zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Culture
/
The Bus From 'Into The Wild' Has Been Removed By Alaska National Guard Chinook
The Bus From 'Into The Wild' Has Been Removed By Alaska National Guard Chinook-September 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:12:39

Image for article titled The Bus From 'Into The Wild' Has Been Removed By Alaska National Guard Chinook

Long a destination for adventurers seeking to know and understand the place where Christopher McCandless passed away as he strove to make a life for himself in the Alaska wild, Bus 142, or the “Magic Bus” as McCandless referred to it, has been removed from its remote resting place by .

According to a from the New York Times, the Alaska Army National Guard flew out in a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter to first remove hazards and prepare the bus for exfiltration. Then, after straps were applied, a CH-47. Chinook helicopter was used to lift the bus out of its resting place to be transported to a “safe location.”

The Alaska National Guard was interested in moving the bus as many travelers, moved by Jon Krakauer’s 1996 book Into The Wild and its 2007 film adaptation, made their own, often dangerous, journeys to the bus. A number of visitors to the site have perished in the difficult wilderness conditions that surround the site. CNN that last year, a Belarussian woman died as she tried to hike to the bus, and a group of Italian hikers needed to be rescued on their return from the site the February before.

Though McCandless may have made the bus famous, he isn’t actually the one that put it there in the first place. The bus, a 1946 International Harvester which originally belonged to the Fairbanks public transit system, had been stationed in the wilderness to be used as a shelter for construction workers building a road in the region. When the road was finished, the bus remained in the woods abandoned.

McCandless found the bus after driving west, determined to live a life in solitude in the Alaskan wilderness. Armed with a .22 caliber rifle and a sack of rice, he survived more than 100 days in the wilderness before succumbing to the conditions.

Though his demise was tragic, many have seen McCandless as a contemporary transcendentalist in the vein of Emerson and Thoreau. Though those who continue to idolize McCandless won’t be able to find his bus out there in the wild anymore, I’m sure they will continue to find relevance in his story for years to come. Hopefully, Alaska will make the bus accessible once again, perhaps under safer conditions. Will it no longer be as remote as it once was? Sure. But at least people will be able to connect with it safely.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Culture
It Rained a Lot in Death Valley, and All the European Tourists Got Stuck
It Rained a Lot in Death Valley, and All the European Tourists Got Stuck
When most people think of California’s Death Valley, they think about a place that never rains with sun-bleached cow skulls, heat mirages, and German tourists in rented Mustang convertibles. Death Valley has all those things, but actually, sometimes it does rain there. In fact, . How much is a...
Sep 7, 2026
Mercedes-AMG One Hybrid Hypercar Is Finally Entering Production
Mercedes-AMG One Hybrid Hypercar Is Finally Entering Production
Mercedes-AMG’s One hypercar hasn’t had the easiest gestation period. It was announced approximately 10,000 years ago and has faced , most notably because it turns out that it’s hard to get a 1.6-liter F1-derived V6 that revs to the moon to meet emissions targets. Thankfully, according to an announcement...
Sep 7, 2026
Rivian's Cash Burn Was $1.7 Billion
Rivian's Cash Burn Was $1.7 Billion
EV maker Rivian is losing money like it’s going out of style, there’s relatively little inventory left on dealer lots, and Mazda. All that and more on this glorious Friday edition of for August 12, 2022. Electric truck maker Rivian reported its net loss in the second quarter tripled...
Sep 7, 2026
Dead: Mercedes-Benz Metris Van
Dead: Mercedes-Benz Metris Van
The will no longer be sold in the U.S. after 2023, ending the brief run in the United States. The midsize debuted in 2015 in America, but in the seven years since then Mercedes-Benz managed to sell only about 60,000 models. Many, if not most, of those vans were...
Sep 7, 2026
The EU Says the Proposed U.S. EV Tax Credits are Biased Against Foreign Companies
The EU Says the Proposed U.S. EV Tax Credits are Biased Against Foreign Companies
The is claiming that the latest EV tax credits in the U.S. would exclude foreign car producers unfairly. The says its members are “deeply concerned” about the domestic sourcing and production requirements in the proposed , according to . Worse still, the EU also says the U.S. would breach...
Sep 7, 2026
Traffic Jams: The Prodigy - 'Nasty' (Spor Remix)
Traffic Jams: The Prodigy - 'Nasty' (Spor Remix)
Shit shit shit. Look at the time! You can’t be late again. This is a big meeting and it’ll be your ass if you aren’t there for the start of it. Check the maps. Okay. The highway looks clear. You can do this. You can make it. You’re just...
Sep 7, 2026
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved