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Into the Wild -- With the Best Guide

October 03, 2007 6:51 PM

ABC's Neal Karlinsky blogs:

It was about the time that the wheels of my ATV were no longer on the ground and I was being pushed down Alaska’s raging Teklanika River that I knew I was really having an unusual adventure.

On Tuesday night I got the call from New York to get on a plane and re-trace the famous steps of Chris McCandless and his journey, “Into the Wild.” And I had a feeling the people on the other end of the phone didn’t fully comprehend the difficulty of that task. Fortunately, they did manage to hook us up with the best guide in the business -- hands down.

His name is Coke Wallace, a steely eyed “master guide” to the Alaskan bush who also guided Sean Penn as he set out to begin production of his film.  Coke sees the world divided into two camps -- predators and prey, and he brought along his favorite hunting rifle and a lifetime of experience to keep us from turning into the latter.

The 23 mile journey to the famous bus where McCandless died traverses the Stampede Trail on a notch of state land surrounded by the Denali National Forest. For more than five hours, we traversed raging rivers, deep flooded streams, steep muddy hills and thick gooey Tundra as treacherous as quick sand.

Sure enough I got stuck a few times and had to change socks twice after getting wet -- and that is a fairly unpleasant thing on a 30-degree day in the middle of nowhere. Coke kept yelling at me, “Trees and traction, they both start with T!” which means run over the trees and you won’t get stuck. “The throttle is your friend! The throttle is your friend!” was another helpful hint as I nearly floated downstream traversing a river. And then there was “Four wheel drive means four wheel stuck!” which meant only switch into four wheel drive to get out of a bad situation. Thanks to Coke, a fine set of outdoor gear, and an ample supply of beef jerky, we made it.

If you’ve never read the best selling book “Into the Wild,” trust me, it’s powerful. Whatever you think of McCandless, when you step inside the bus where he died it’s like entering a shrine. Messages from McCandless’s family and strangers from around the world are everywhere. And they are very moving. It is a story that has clearly affected a great many people to their very cores.

Our day of ATV-ing through the Alaskan bush took about 12 hours and was one of the great adventures I’ve encountered in a career filled with them. The story of Chris McCandless will probably always be with me as a result. He had no ATV, no guide, no happy ending. As for me, at least I now have some understanding of the great adventure he lived and loved -- right up to the bitter end.

October 3, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (1)

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Posted by: Candadai Tirumalai | Oct 5, 2007 11:00:30 AM

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