Into the Wild #5

      "The Stikine Ice Cap" was a really interesting chapter(well, there's 2 of 'em). It's about Krakauer's journey to climb to the summit of the treacherous Devils Thumb in Alaska. This is probably why he was so interested in McCandless's case: because he knows the feeling, why he wanted to journey out into the wild, alone. He shares the same logic, going out to the wild to escape the unfitting society and to achieve his goal with strong determination. He wanted to be able to tell himself that he could do it, despite the danger.
      While reading, I picked up a few similarities between Chris and Jon. They both ventured into Alaska when they were youngsters,  they both abandoned their cars in the middle of nowhere(Jon couldn't afford a plane ticket so, he drove to Washington and then abandoned it), share determination, courage, and and both have shaky relationships with their fathers. Also, they were inspired to love nature by their family members(Chris by his grandfather, Loren Johnson and Jon by his father, Lewis Krakauer).Their lives are actually pretty similar. Similar enough for Krakauer to write a 200 page book about a man he never met, Chris J. McCandless. Well anyway, today Krakauer told about his twenty-day Alaskan adventure. He was determined to climb to the never-before climbed top of the Devils Thumb. He left from Boulder with a salmon seine to Petersburg. From there, he got a ride from some tree planters, who took him to a the head of Thomas Bay. He began to plod all the way to the mountain. When he was there, he almost starved, suffered through blinding storms, and even burned part of his new tent. At one point, he was going to quit because he kept hitting rock, not ice when he was climbing. But, he wanted to fulfill his goal so, he went back when the weather cleared and made it. He went to the top of the Devils Thumb. Wow.
      Back to their similarities. Both their fathers pushed them to be successful and go to college and both sons hated that. They were pushed to excel academically, which caused bad relationships, along with the discovery of their faults: Jon realized that his dad was only human and Chris realized that his father had two women in his life. In "The Alaska Interior"(ch. 16), Krakauer explains Chris "Alaskan Odyssey." I was kinda confused in the beginning of the story because it started in the middle of the full story. He cleared it for me. Chris left Carthage, South Dakota and came upon Liard River Hotsprings. Then a truck driver, Gaylord Stuckey, gave him a ride to Alaska. He drove him to the University of Alaska campus, where he got a book of Alaskan plants. He then walked along the highway leading to the Stampede Trail, where he met Jim Gallien(who was mentioned in the  beginning). Chris reached the Teklanika River, which he couldn't cross when he planned on returning home. He was forced to go back into the wild.