20/20 - Rare TV Show about Chris McCandless (Alexander Supertramp) from Into the Wild

Now an adventure story that is

compelling and puzzling. The saga of Chris
McCandless,

a young man determined to put himself to
some kind of test.

What was he thinking when he headed west,
rejecting his privileged life,

his family, even his own identity? Almost
certainly he never envisioned the fate

that awaited him. His journey and it's
gipping conclusion

were the inspiration for a best-selling
book. Tonight Tom Jarriel

brings this young man and his powerful
story to life.

It was an odyssey in the traditional
sense of the word.

He called it the spiritual revolution to
kill the false being within.

A grand journey that would change everything
and transform his life.

Chris McCandless was captivated by the
spell of Alaska:

rugged, wild and challenging. At age 22 he
was itching for a romantic adventure.

A chance to live like his hero, novelist
Jack London,

who penned "The Call of the Wild". Alaska!

For the Northern Lights stir that
yearning for adventure which can

haunt the young man. Outside magazine editor
Jon Krakauer

was also drawn to Alaska in his youth.

As an offer he wrote a book about McCandless
called

Into the Wild. When a young person is

is moved by this sort of passion and
feels, it feels compelled it to go this

sort of quest I think you have to let
him and there's no way you can stop it.

In our culture that we don't have formal
rite of passage like

some each in cultures there in taking
risk

subject yourself to a dangerous
rite of passage maybe something many

people have to go through to become a
man or a woman.

The mosaic of Chris McCandless growing
up was typical

on the flu and family in the seventies.
Snapshots reveal

a happy youngster waving to his family,

hiking in the mountains, vacationing
with his parents in the Caribbean,

birthday celebrations and academic
achievements.

He emerged from childhood handsome and
highly intelligent.

His closest confidante was his sister
Carinne.

This is Chris right here I like that
picture.

Chris looks so cute.

Looks happy. The unconventional side of
Chris McCandless

appeared in high school when he became
captain at the cross country team

The Road Warriors. They just got on his
suicide

trecks. The whole point was to get
lost.

They run out get lost, find their
bearings

run a little slower until they found the
bearings and then run home again at full speed

when his teammates so this was an effect
how Chris

where his whole life 0

while it Emory University in Atlanta
mccandless and his friends made a video

of college life

which included an uninhibited solo

he graduated with honors in May of 1990

he had achieved his future was assured

when at the party his parents through
Chris announced he was going to drop out

our site for a while

he explained he needed to quench a
thirst for adventure.

He headed west and like the
Setting Sun slowly banished from the

life he had known

and the family that had raised him McCandles was transformed

a nomad with the new life and a new name
Alexander Supertramp

he aspired to be a super tramp

y'know wandering the world hanging out
with bums and drifters

living on nothing but his wits and
for two years he did that wandering

around the West

one of his favorite songs was Roger
Miller's

king of the road. "Trailers for sale or rent

There were ups and downs y'know times where he was

feeling very alone

but then there were days where he was so illated

and overjoyed and felt great

within months

the letters and calls home petered out
his parents were distraught

their son had rejected them and their
lifestyle

he just wanted to go from adventure to
adventure an experienced life

fully um he wasn't after security he
wasn't after

the house, the kids, the car. My parents
were concerned as

any parent would be um that they hadn't
heard from their son in so long

and they basically just wanted to know
that he was alright and that he was still alive.

and um so they hired a private
investigator.

The investigators search reached as far
as Europe and South Africa

but Alex Supertramp was just cruising
through the west.

Some disturbing clue surfaced the family
was shocked to learn Chris had donated

all of his money over twenty four
thousand dollars to famine relief

but the Supertramp had vanished. And this
really freaked them out because they

realize he was trying to

not be found. They got really worried
then they

soon you know they contacted the police
missing person stuff

and it turned up anything. Years later
Jon Krakauer

retrace chris mccandless is journey he
learned that when Chris had arrived at

Lake Mead California

he was caught in a flash flood and
forced to abandon his car.

He took out the last money in his wallet, 123
bucks,

put in a little pile in Sand, lit it on
fire took a picture of it

what was the significance in giving away
his remaining funds and burning even his

pocket money?

Chris thought money was inherently evil
he thought nothing good came

of it. You didn't need it, was
corrupting, it made you cautious and

greedy

and overly concerned about the wrong
thing.

Alongside a remote highway in november
of nineteen ninety

Wayne Westerberg picked up the thin
young man who was hitching a ride

turns out he hadn't age in a couple days
he kinda ran out of his potatoes

whatever else. He ate quite a meal
there

he was like sleeping at the table there
before we hardly got done

Westerberg combine crews harvested grain
across the great plains

he offered Alex Supertramp a job in Westerberg's hometown

Carthage South Dakota population 247.
Here the lonely traveler discovered a

friendly community

and briefly took route. Alex
Supertramp had found a new surrogate

family.

From then on he gave Carthage as his home
address.

As the time came for him to leave to
Alaska you asked him to stay at work a little

longer

You offered him an airline ticket. why do you
think he didn't take it?

went back to the farm and hitchhiking
the rails

all that was part of it to him I mean
you couldn't do you couldn't do half the

adventure without having the whole thing

part of the whole thing was was making
the whole trip

all the way to alaska by foot, rail.

the long-anticipated Alaskan Odyssey was
underway

Westerberg received a postcard dated April
27th 1992

for the first time Alex conveyed concern
at the danger of venturing

into the Alaskan Outback it read in
part:

if this adventure proves fatal and you
don't ever hear from me again

I want you to know it you're a great man
I now

walk into the wild. The fantasy was
becoming reality

Alex's message would turn out to be

prophetic. Over the next weeks he would
keep a poignant diary of his wilderness

experience

which would and as he never expected.
time Tom Jarriel brings the journey to its

dramatic conclusion.

after this

Alex

Supertramp as he now calls himself has
come to the most

crucial part of his journey. Ahead of him
lies the challenge of his life

the rugged Alaskan wilderness. He is
alone,

equipt with the barest essentials
determined to survive on his wits

but not every adventure has a happy
ending. Tom Jarriel picks up the story

at a dramatic and irrevocable crossroads.
Electrician Jim Galleon picked Alex up

hitchhiking on the road between
Fairbanks and Anchorage

he says he knew right away the young man
was in over is here

when I found out he didn't have any boots

I told him he can use mine just give me a
call when he came out in the woods

just get them back to me. He said he didn't
wanna see anybody

fact he gave me his watch he had a comb

he had about 85 cents in change and
he just threw it on dash in my truck

threw the map down didn't wanna know
what day it was what time

was or where he was. Galleon dropped Alex
off

on an abandoned mining road called the
Stampede Trail

and snap the photograph. It was the end
of April 1992

and Alex Supertrapp marched into the
wild wearing a stranger's boots

The adventure of his life was unfolding um

he was enjoying himself. He had to do the
ultimate test and

anything less than that would'd have cut the
mustard.

After a couple days came to a river
Technica

Which at the time because things were still pretty
frozen up it was only about knee deep.

was cold but he just waited to cross. On
the third day

he caught a glimpse of America's highest
peak Denali

away to the South. Four days in he found
this bus.

Called it the Magic Bus. The bus

a junker from Fairbanks left for hunters
was 28 miles from the main road

it was outfitted with a stove and
a bed.

Alex's backpack was only half full carrying
10 pounds of rice,

a .22-caliber rifle, some ammunition and
paperback books.

He was determined to live off the land.

There's plenty of while game from birds
of prey circling overhead

to moose and brown bear. In this
primitive land

the hunters often become the hunted. In
the spring there's also a natural bounty

of edible wild plants.

Alex became philosophical. His
declaration of independent life was

inscribed on the bus.

Ultimate freedom. An Extremist and
Aesthetic Voyager

whose home is the road. He flees and
walks alone upon the land

to become lost in the wild. And

he kept a daily log his successes and
failures

posing with the game he caught he snap
self-portraits.

Living off the land is a full-time job
and he basically spent most of every day

gathering berries and mushrooms and
Eskimo potato.

hunting small game he shot a lot of
porcupines, squirrels, Grouse, ptarmigan

At one point he shot the
Moose

which was like the jackpot uh the 7-8 hundred pound
moose.

But he did not know how to preserve the
meat

and it soon rotted. By early July Alex
Supertramp had proven that he could survive

in the wild

and was ready to head for home. He hiked
back down the Stampede Trail

toward the technique a river but the
stream he had crossed easily in the

spring

had become a torrent of melted snow.
Without maps which would have shown a

way across the river nearby

Alex had become a prisoner trapped on
the wrong side a raging river.

For the first time his journal entries
implied danger

day 68 and 69 disaster

rained in. River looks impossible. Lonely,

scared. There's no fighting I mean nature
had spoken

and recognize that fact. He returned to
the bus and resume gathering plants for

food.

so this is doesn't look much like a potato

but this is what they call Eskimo potato
and he figured the root is edible

the seed is from the same plant so it must also be
edible but they're not. What no one knew

is that these seeds are in fact poisonous and when
you eat it it prevents your body from

digesting food.

His photograph shows a large bag
of the poisoned seeds ready to be eaten.

The journal confirms his suspicion on
day ninety four.

Extremely weak. Fault of potato seed.

Much trouble just to stand up. Starving.

Great jeopardy. Then in spite of this
predicament a cause for celebration.

Day one hundred. Made it but in the
weakest condition of life.

Death looms as serious threat. Have
literally become

trapped in the wild

He posted a note on the door an SOS note
saying if you happen to come by

please this is no joke I mean so. In one
sense he hadn't written it off but he knew

he was in

in deep trouble. He knew that he might very
well die and he was

facing death very bravely. The alaskan
fantasy

had indeed become a harsh reality in
signing the SOS note

Alexander Supertramp had become chris
mccandless again.

what meaning did you attach to that? It's
poignant

you know. It's speculation but he was
acknowledging how we was

just in the end

a young man in trouble. The last stages
of starvation

are said to be accompanied by a euphoric
sense of well-being

the final entry in his journal reads
beautiful blueberries.

With no fat left on his body he surely
would have felt extremely cold.

It's impossible to know when he gave up
hope of rescue

it's terrible to think about those last
days. starving is not a good way to die it's

a very painful way to die. You go into
convulsions,

hallucinations. Um its

it's not a easy way to go and a fact
that he didn't put an end to it

on life he had plenty of ammunition, had
a rifle but he faced death

he stayed to the end and he faced death very
bravely. I admire him for that. On august

eighteenth nineteen ninety-two

Christopher McCandless died wrapped in
the sleeping bag his mother had sown for

him.

his boots stood by the stove. He had
survived 113 days

in the wilderness. Nineteen days later 6
Alaskans happened to ross the buss

and discover the body. It weighed sixty
seven pounds.

This is the bed where he slept. it's eary
almost as if it's frozen in time.

10 months later his parents Billie
and Walt Mccandless

visited the bus. Billie came in first um

she sat here she looked at Chris's
clothing his

belonging fingered finger them pressed
them to her face.

You can still smell Chris she said. They brought up
small brass plaques which walt installed

over here

honoring their son Billie left a
bouquet of flowers.

She was worried that some. She didn't want any
other young man to die here so she

brought the survival kit

and left it here um with some warm clothes,

a family Bible, and

some cooking, stuff some food most which
is still here.

People have respected it. And there was the last
message found on the bus.

It was carefully printed in block
letters. I have had a happy life

and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God
bless all.

Then with the note in hand Chris McCandles
captured

a haunting image a young man enduring
a self-imposed

rite of passage into manhood. He was
alone,

starving beyond desperation, aware death was near.

Hes look terribly gaunt, emaciated. He looks like a
concentration camp at Camp victim

but he has this amazing look of serenity
in his eyes

He was at peace in a very real sense
and that's something

one has to admire. He doesn't run from
It he just accepts it

and a forgives his family,

apologized to him for hurting them. He says
I lead a very happy life.

No regrets Chris McCandless was 24 years
old when his

Odyssey ended and the Alaskan wilderness.

If I had to bet my life on whether my
brother was happy on the day that he died

I would tell you that he was.

Now he wasn't happy to be dying but he was
happy

that he did everything in his life that he possible could

to live his life not just be alive. He got more out of his twenty four years

most people get who live to be 90.

Boy

It might have seemed deliberate but it
really wasn't a subliminal suicide

situation. I don't think so Hugh. There was
a tone of that in his first note to his

friend Westerberg. He was talking about
if I die if I don't come back

toward the end though he was looking
forward to coming back to his family

back to his life

and he definitely wanted to get out he
just wound up trapped.

It does seem like a cruel thing to do to
his parents though to drop out of site.

It certainly is and there was never an
explanation of what caused the split

that's one the mysteries that died there
on the bus. fascinating. Really compelling story.

Thank you to Tom.