote this while he was holding a full time job as a burger flipper at McDonald’s on the main drag.  Chris got to live in a mobile trailer that a lunatic named Charlie was able to live in but didn’t own.  He also visited Burres and helped him at flea markets since he was a vendor.  Chris had to leave because he wanted to head to Alaska.

            “It’s a good place to spend the winter and I might finally settle down and abandon my tramping life, for good.  I’ll see what happens when spring comes around, because that’s when I tend to get really itchy feet.”  This is what Chris is saying about Bullhead City and how he might want to stay in it for good.  He is saying that usually in the spring if he stays in one place for to long, he’ll want to go elsewhere.  Chris is indecisive and is unsure where to stay and for how long.