The state of Alaska on Monday relocated the abandoned bus made infamous by Into the Wild, airlifting it out of the backcountry in a joint operation conducted by the Alaska Army National Guard and the state's Department of National Resources.
In a press release the National Guard said that a team of 12 soldiers cut holes in the bus's ceiling and floor in order to rig chains to the vehicle's frame and attach it to a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter, which then carried the bus away from its resting place near the outskirts of Denali National Park.
Also known as the "Magic Bus," the abandoned 1940s-era Fairbanks transit bus first served as a shelter for hunters harvesting game in the forests off of the Stampede Trail. In 1992, adventurer Chris McCandless spent 114 days living in the bus, where he starved to death after becoming trapped by the fast-flowing Teklanika River. McCandless's story became famous with the release of the 1996 bestseller Into the Wild and its 2007 Hollywood adaptation.
The success of Into the Wild drew a steady stream of pilgrims to the Magic Bus, many of whom were unprepared for the Alaskan backcountry. Between 2009 and 2017, crews responded to 15 emergency calls from hikers who had become lost, injured, or trapped on their way to the bus; in February 2020, state police rescued five Italian hikers, one of whom had developed frostbite. At least two hikers have died attempting to make the 20-mile trip, including a Belarusian visitor who drowned in the swollen Teklanika last year.
“We encourage people to enjoy Alaska’s wild areas safely, and we understand the hold this bus has had on the popular imagination,” Corri A. Feige, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, said in the release. “However, this is an abandoned and deteriorating vehicle that was requiring dangerous and costly rescue efforts, but more importantly, was costing some visitors their lives. I’m glad we found a safe, respectful and economical solution to this situation.”
That was the point, was it not; chasing a perilous attraction? Leave it. Anything to thin the herds at the National Parking Lots. Stop sending first-responders after these morons. The mentalities of the Christopher McCandlesses, Beck Weathers, and Timothy Treadwells of the world are the reasons we have these stories ... and (sometimes) learn from them. Their ilk will remain regardless of the attempts of the nanny state to "protect" them.
What's next, removing ... ? Never mind.
Nevertheless so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the forms of life!
Charles Darwin, from The Origin of Species
Pulling out sucks.
Jeff Anchower
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