not all those who wander are lost

Our second and third days in Denali found us looking for Christopher McCandless' magic bus (most people know him from the book turned movie Into The Wild). In short, there was a guy who graduated college, donated all his money, and went to travel the the continent. It seems his main goal was to explore Alaska, without much direction. He's been criticized for being stupid, and has been stood up for being brave. His travels took him to a bus outside of Denali park where he lived for over 100 days, until he died of unknown causes (though most people believe he ate something poisonous).

The hike was gorgeous but strenuous to say the least. The nature is gorgeous along the Stampede Trail, and the ocassional sign of human life is comforting. There were a few places where people had set up and abandoned their camp.

We had to cross 3 rivers including the Teklanika River (which is the river that was too much for McCandless to cross). We were told by the forest rangers "if you think you're gonna die, don't cross it". Fair advice, we still crossed it. It was worse coming back over it because it had been sunny so the ice was melting and feeding into the rivers. Regardless, we didn't encounter any water that went above my waist.

Getting lost would be easy, but there are often ATVs taking the trail, so its carved out. There's a winter and summer trail, we took the winter.

We think this is Mount McKinley (to get to it in the park you have to pay for a bus ticket, people aren't allowed to drive out there).

As i mentioned before, the hike was extremely strenuous. It was 12 hours on sand, rocks, dirt, mud, through swampy areas, and rivers. The trail was rarely flat because most people take it with ATVs, which are more fun when its hilly. The mosquitos were awful, and we oftentimes had to say "hey bear" or talk loudly to keep any big game away. The only big game we actually saw (although i think we heard some, or maybe the birds were messing with us) was a HUGE moose. I wish i would've had my camera handy. We saw it, started yelling "hey moose!" and it followed us! My boyfriend had firecrackers handy, so he lit them, threw them at the moose who fled.

With the crappy trail, we were at least treated with a gorgeous sunset.

Since the bus isn't technically in the national park, people hunt. We saw sooo many shells from hunters, but only heard a few shots.

Our first sight of the bus- i've never been so happy to see an abandoned bus! We built a fire and slept outside. Even though it's July, it was ridiculously cold at night. We had to ditch one of our sleeping bags earlier in the day when it fell captive to the river.

The MAGIC BUS!!!

We came up with some pretty creative stories of how the silly thing got there, but I honestly don't know why it's there... or why it was turned into a house.

Inside the bus are some journals that people have written their thoughts in. We signed some, and wrote some inspirational things.

This is where McCandless died, kinda gross and spooky but also neat.

This was left in the suitcase with the journals, it reads: "Please sign in so searchers will know where to look for your body"

McCandless' family went to the bus a few years after he was found, and left this bible. His sister also left a journal with some memories of Chris, as well as some pictures.