Another Hiker Gets Inspired by 'Into the Wild' and Requires Rescue

Emily Hirsch in 'Into the Wild' (Everett)
Emile Hirsch in ‘Into the Wild’ (Photo: Everett)

Christopher McCandless’s 24-year life and untimely death was made famous by Jon Krakauer’s 1996 best-seller Into the Wild and its 2007 film adaptation courtesy of director Sean Penn. The book and the movie depict the travels of McCandless (played in the film by Emile Hirsch), a hiker who wandered America for over two years before starving to death in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992. In the years since those works turned McCandless into something of an offbeat folk hero, many have followed his path into the great unknown in search of the beat-up Bus 142 where he spent his final days. And as with so many of those people, the latest man to attempt this journey nearly perished in the process.

As reported by CBC News, 22-year-old Canadian Matthew Sharp was recently forced to use his locator to request evacuation after he walked more than 30 kilometers into the Alaskan bush and was injured while crossing a river. In an email about his ordeal, during which he discovered that the river was far deeper, and its currents far stronger, than he had initially anticipated, Sharp wrote:

“I was at the point I had to get rid of it [his gear] and get to the shore. [Tried] to catch the bottom with my feet and I wasn’t able to do it. It was pretty frantic bit of time. Once I was about halfway across, the current overwhelmed me and dragged me and my [50 pounds of] gear down stream…. I got pretty beat up. While being dragged, I was able to grab a fallen tree and get to shore…I was so hyped … the reality of what just happened didn’t yet sink in. I collected myself and continued hiking.”

** FILE ** The abandoned bus where Christopher McCandless starved to death in 1992 is seen in this March 21, 2006 photo on the Stampede Road near Healy, Alaska. McCandless, who hiked into the Alaska wilderness in April 1992 died in there in late August 1992, was apparently poisoned by wild seeds that left him unable to fully metabolize what little food he had. Sean Penn's movie
The real bus in Alaska (Photo: AP Photo/ Jillian Rogers )

After reaching Bus 142, however, Sharp became aware of the extent of his injuries:

“At this point I started to feel how beat up I was; bruising to my legs, back, shoulders and ankles. By the next morning I was so sore I was unable to carry my gear, let alone cross the rivers again and hike the 30 km out…It took a lot for me to do it, but I activated my locator.”

Sharp is far from the first person to have made this trip, only to find themselves in grave danger. In 2014, 29-year-old Swiss hiker Claire Jane Ackermann drowned while trying to cross the Teklanika River on her way to McCandless’ sbus. In the summer of 2013, 12 hikers had to be rescued while aiming to duplicate McCandless’s feat. And just last month, hikers Michael Trigg and Theodore Aslund required the assistance of more than 20 people to bring them back home after they found themselves incapable of making the return trip from Bus 142.

All of which goes to show that, while the wanderlust spirit of McCandless might be inspiring to many, it might be better to remember the dire consequences of his Into the Wild life story.

Watch the ‘Into the Wild’ trailer: