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Comment by EL_Loco | Hacker News Reader

There's an interesting piece called "Chris McCandless from an Alaska Park Ranger’s Perspective"

http://nmge.gmu.edu/textandcommunity/2006/Peter_Christian_Re...

"Some like McCandless, show up in Alaska, unprepared, unskilled and unwilling to take the time to learn the skills they need to be successful. These quickly get in trouble and either die by bears, by drowning, by freezing or they are rescued by park rangers or other rescue personnel–but often, not before risking their lives and/or spending a lot of government money on helicopters and overtime. When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn’t even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament using one of several routes that could have been successful."

View on HN

Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business?

McCandless didn't ask for a book to be written about him. Why should anyone care one way or another that an individual they didn't know decided to do something for his own sake with little effect on anyone else.

If I, or anyone, decide tomorrow they'd like to take a very long walk in the woods and not return for six months, why does society at large need to weigh in on that? It's not a question of moral or ethics. People are consistently smug, morally prescriptive, and hindsight-ridden whenever the topic of McCandless comes up.

From the root post:

  > but often, not before risking their
  > lives and/or spending a lot of
  > government money on helicopters
  > and overtime.

Every search and rescue operation the forest service mounts is a bunch less actual work they can get done protecting and preserving nature for the rest of us.

This response comes up every time, but it seems backwards to me and comes off more as rationalization for smugness than a legitimate point, something along the lines of, "Will someone think of the children?"

Yes, it would be better if SAR services were never needed, but they serve the public, it's not the public that serves SAR when they decide to step outside.

It'd be one thing if McCandless were willingly and flagrantly putting his life in danger with the expectation that he could dial a number and be rescued at any time - but that didn't happen did it? He played it out to the end starving to death.

He never intended to die out there. His journal makes that abundantly clear. He starved because he ate poison berries.

He absolutely would have dialed a number to come rescue him if the technology was available, which it wasn't because it was 1992 in central Alaska.

He also did require expensive rescue anyway. You think they just left his body in that bus after it was discovered? Absolutely not, plus there are no roads there anymore, so they had to fly his body out in a very expensive helicopter ride.

He ate poison berries because he was starving. The poison berries sure as shit didn't help, but he was still generally clueless as to get food anyway and was in serious trouble. He didn't know what plants he could eat (hence the poison berries), didn't know how to clean and preserve animal meat, etc.

> He ate poison berries because he was starving.

I think the parent poster is right - he died because he ate poison berries:

It might be said that Christopher McCandless did indeed starve to death in the Alaskan wild, but this only because he’d been poisoned, and the poison had rendered him too weak to move about, to hunt or forage, and, toward the end, “extremely weak,” “too weak to walk out,” and, having “much trouble just to stand up.” He wasn’t truly starving in the most technical sense of that condition. He’d simply become slowly paralyzed.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccand...

Months before his death he killed a moose then let it rot because he didn't know what to do with it. He'd not have been eating those berries in the first place if he knew how to feed himself in that region. If he didn't have the poison berries, what would he have been eating? He had very little else.

It's also quite possible the berries wouldn't have killed him if not for the fact that he was already starving. From wikipedia:

> In 2013, a new hypothesis was proposed. Ronald Hamilton, a retired bookbinder at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania,[7] suggested a link between the symptoms described by McCandless and the poisoning of Jewish prisoners in the Nazi concentration camp in Vapniarca. He put forward the proposal that McCandless starved to death because he was suffering from paralysis in his legs induced by lathyrism, which prevented him from gathering food or hiking.[26] Lathyrism may be caused by ODAP poisoning from seeds of Hedysarum alpinum (commonly called wild potato). The ODAP, a toxic amino acid, had not been detected by the previous studies of the seeds because they had suspected and tested for a toxic alkaloid, rather than an amino acid, and nobody had previously suspected that Hedysarum alpinum seeds contained this toxin. The protein would be relatively harmless to someone who was well-fed and on a normal diet, but toxic to someone who was malnourished, physically stressed, and on an irregular and insufficient diet, as McCandless was.[27]

and

> The article notes that while occasional ingestion of foodstuffs containing ODAP is not hazardous for healthy individuals eating a balanced diet, "individuals suffering from malnutrition, stress, and acute hunger are especially sensitive to ODAP, and are thus highly susceptible to the incapacitating effects of lathyrism after ingesting the neurotoxin".[7]

I think the GP's post should be read as "He's not a romantic hero. He was just stupid, and he died because of it." That is, it's not addressed to McCandless himself, but to Jon Krakauer for painting him as having some kind of life lesson to teach. And to fans of the book who romanticize it.

McCandless didn't ask for any of that, and I concur that he was welcome to commit suicide his own way. But it was suicidal, and everybody knew it, so it is necessary to add the cautionary tale whenever he's brought up. It would be best, as you say, if we all just ignored him.

The romanticization is in the portrayal not the reality of it. Without Jon Krakauer, no one would know McCandless' name or story, because McCandless wasn't out to glorify himself or bring fame, money, etc. to himself. He really was just some kid looking to escape what he saw as a life of oppression. He wasn't asking to be looked upon as an model, and he most likely would have acted differently if he knew his life would be scrutinized by strangers decades after.

I agree that it would be best to ignore him, because I concur that the story of McCandless is seen too often as romantic instead of cautionary.

However, it didn't seem to me that Krakauer painted McCandless as too rosy. He seemed to integrate both the accomplishments and the stupidity that led to those accomplishments pretty well.

He seemed to show McCandless as a very capable and nice person, who in stubborn hubris abandoned and hurt his family and ended up dying. Not holding him up as a flawed hero like many fans of the book, and not sneering at him like many (rightly) do. A self-condemning tragedy, not an exultation or condemnation.

It could be no one else's business in a world where park rangers don't have to assume that people want to be saved when they are in life-threatening danger. That's not the world we live in and there's no realistic way around that.

That would be a valid point if McCandless had made a pact with rangers that if he were come into serious trouble, they should rescue him immediately.

Of course, he made no pact. He went out alone, died alone and his body was found incidentally by a group of hunters.

It sounds like you have the whole social contract of society fundamentally backwards.

_Everyone_ has a pact with rangers that they should be rescued immediately. That's literally what rangers do.

The exact same thing works with a doctor or an EMT. You make it sound like if someone started choking in a restaurant you would expect the EMT to say "well he never made a pact with me to rescue him from choking to death" so the guy dies.

I think you are right and wrong here: there is a pact that you get some services when you pay taxes, not for other reasons.

At the same time people have the right to be left alone IF THEY WANT when they get lost, choke to death etc., but there is no way to differentiate, so the default is to try to save these people with the associated costs. Think about Do Not Resuscitate choice.

There is no simple solution here.

> That would be a valid point if McCandless had made a pact with rangers that if he were come into serious trouble, they should rescue him immediately.

> Of course, he made no pact.

That's incorrect. McCandless made that pact by being part of this society. The pact is implicit: it's the act of breaking it that requires effort (if it's even allowed at all).

Honestly, this is more about philosophy than anything else, and a part of philosophy much more rooted in personal beliefs and preferences than actual facts.

It is deeply subjective, and as such any notion of correctness is moot.

> Honestly, this is more about philosophy than anything else, and a part of philosophy much more rooted in personal beliefs and preferences than actual facts.

> It is deeply subjective, and as such any notion of correctness is moot.

Eh, not so much. Maybe that would be the case if we were talking about some idealistic "how it should be," but the GP's scenario wasn't that. Practically, in modern American society, park rangers are going to assume an obligation to rescue you without you having to make an explicit pact with them. To claim that it's otherwise is false.

People assuming things doesn't mean there is a pact, explicit or otherwise.

Isn't the whole idea of a social contract (which is what you describe, right?) of any kind debatable and really unprovable?

Couldn't one say it simply is a responsibility they have collectively taken onto themselves, on their own?

Of course, it doesn't change what will happen, what rescuers will do. Probably won't even change how they'll do it, or how they'll express their motivations from doing so.

So... how do you prove or disprove the existence of said pact?

McCandless was explicitly escaping society. He had already vacated his family, friends, home, money, his vehicle. At this point he's a major outlier in terms of being a member of society.

>> That's incorrect. McCandless made that pact by being part of this society. The pact is implicit: it's the act of breaking it that requires effort (if it's even allowed at all).

> McCandless was explicitly escaping society. He had already vacated his family, friends, home, money, his vehicle. At this point he's a major outlier in terms of being a member of society.

So what? How McCandless felt or what his intentions were at any particular time doesn't actually change the situation vis a vis society and its rescue personnel.

I agree with you, especially about McCandless. But I ask myself, where is the line? What level of risk stops being rude?

It is absolutely a question of moral and ethics. This point of view regularly gets good people killed. Dead serious.

You cannot wander off into the wilderness with no preparation expecting to cause no undue burden and danger to society for the exact same reason that you cannot jump off a building or shoot yourself in the middle of the street and expect it to be no one else's business.

You are willfully endangering wilderness personnel and spending enormous sums of public money when you get in trouble or die in the wilderness because you were unprepared.

There's no waiver you can sign and send to the forest service that says "Hey, I have no idea what I'm doing but I like it that way and don't bother rescuing me or recovering my body because I'm trying to be one with nature or something"

Yours is a very dangerous attitude to have in the outdoors. It is not the 1700s anymore. It is literally always someone's job to do their absolute best (e.g. the government's best) to rescue you or to recover your body if you get in trouble no matter where you are on Earth, no matter how dangerous.

It's incredibly irresponsible to think that you have no effect on the world around you in an age of GPS and helicopters.

Heading out into the wilderness for months at a time alone is an extreme event. So is flying in a wingsuit, or downhill skiing in a remote location full or rocks, or free soloing a difficult mountain. One one hand, you can say, "Think of society, think of the people who would bear the responsibility of cleaning up after your death if you were to fail."

On the other hand, there are always people who are going to pursue extreme ventures. But given how few people are willing to enter into life or death scenarios like I described, I don't find the the argument that these people have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state very convincing.

> I don't find the the argument that these people have any noticeable effect on the economies of the state very convincing.

People can die trying to rescue others who are doing stupid stuff. That matters too.

People can die trying to rescue others who are doing stupid stuff. That matters too.

They can, and they do. One recent example from near where I live:

https://www.firehouse.com/lodds/news/21137013/nc-rescue-squa...

Another: https://youtu.be/51njl0n_dvI

Yes indeed, embarking on extreme ventures are a fundamental part of humanity and an inevitability of the risk tolerance bell curve of personality matrices. I'm certainly in no way advocating for people to not participate in outdoor activities that could be considered risky.

Rather, the most important key difference here is in the individual's preparation for these activities.

Yes people wingsuit, but try going to any skydiving drop zone without having quite literally hundreds of jumps with dozens as formal training in a wing suit. They will first laugh at your stupidity then get extremely serious and curse you out of the building for being a dangerous fool.

People who free solo mountains are not amateurs. They have thousands of hours of training and have climbed the exact same route safely so many times they know each hold my heart.

McCandless was a reckless fool. Not only had he never been to where he went with someone who knew their way around before he went alone, but he had no training doing similar things in any other proper context and that staggering lack of knowledge cost him his life.

If someone has never skydived, and they saunter up to a 2000ft cliff wearing a wingsuit and jump off thinking they are taking the same risk as the extensively trained professionals they've watched on youtube then that makes them a reckless fool as well.

People put up the same comments about Alex Honnold when the Free Solo documentary made the front page of HN. That he was an irresponsible jerk who lived only for himself.

Ultimately, the individual pays the greatest price. There is a difference where you if you want to set the land-speed record on a public highway in rush hour versus going out alone into the wilderness or climbing a mountain without a rope. The difference is where you draw the line. I believe that if any individual desires to stake out into the wilderness, alone, live in nature, hunt, and forage without a whisper to society at large - that is precisely the place where you would go. If not in wilderness, then where?

>People put up the same comments about Alex Honnold when the Free Solo documentary made the front page of HN. That he was an irresponsible jerk who lived only for himself.

There is a big difference between these two cases. Honnold's level of preparation is hardly even comparable to McCandless lack of even basic knowledge of his surroundings.

Sure, but how do we quantify that? There's no state board that certifies you as a professional free solo climber.

Say you're a park ranger at Yosemite. Lately, somebody has been parking a suspicious-looking van near the trailhead at El Capitan, so you're keeping an eye out for trouble. You see someone exit the van one morning carrying nothing but the clothes on his back, and you follow him down the trail to the cliff face. He grabs an outcropping and starts climbing like an escaped mental patient.

You have the authority to stop him, since he's clearly behaving recklessly. What do you do? How does your decision differ from that of a ranger who sees Chris McCandless leave the trail in an unmarked area?

“Hey, stop there for a bit, lets have a chat so I can ascertain your skill level.” Not every problem is a nail and requires a hammer (stopping someone).

I don't understand what you're saying here, sorry. It seems self-contradictory. In any case, once the climber has been stopped for questioning, the ranger has to make a judgment call that he/she definitely isn't qualified to make. "Hmm. This guy says he's pretty sure he can make it to the top of El Capitan without any gear. Should I let him try?"

What do you think the ranger's most likely response is going to be, assuming that they have a basic sense of morality, that they like their job and want to keep it, and that they don't enjoy cleaning up after fatal mishaps?

(Difficulty: the climber is in good shape and knows what he's doing, but he isn't Honnold. He actually is a suicidal person. Now, did your ranger make the right call?)

"No thanks, I'm good." What now?

You're contending the weakest part of my argument. I'm not making a comparison of the climbing skill of Honnold. The comparison is in that both climbing and wilderness exploration are individualistic events where the consequences are imposed almost entirely on the individual.

This is an interesting thread and I appreciate both you and bananabreakfast for it. America has a unique perspective of the wild among western countries. The way this manifests itself is that the American wild is furnished at an absolute bare minimum, as opposed to the European wild with huts, villages, towns and resorts around every bend. The European property is not owned by the government in the same way it is owned by the government in the United States. This is likely a result of incredibly low population density of the United States as whole, especially of wild places in the United States, and also the result of the near extinction of native peoples by colonizers and awful control by the subsequent American government.

Property and ownership also has a unique definition for the United States, and the "wild" referred to in this conversation is owned by the government, plain and simple. With this perspective it should be clear why individuals cannot just go out and "do whatever they like" even if this is a hypothetical argument. There is no un-owned place in the United States. There are positives and negatives to this reality, but it is reality and should help to ground the conversation.

I wonder what another model that could fit the massive expanses of space set aside in the Unite States; certainly one with a less consistent hierarchy of responsibility would be worse than the current system. It is also important to realize how artificial the "wild" is in the United States given the American philosophy of individualism and property ownership, especially given the status of the population as exceptionally empowered by rights, wealth and technology. I say artificial because without the organization that protects the wild spaces, they would not exist as they do today.

It would be interesting to discuss the meaning of "the wild" or its equivalents in other cultures, as I imagine we would see an incredible variety of meaning. I, however, have mainly experienced and philosophized about the American and European wilds.

I deeply resonate with the sentiment expressed by the Alaskan ranger in the top level comment. As a guide of private and commercial expeditions I am constantly amazed at the alternate realities of understanding and respect people have about wilderness and I cherish my role, however small, as an ambassador to the wild.

I know a few Search and Rescue workers, volunteers and Rangers, they regret their job as babysitters for the incompetent but command respect by outdoorsmen. They are essential to the wild as we have it in the United States.

I used the word unique in this piece too much, but there are a number of special things about the United States and the American psyche that are central to this conversation. I do not claim these perspectives are right or correct or ideal, but it is how I see it today.

The free-soloing example is a good one, I think. Can anyone come up with a way to prohibit self-destructive people like Chris McCandless from thoughtlessly putting himself and others at risk, while also leaving room for an Alex Honnold to do his thing without state interference?

My personal take is that no one is forced to be on a search/rescue team. Those guys and gals are invariably adrenaline junkies, just like the people they rescue, and they're equally passionate about adventure in the outdoors. The only real difference is that they have the professional qualifications needed to do their paid or volunteer work as safely as possible. And they need something to do, just like the rest of us.

...There's not much adrenaline in searching for a lost hiker. It's laborious and methodical work.

Now, alpine/cliff rescue, yep, that's a tad more exciting.

To me there’s a difference between a Chris McCandless and an Alex Honnold. If Honnold wasn’t so devoted to preparation it would be irresponsible to let him climb mountains without harnesses.

Who is the party that "lets" him climb mountains?

Good point. I picture our friends and family having some sliver of responsibility for our wellbeing, however slight that burden may be.

Responsibility, but not direct power (hopefully). If he really wants to endanger his life like that, how could you stop him?

The concern is not primarily economic. In many areas, search and rescue personnel are primarily unpaid volunteers and the cost involved could be quite small. The larger issue is that searchers regularly expose themselves to personal risk in order to recover missing people. While searchers are better prepared, they often operate in large numbers and the realities of the situation require them to handle conditions which they would normally consider too dangerous (rough terrain, poor weather, etc). This makes injuries, and occasional fatalities, inevitable. Even without any injuries they spend a great deal of their time and energy on an effort that may have been unnecessary had the missing person taken better precautions.

There is some nuance here: the reality is that well-prepared people doing the best they can do become lost or injured and require rescue. This is not a "bad" thing but simply the result of activities that are not risk-free, and everything from government agency capabilities to volunteer SAR exist to mitigate this risk. But there is a difference between a person who requires rescue despite their best efforts and a person who requires rescue due to their complete negligence. There is no "bright line" between these two groups, but it's often quite clear on the ground whether or not someone had the respect for the situation that they should have. Search and rescue operations for these individuals are often shorter and lower risk, anyway, because they leave behind information (or even carry communication devices) that make them easier to find, and their preparation may make their injuries less severe or better handled by the time rescuers arrive.

I go backpacking and stay overnight in White Sands, NM every few years. It’s a fun place, but also very treacherous if you’re not an experienced backpacker. I was rather happy this year that the rangers did a gear check on us when we asked for a permit to camp overnight because it was going to be below freezing. I was surprised to learn how many people try to go camp there without the right equipment.

This reminds me of "Tunnel In The Sky" by Robert Heinlein.

Teenager goes on a "growing up quest" in the hopes of becoming some type of Ranger or "Space Colony Guide". He and a group of others wormhole out to some planet and have to survive for a time before being wormholed back.

On the front end, you have to show up with equipment you think you'll need. Since you don't know anything about what environment you'll be warped in to, you have to do your absolute "Boy Scout Best". Main character shows up with a parka, a knife, this-and-that.

"Don't worry kid, you don't need that parka. Today you're not going to some arctic desert so you don't need it. Keep the knife though. I had to turn away some poor shit for bringing a space suit; regulations clearly stated a habitable environment. All set? Step on through."

I find this conclusion to be very troubling from a moral perspective.

First jumping off a building or shooting yourself in the middle of a busy street are bad analogies - by their very nature those acts are disruptive to those nearby. But going out into an uninhabited place, having no desire to be rescued if things go awry, nor making any requests to get rescued - if we have any personal freedom at all, how can we not have the freedom over our own bodies if we are not disturbing others?

"It is probably more illuminating to go a little bit further back, to the Middle Ages. One of its characteristics was that "reasoning by analogy" was rampant; another characteristic was almost total intellectual stagnation, and we now see why the two go together. A reason for mentioning this is to point out that, by developing a keen ear for unwarranted analogies, one can detect a lot of medieval thinking today."

I think the problem is that people like the parent comment don't believe there is any thing such as personal freedom, not true personal freedom. That is, freedoms that are not only the ones we are prescribed by society at large.

Source: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/E...

That uninhabited place is stewarded by someone else. It and the people that travel to it are the responsibility of that steward. This often happens to be park rangers or logging companies or whatever. Even if we have been granted the privilege to roam on these lands we do not have a right to go act as we see fit on them. There are always rules.

There is a lot of land that you can buy very dirt cheap and go live as you see fit on it without having to answer to anyone - minus some property taxes. There you can try to bushcraft to your hearts content.

When your dead body is eventually found by a passing hiker, it is going to involve the authorities whether you like it or not. Here in Japan, there is a large forest downhill[0] of Mount Fuji where lots of people choose to commit suicide in. They simply wander in and get lost. Years later, hikers stumble upon their bodies and then the authorities, whether you wanted them to or not, will have swamping the forest looking for clues as to your death, whether it was truly a suicide or if it was foul play.

We live in a society and there is no easy way to divorce ourselves from that reality.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara#Suicides

I think you're overlooking the cost of regulation and safety-first thinking on society as a whole. Especially as we have a wealth of recent examples as to why the American regulatory regime has failed.

Candidly, this attitude is precisely is how we got into the regulatory hell where we are now.

In principle, I love the idea of licensing. I really do. Take a standardized, state-provided exam to show competence in some area where there is a compelling public interest for regulation, and this grants you the legal ability to exercise that skill.

Want to practice medicine? Exam, plus some number of hours of supervised practice before you can treat patients independently.

Note the complete lack of a schooling requirement -- if you can demonstrate the knowledge during examination, you should be permitted to apprentice under a licensed physician.

In practice... this doesn't work, at least not right now.

Americans as a whole no longer have any confidence in our regulatory frameworks, and rightly so, because they inevitably become weaponized against the very people they are supposed to safeguard, due to the combination of corporate lobbying, and a law enforcement system that rewards "finding and harshly punishing transgressions" over "serving the public interest"

Imagine you want to open a restaurant.

The way it should be is: take an exam to show that you understand how to safely prepare and serve food; have your kitchen, which could be in your home, inspected before you start operations; and at truly random intervals, an inspector will pop by to check in on things.

The way it is: wade through months, if not years, of chasing down permits; buy expensive equipment mandated by constantly-changing laws pushed by massive corporate entities that can afford the compliance game; and deal with very-much-not-random inspection regime which can (practically) shut down your livelihood if you look at them funny.

Until we fix oversight and our culture of punishment, we should be looking to remove regulations, not add more.

I like how you say we should remove regulations while at the same time proposing a new test, creating new methods for qualifying for a trade, and a different inspection regime. This is a good sign, though. What we really want is the right balance of regulations for safety that don’t favor large businesses too much but are easy for small business to follow.

Apprenticing under a physician is a particularly poor example, given how much medical science changes in 20 years. Not to mention it makes it easier for quacks to reproduce. Instead, aim lower: cosmetology licensing. I think we can all agree that you don’t need months of training to cut someone’s hair. This is simply a protectionist guild.

> This is a good sign, though. What we really want is the right balance of regulations for safety that don’t favor large businesses too much but are easy for small business to follow.

And individuals, but yes, exactly.

> Apprenticing under a physician is a particularly poor example, given how much medical science changes in 20 years.

Perhaps, but I think buried in there is a call for greater granularity.

Imagine that you could easily train up to be a neighborhood medic for a small community. You'd be able to handle, say, 70% of common medical needs: run bloodwork, provide immediate trauma care, dispense prescriptions, etc., but can escalate via telepresence to a higher-ranked medical professional when you need to.

And, with experience, you can move up the skill ladder.

That's kind of where I was going.

> I think we can all agree that you don’t need months of training to cut someone’s hair.

Maybe? I'd want to know that whomever is cutting my hair is aware of head lice, and knows how to sterilize their equipment. Probably also some basic first aid training if they slip up and cut me. Months of training shouldn't be a requirement to get started, but there is a reasonable call for a base level of know-how.

Definitely demands more thinking. :)

> Instead, aim lower: cosmetology licensing. I think we can all agree that you don’t need months of training to cut someone’s hair. This is simply a protectionist guild.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I'd rather that the person who's going to use a bunch of sharp instruments around my head to irrecoverably change my appearance for the next few months have some training on how to do that properly.

That probably goes double for the people who are going to have them using a bunch of chemicals on their hair as well (hair dyes and bleaching, permanent wave, etc).

Well, all the people whose job it is to do their best to rescue people would get out of practice if the number of people to rescue dramatically dropped. They might even end up victim of budget cuts.

I mean, really, are you gonna volunteer for a suicide hotline and tell people "you asshole, if you kill yourself, think of all the work people will have to do!"

This is a pompous judgemental bureaucratic speech. It presupposes that this order of the present-day “society” is something occurring naturally. There are many places on Earth where none of those measures happen in similar cases. I suspect there are still places in North America where you can disappear, or even get shot, and no one would really give a damn. Moreover, the ability to commit suicide can't disappear because it's prohibited, and, obviously, the dead couldn't care less about the consequences. (It's not that it's a good choice, but still.)

Pay attention to what is considered important and unimportant in that statement. Humans are not important. Official positions, regulations, and budgets are. Way too often, people start to worship the process and completely forget that it's just a mean to some end.

Is it not a question of whether the given wilderness is a part of society?

Wilderness is a special designation, different from public lands, national forest, state parks. It's one of the last places in the US where you can be close to being free. Public lands often border private property. National forests have strict rules on usage and have roads paved through them like theme parks. State parks often require fees for entry and design areas for easy camping/eating/leaving waste.

Wilderness areas are a "part of society." But wilderness is an idea as much as it is a place, and the only place you can engage in the idea of "wilderness" is in geographical wilderness.

Your statement suggests that the rules of domestic life should apply in wilderness, but it's our domestic laws that say that there should be some territory where the spirit of domestic life doesn't prevail.

>with little effect on anyone else.

I'm guessing the two hunters who had to find his decomposing body, and the officers who had to remove it, might feel slightly different than you do. That's ignoring his parents and sibling(s).

It's easy to say "it's my own business" but to pretend like his actions didn't affect any others is awfully self-centered of him and you.

Isn't it also self-centered to feel entitled to curtail another person's freedom because of your limited sensibilities?

> Isn't it also self-centered to feel entitled to curtail another person's freedom because of your limited sensibilities?

It's far more self-centered to stupidly get yourself into a dangerous situation that others will be obligated to rescue you from. And it's even more self-centered (to the point of arrogance) to dismiss that as the result of "limited sensibilities."

Isn't it far more self centered to criticize a person's own personal choices from a time period of over two decades ago when they were in their early twenties, had almost no money, friends, or place to call home, escaping an abusive household, and decided that their intention in life was not to rob, beg, or harm anyone, but to escape into the wilderness, and not just any place, but into the most remote place in the US where he would bear the total cost of the consequences of his actions.

How many dead bodies have you personally dealt with, out of curiosity? Because your rather glib dismissal would indicate not many, if any.

He went out there, blindly, but with every intention to live. He also survived for over three months before succumbing to poisonous berries. Some of these comments would suggest that he intentionally went into the wild just to die.

For your question, none of your business.

> For your question, none of your business.

Was just trying to ascertain why your sensibilities were so limitless.

Criticism of McCandless does not constitute curtailment of personal freedoms. You're free to go out into the Alaskan wilderness unprepared, just like he did. What you don't have is a "freedom to not be criticized for it".

No one said you can't criticize him. I wouldn't go out there alone without a sure way out. But the smug, self-righteous predictable knee jerk condemnation from many people I would suspect barely venture outside is, as always predictable, and distasteful.

'Smug self-righteous predictable knee-jerk condemnation' is also very far from 'feel[ing] entitled to curtail another person's freedom'

Incidentally, you're wrong in your assumptions. Go to Alaska and ask people up there what they think of the guy. You'll not find more people critical of him in any other state. Virtually none of them are looking to curtail anybody's liberties, not least because more often than not they enjoy these same liberties. I think a lot of people in this thread have confused criticism with calls for regulation. To be frank I think this confusion betrays an authoritarian mindset.

I'm not talking about the people in Alaska. I'm talking about commentators on HN. Scroll down a bit further and you'll find no end of it.

The root of this conversation, which you replied directly to, is a quote from an Alaskan park ranger criticizing McCandless in quite strong terms. I read the full linked essay that quote comes from, and the park ranger definitely isn't calling for government regulation. On the contrary, he say

> "As a park ranger both at Denali National Park, very near where McCandless died, and now at Gates of the Arctic National Park, even more remote and wild than Denali, I am exposed continually to what I will call the “McCandless Phenomenon.” People, nearly always young men, come to Alaska to challenge themselves against an unforgiving wilderness landscape where convenience of access and possibility of rescue are practically no nexistent. I know the personality type because I was one of those young men."

You responded to this man's informed perspective with a rant about smug people not minding their own business. You and a few other commenters then somehow judo-threw the conversation into a matter of when government regulations / curtailments of liberties are or aren't warranted.

Motorcycle helmets. Seat belts. Insurance.

This argument has been made many times in my lifetime.

I couldn't say whether you're in the minority, but I would say that the reasoning you give for your position strikes me as specious. This is a complex issue with many facets that need to be unpacked. For example, your implication that a person walking off into the woods leads to no additional demands on others only follows if you also feel that a person's decision also waives family's and friends' right to request a search and rescue operation. Because, as that article points out, it's typically not just their business. Search and rescue is dangerous and may put additional people's lives at risk. And I would, in turn, say that that position is only tenable in cases where someone has done something like filed a signed affidavit saying, "Yes, this is my attention," with the local authorities. Otherwise there's not necessarily any tenable way for authorities to tell to worried loved ones, "No, this is what they wanted, so we can't get involved."

And it's clear from McCandless's own actions - especially leaving a note on the bus asking for help - that he did not really understand what he was getting into, and did ultimately desire help from others. So, ultimately, even he himself did not believe that his fate was nobody else's business.

Finally, despite your assertion that, "It's not a question of moral or ethics," your entire position is inescapably an ethical position. Because one's opinion on whether society has a responsibility to attempt to protect these people, or whether it's better to simply leave them to their fate, is, by definition, an ethical position.

We haven’t gotten there as a society yet, but there should be a “don’t look for me if I’m lost/captured” checkbox somewhere.

It’s my life. If I want to sail around Africa and I’m held for ransom, leave me to it.

If I want to hike a deadly trail, don’t come rescue me and then blame me for it.

Because of the people who died looking for this bus, nobody else can now see it. As a traveler, I see this happening too often: I see a place, I do something, 5 years later you can’t anymore because someone hurt themselves.

My idea is: put up a sign saying “5 people died here” and let new visitors figure it out for themselves.

> My idea is: put up a sign saying “5 people died here” and let new visitors figure it out for themselves.

Hanakapiai Beach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakapiai_Beach

You say we haven't gotten there as a society yet and I say we haven't gotten there as individuals. I really don't think most people, and I definitely include myself in this, know themselves and the world well enough to make such a tremendous decision by themselves in the abstract. It's one thing to want an euthanasia if you're in pain and want it to stop, it's an other to say "just let me die if something goes wrong" when that possibility is a remote and abstract thing.

Most of us have lived very sheltered lives. Most of us haven't felt what it's like to be really, really thirsty. Or really, really hungry. Or really, really cold. Or really, really tired. Or really, really lonely. Or really, really scared. Or all these things at the same time.

I can definitely imagine many people would sign a "don't help me if I'm in danger" waiver out of principle or motivated by some romantic fantasy. Then they end up shitting themselves in a freezing hole in Alaska because they ate bad berries, and they're crying and regretting everything and would be willing to do anything to be out of this place. Suddenly the lofty ideals and the romantic movies start feeling really dumb and absurd.

The principles don't matter anymore, the survival instinct kicked in a long time ago. Fortunately you have a satellite phone and you manage to call the rescue. "Sorry sir or madam, but you did sign a waiver. If you want help you'll have to pay the $300,000 standard search and rescue fee in advance. Thank you for choosing the Walt Disney Search and Rescue Services. Have a pleasant evening!".

maybe the rangers should start taking deposits lol. "safety deposits" as insurance against future rescue. i say that sarcastically, but it actually doesn't seem like the worst idea ever.

...or just use taxes because it's a super low amount anyway and the payment structure is already in place

(i actually agree with this, it's just everyone else seemed to think it was an awful waste of government resources to fish a few people out of the wild a year, or whatever)

There are some popular multi-day trails in New Zealand that do this. You have to register months ahead of time to get a slot, and a rescue deposit is required.

I'd argue that any "lofty ideal and romantic notion" is by definition wrong, because it assumes a simplicity about the world that empirically, demonstrable does not exist.

this is what they do at ski resorts, though only in an indirect way (putting up crosses for ski patrollers that have died there). i worry all the time about whether all the "fun skiing" in-bounds is going to be ultimately subject to a similar fate for similar reasons. so far that hasn't been the case, because i think most sufficiently dangerous skiing is so self-evidently dangerous that people mostly know what they're getting into, but it still feels like a tenuous compromise.

ultimately, though, i agree with this. a sign saying "5 people died here" (maybe with w/e relevant contextual info) is the exact nature, and extent, of information that i think needs to be made clear to people.

At Revelstoke there is a particular part of the ski boundary that has signs like this. Something to the effect of "there is a cliff beyond these trees, and people have died here, go no further".

> your implication that a person walking off into the woods leads to no additional demands on others

I don't deny that dying out alone in the wilderness does end up having a cost to others. I don't agree that the potential cost of it should preclude someone from doing it.

The whole argument against McCandless begins to sound absurd.

"Does an individual have the right to die alone in the wilderness?"

If you pose the question this way, the answer becomes obvious. If you were to ask me if someone has the right to suicide by train or suicide by cop, or even if they have the right to jump off a bridge, I'd be inclinded to say no, or at least hesitate on the last one.

But being alone in the wilderness, prepared or not, is a different category.

I'm not really sure his right to die in the wilderness is what's most pertinent about his case though. Those of us who have wilderness experience should caution others who don't to prepare and educate themselves, instead of just going for it and seeing what happens. Because what often happens is a lengthy search and rescue process, and sometimes PTSD or death. Maybe that's what he wanted, but I kind of doubt it.

The question isn't what he should or shouldn't have done. That part is crystal clear. The question is why do people feel entitled to moral indignation on account of someone hiking out alone into the wilderness. The arguments so far have not been convincing - it costs money to fly them out, it puts SAR in danger.

We are social animals. Raising one person takes a lot of work from their parents, caregivers, teachers, friends -- "It takes a village to raise a child", proverb says. This is why just letting someone fall off the cliff (on their own will or not) is not in the interest of the society as a whole.

It's insane to me how people here are so libertarian when it comes to experimenting with drugs or legalising it, which has the potential to incur far more costs to society and harm to others than venturing into the wild, perhaps unprepared. For the record, I'm not advocating people be stopped from either, but IMO the latter will appeal to far fewer people, and so is a much smaller problem, and has more positive benefits.

I'll leave this here. With half a century I've come around to the idea that there are a lot of people that tend to not make very good decisions. And it's not because they are somehow 'dumb' or even foolhardy. With that I have a hard time moralizing about them.

No, you’re not. I was a mine buff for a long time and used to go out to desolate places and rappel down into old mines to explore them. Now days a lot of these old mines have been sealed off. My opinion is that if you really want to drive 30 miles off-road into the Mojave and fall down a mine shaft, well, knock yourself out. Hundreds of kids die in swimming pools each year, I don’t see the Corps of Engineers going around filling people’s pools with cement. The wild is the wild, leave it alone - let responsible people enjoy it, and let irresponsible people learn To respect it.

I don't think there's a consensus to be reached. Part of why this story gets attention so frequently is because there's approximately two camps with points that aren't even contradictory logically, but are contradictory in spirit.

A. McCandless was negligent, his neglect was bordering mal-intent. He should be made an example of, not for his search of freedom, but for behaving stupidly as to put the lives of search and rescue workers in danger, or at the very least putting them to work and depleting funds from the state that could have gone elsewhere. He had an ill-effect on his family and friends, and should have put them foremost before venturing out with little preparation.

B. McCandless engaged in an act of personal liberation. Even if he ultimately died, he at least had the courage to embrace his own version of freedom.

I don't think the people in camp (A) are wrong, but ultimately it's not how I want to live my life - where I have to value the peripheral concerns of society above my most intrinsic desires.

I have to admit that I don't like how some people romanticize the poor kid's story. At the same time I don't want to make fun of him - he was just a naive kid who thought he was going on the adventure of his lifetime. It still took a lot of guts to do what he did, even if he didn't understand how dangerous it was actually going to be. If anything he might serve as a cautionary tale and thereby save a few lives over time.

Lives are hollow little things that end in death, you can make an example of him, but you can't do jack sh to him personally.

That’s a ridiculous argument.

Hundreds of kids die in pools because millions of kids swim.

If there was an abandoned mine next to every pool, yeah... people would do something about that.

I have no problem with people doing risky activities (I do plenty myself), but you should be aware of the consequences, not only to you, but to your family, to SAR, etc and act accordingly.

He is actually right, some things are forbidden because they can cause death while others are allowed even if they cause lots of deaths. For example cars and knives are allowed, even if there are tens of thousands of deaths in car accidents or by stabbing, while the first argument for forbidding guns is that they kill people.

His point is that mine-shafts are closed, but pools are not and there are a lot more people drowning in pools than killed in accidents in mine-shafts. This is a classic case of double standards.

Unfortunately, we are not all Oliver Wendell Holmes who thinks kids walking into unfenced acidic quarries and dying is the kids' fault.

You’re missing my point.

More people die in pools because there are more pools and more people in them.

The percentage chance of dying in a pool is incredibly low, partly because it’s low risk and partly because we mitigate the actual risk (training, lifeguards, etc).

Mine shafts are an order of magnitude more dangerous. If pools were as dangerous as mine shafts, they wouldn’t be anywhere near as common.

> Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business?

You are in the minority, and it is absolutely someone else's business. At least it's their job to ensure that you're safe.

It doesn't even have to be for months at a time, just a simple wrong way turn in a national park on their way someplace else:

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

(Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567)

While that's a long story (and well worth reading), it illustrates how even the simplest things going wrong could lead to an entire family dying, within walking distance of paved roads, certainly less remote than Alaska. There were multiple SAR teams/missions that put their own lives at risk, even when it wasn't their job, that took responsibility to find out what happened.

Anyone who wants to "go out into the wilderness" has to remember that, it isn't just their own life at stake.

This is overstated and someone else addressed it further down. SAR work is slow, methodical, done in coordinated groups with medical, communication, and navigation technology. I'm not disputing that SAR workers are useful and necessary, only that the work is dangerous at the extremes.

Most countries take the stance that protecting their people, even at the cost of impeding on personal freedoms, is a good thing.

That can be considered a form of tyranny, but that is a completely different discussion.

Sure, but does that make arguing that at least one country should not automatically illegitimate?

Is something automatically good because a lot of countries do it?

the problem is it costs a lot of money to rescue some clueless dumbass from themselves.

>Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business?

I agree, but there are a remarkably large number of people that do this (or go sailing in the ocean, or who go spelunking etc.) without preparation and then end up calling for a rescue. Some people do it several times. THAT is the main issue.

I’m an EMT and on search and rescue. If you want to walk in off into the woods unskilled and unprepared, be my guest! But... the likelihood is you will eventually ruin my weekend :)

I don’t know which point of view has more adherents today vs say in the 1950’s or the 1850’s.

The moral/philosophy question is this; Person expresses to you the intent to do something that will likely result in their own death and possibly the death of others, what is your responsibility to that person and the others they may intentionally or unintentionally cause to die?

As a diagnostic tool, the question illuminates a lot of constructs in the morality, empathy, and objectivity of a person.

You can play around with it in a number of ways, is there “intent”? Is there malice? Forethought?

The debate over seatbelts, helmet laws, and other traffic laws often falls into this debate.

Would it be different if you could say that insurance companies don’t have to pay the medical bills of people who become injured after not wearing a belt? Can you take vehicular homicide off the table if a DUI driver kills someone by hitting their car and they aren’t wearing seat belts? Especially if its provable that if they were wearing belts they would not have died?

Because the consequences of the choices the person makes impacts others, does the group have the authority to limit those choices to protect itself from harm?

I think my freshman philosophy class spent like 4 weeks on just this topic.

> Am I in the minority in thinking that if someone wants to go out into the wilderness with little or no preparation for months at a time, that it's no one else's business?

The quote in the GP explicitly mentions why it is someone else's, namely the taxpayer's, literal business:

> spending a lot of government money on helicopters and overtime

If you choose to go off into the wilderness ill-equipped, that is indeed your choice. But if you do so, I trust you then have no expectation of being rescued should you come into trouble, and I trust you made this clear to any friends or family ahead of time.

It's the taxpayer's choice to rescue these people right?

Meanwhile taxpayers somehow don't always make it their literal business to get every citizen out of harm's way when they're kidnapped abroad. Something that member of society actually should always be rescued from.

How does one determine intent? What if intent changes?

"The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" (2012)

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

Nobody has an issue with you walking into the woods with little to no prep...and RETURNING.

As someone who used to be a firefighter, the issue is that walking into the woods with little to no prep, means that there is an extremely high likelihood that you'll need to be rescued. This of course puts a lot of other lives in danger (during the rescue or recovery operation) because you decided to not be prepared.

I remember a friend of mine moved to Montana for a time long ago.

He told me they gave him a brochure (maybe at the dmv?), describing how montana was different - distances were vast, services were sparse and basically that you needed to take it seriously.

I would imagine that goes 10x for alaska.

Oh yeah, and I've listened to enough episodes of Joe Rogan to realize bears... well, they are never accurately portrayed in the media.

What do you mean about the bears?

they are not cuddly and friendly.

Which specific JRE episodes are you referring to?

He's mentioned bears on several podcasts.

One specific episode I can place is this one:

Joe Rogan Experience #1105 - Michael Hunter

Although I do recall another one where he got pretty graphic, saying that bears will... I won't mention it here.

Go on

These kind of hyperbolic statements don't do much to educate, they're over sensationalized.

> These quickly get in trouble and either die by bears, by drowning, by freezing or they are rescued by park rangers or other rescue personnel–but often, not before risking their lives and/or spending a lot of government money on helicopters and overtime

Since 1992, only two people have died trying to reach the bus, they both drowned in the Tek (which was hard for me to cross, at 6 foot 2 and 185 lbs). One in 2010, and one last year.

As for the number of rescues:

"The state carried out 15 bus-related search and rescue operations between 2009 and 2017, authorities say" [1]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53106441

For what it's worth, I lived in the Yukon for 4 years. I've been bison hunting at -45C, I've spent months hunting, hiking and fishing all over the Yukon and a ton of time in Alaska too. I know what it takes.

That quote is not referring exclusively to people who try to reach the bus and there's nothing hyperbolic about it. Alaska State Troopers conduct several hundred search and rescue missions each year (https://dps.alaska.gov/AST/SAR/Home), that number probably goes up when you include federal and state park rangers as well.

What are you on about? The ranger is not talking about the bus, he's talking about ill-prepared young men visiting Alaska's wilderness in general.

It's people being ill prepared in general. When I lived in Colorado I did a lot of hiking, and was always prepared to spend the night if needed.

Now I live on the coast and the most cut off I feel is when I go offshore fishing (particularly in a smallish center console). Even though you have a few friends with you, once you get 30+ miles offshore all you see in any direction is water. Going offshore fishing is more about preparation than almost anything else.

Did you show up at the Yukon without a map? Did you go hunting at -45C without a jacket? Did you try to fish without a rod?

No one is saying it's impossible to do what Chris attempted, but lots of people do say that he might not have died if he planned ahead a bit.

He died because he confused two similar plants. Probably having done some research contributed IMO.

You're completely right to point this out, but this particular subject and individual seems to be a fulcrum for the sort of people who say things like, "kids these days...".

The most common thing I hear, by far, from members of the public at search and rescue fundraisers is, "why do you go to all that trouble for stupid people?" It's a question almost always delivered with the self-satisfied smugness of someone who has no idea that they're already suffering the atrophying effects of not venturing outside of familiar territory often enough.

McCandless surely made mistakes and errors in judgement. He certainly underestimated what he was getting in to. In that, he has something in common with hundreds of thousands of casual hikers, mountain bikers, kayakers, and visitors to national parks every year. There are vanishingly few entries in the annual Accidents of North American Mountaineering where the people involved are unimpeachable in terms of their preparedness or skill. In almost every case, there's something that someone could point to that the victim did wrong, and if not, then there's always the fallback that they were dumb to be doing it to begin with.

If he hadn't died, nobody would know his name. Statistics caught up to him. Statistics will catch a few other people every year while far more visitors to the same area will escape without consequence.

The dynamics of this subject on HN in particular are really sort of obvious, given that McCandless has come up at least half-a-dozen times on HN over the years, a site not known for its enthusiasm for the outdoors. The treatment here is often about as embarrassing as someone might imagine the topic of machine learning to be on a forum for mushroom pickers.

No doubt it's a polarizing topic, and I understand why people (especially Alaskans) get angry about him going into the wilderness unprepared.

The bus was moved for "public safety", which raises a bigger question of safety, and personal choice. Should we stop people climbing mountains, paddling whitewater, skydiving or even just eating bacon all in the name of "public safety"?

Who gets to decide that we're much better off sitting at a desk for life and never doing anything "risky"?

Some people have decided a long life is better than going after your dreams, even if that long life is unfulfilling and full of regrets. That's fine with me.

I'm perfectly happy to let people live whatever life they choose, and it feels strange people won't let me (or get angry about Chris) living the life we want.

We all have many choices in this life, and it seems people get angry when others make different choices than themselves.

Please consider that when people put themselves at risk it's rarely just them.

There are collective costs to people getting hurt and needing to be saved, and it's not a black/white thing: we enforce safety belts, we remove dangerous rocks and trees looming on roads and so on all the time.

The bus was evaluated as an hazard that encourages unprepared people to do something and get hurt, it may be a bad call, but it's not just a restriction of "people should be free to choose".

You are mixing things that should never be mixed: when you pay taxes, road maintenance - including removal of rocks and trees - is a service that you paid for and you have to get. Enforcing safety belts is not a service for you, it is a measure imposed by coercion by the state that believes it knows better. There is no similarity between these.

Of course they are not the same thing, they are just instances of the authorities deciding that X is unsafe.

Also, the fact you pay for road maintenance does not indicate what maintenance is.

People could be on the "I like looming rocks, they give character to this road, instead use my money to lay new asphalt instead of wasting it on landscape" camp.

But the state thinks it knows better than you that exploding looming rocks is more important than letting you drive faster.

Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of search and rescue personnel, and costing the public hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You get the benefits of your risky fun but a large part of the costs are externalized.

I don't want to live in a risk-less, fun-less society either but there are limits. As long as society is footing the bill, society has an interest in imposing limits.

I'm perfectly happy letting you do whatever you want, as long as you are not endangering the public, and you bear the costs. I'd be all for a system where you can opt out of health and safety restrictions, with the caveat that it also opts you out of health and safety programs, like publicly-funded search and rescue.

Public safety costs are a sunk cost (staff are on call, vehicles are paid for), they will exist regardless. Society should bear the cost of reasonable exploration efforts by citizens, even by those who are unknowingly underprepared. That is a muscle we should be expected to flex as humans. The best way to learn is to do.

I would agree that after your second or third rescue though, you're becoming a nuisance and should bear some of the cost.

> Public safety costs are a sunk cost, they will exist regardless.

No. Overtime, helicopter flight hours aren't a sunk cost.

> Society should bear the cost of reasonable exploration efforts by citizens, even by those who are unknowingly underprepared.

The issue here is in that one important word: reasonable. Exploring your neighborhood? Certainly. Exploring a mine shaft without a rope? Maybe a bit less so?

> The best way to learn is to do.

Or ask people that know stuff. Or read a book, or a pamphlet. There's plenty of options other than "whatever, the other will take care of me, I don't want to think and prepare, preparation is boring".

> Or ask people that know stuff. Or read a book, or a pamphlet. There's plenty of options other than "whatever, the other will take care of me, I don't want to think and prepare, preparation is boring".

These are all valid forms of education, but all suboptimal to going through the motions. You should strive to be prepared, but also assume you don't know everything you need to know and de-risk accordingly.

Of course, but the original comment was about the guys doing virtually nothing to be prepared, that is "I'm going to live in the remote wilderness. I have a sleeping bag and a pound of rice, what else could I possibly need".

There's always some risk in everything, it cannot be avoided, but we really don't need people to learn by doing it from zero understanding of that risk, we have plenty of things they can learn from the comfort of their bed. If they then still want to go do the real thing, they'll be much less likely to require rescuing, because they will not just walk into the woods without a map going "I'll just use Google Maps if I get lost".

You posit two examples at pretty far poles of the risk equation. How about doing winter hiking up high peaks in the Northeast US? Or whitewater kayaking? Or rock climbing?

I'd say that also depends on how you're prepared. If you don't want to prepare or think safety is boring and you want that extra kick of adrenaline, sure, go for it, but I'd also prefer if you make sure that you're not going to be requiring a rescue operation and a life time of support for that little extra kick.

Or we could just tax it accordingly so it gets pretty expensive to do, but the risk is priced in. Want to remove the helmet and swimming vest or go winter hiking naked? Sure, just pay here and off you go.

I'm assuming people are at least reasonably well prepared (while understanding that many aren't). But there is a level of danger in any case.

You should read the linked PDF about the people the comments were about. It's not about the reasonably well prepared people. Reasonably well prepared people don't go into the woods unprepared to live off the land with no tools, no shelter, no knowledge what is edible and what is not, and no way to deal with bears.

What's reasonable about it? Those places have been explored. There's far less dangerous ways to experience nature and the wilderness too.

I also don't see how the cost is sunk, it's proportional to the number of rescues they have to carry out, plus you risk the rescuers lives.

> Your "personal choice" may end up risking the lives of search and rescue personnel,

This is the standard answer everyone gives, and it makes no logical sense. I worked search and rescue, and have plenty of friends that have it as their full-time occupation.

Search and rescue personal are trained professionals, who willingly signed up for that career, and who love being in the back-country. They know full and well what they're getting into, and going out and rescuing people is the definition of their chosen career. If there was nobody to rescue, they wouldn't be able to support themselves doing what they love.

In fact when there are no rescues for a while they go out in their helicopters and practice all the "dangerous" stuff putting their "lives in danger". So even if there was nobody to rescue, they'd still be out there.

Following on from your logic, it only makes sense we should ban open fireplaces and cigarettes in houses because that's the leading cause of house fires, which then put fireman's lives in danger.

> and costing the public hundreds of thousands of dollars

Please don't exaggerate, it detracts from the discussion.

The average heli rescue costs around $10k (heli's are smack on $1k/hr), and in many jurisdictions if the person getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the bill, not the public.

> Following on from your logic, it only makes sense we should ban open fireplaces and cigarettes in houses because that's the leading cause of house fires,

That's an amusing example to me, because indoor and outdoor fireplaces of any kind are in fact banned in my city, since it's densely built with lots of wood buildings, and because of air quality concerns, my city has deemed they are not worth the risk.

> which then put fireman's lives in danger.

And yes, the firemen will be the first to give you an earful if you don't respect the fire safety code.

> following from your logic [...], we should ban [...] cigarettes

Nice strawman though. I said it was in society's interest to set limits, I made no argument as to what exactly the limits should be. That's not my decision or yours, as long as it's public resources that are at stake, it should be a democratic process.

> The average heli rescue costs around $10k (heli's are smack on $1k/hr), and in many jurisdictions if the person getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the bill, not the public.

In that case, as I said, if they are footing the bill, I really have no problem with it.

Here in Vancouver, we're really close (15 minute drive for a lot of people) to dangerous mountainous terrain that is really popular with inexperienced hikers and so generate a high volume of search and rescue calls.

The S&R folks are really adamant that they do not want to charge end-users for rescues, because that means that people will wait longer before calling them, resulting in more deaths and even higher overall costs because the rescues become more complicated.

That's a decent point, and I expect they know better than me since I'm no S&R specialist.

Also worth pointing out that as frequent as things like avalanches and outdoor rescues may seem — the higher risk is often driving the highway to the trailhead. It's a risk that we've come to accept as a society. We don't even think about it anymore.

Many who spend their lives in the mountains say that with proper training they'd rather do the risky activity (where there are many known ways in which risk can be mitigated) than die in some random / tragic car accident (where you can do everything right but still die).

BTW, fellow Canadian (Calgary) here, "hey" from the other side of the Rockies :-)

> and in many jurisdictions if the person getting rescued was doing something stupid, they foot the bill, not the public.

“Are liable to the public to reimburse” rather than “foot”; the distinction is critical because the rescued individual may not have the resources to actually pay or may be impossible to collect from. The more expensive the rescue is, naturally, the more likely this is to be the case.

FWIW search and rescue in most of the US (and, I think, Canada) is volunteer-based and funded mostly by donations from the community. Some areas have laws that allow for them to recover rescue costs from people found to be in some way negligent. Even the most notorious of these areas (New Hampshire) doesn't tend to charge exorbitant amounts of money.

This is overall a really good system and the volunteers love doing it and are happy to do it. It struggles a little bit in areas with communities that can't afford to donate much to a SAR team.

To me, the logical compromise would be to require upfront payment of a bond that is (a) forfeited if you need rescue, and (b) doubled if you don't follow basic precautions before heading out.

Liberty can't be unconditional when your actions affect others. I see no philosophical objection to saying "you're free to do X, but you're the one paying the cost if it backfires."

> Should we stop people climbing mountains, paddling whitewater, skydiving or even just eating bacon all in the name of "public safety"?

Probably not, but neither should we be leaving bait out for them either.

They didn't infringe on anyone's rights here. The mountains and whitewater and sky and bacon are all still there. They moved a bus.

> The bus was moved for "public safety"

They removed the bus so it couldn't act like a moron magnet anymore. They didn't remove the location, they didn't fence it off, they didn't ban hiking. They didn't even impose an IQ test or a basic competency quiz for hiking. Anyone who wants to go out there and re-enact the McCandless Experience is still free to do so, and they're even still free to call SAR when their horrible lack-of-a-plan begins to cause them the predictable amount of personal discomfort.

I'm on a forum that's very outdoorsy (it's for an outdoor hobby and most of the best locations to do it are in BFE) and this story hit there too. While there's less ivory tower smugness, possibly a reflection of user demographics, McCandless is not exactly a popular figure over there either. It's understandable for an amateur to be under-prepared because you don't know what you don't know. It's understandable to be experienced and get into a crap situation because you planned to wing it and one of the variables you based your assumptions on changed. It's much less forgivable to be an amateur and also plan on winging it. The dude knew he hadn't lived in that environment before. He knew that he couldn't get food the ways he was accustomed to. He tried to dodge the stupid tax but he was so flagrant about it that luck couldn't justify not auditing him.

The quote is from an essay by an Alaskan Park Ranger not a "member of the public".

When people get into trouble, there is usually a something that could been done either in preparation or by exercising better judgement. McCandless didn't just miss a couple of esoteric preparation steps, he failed to take extremely basic precautions like bringing a map or sanity checking your plans with someone who has experience in the area.

As explained in the essay that quote is from, Alaskans get frustrated by the glorification of McCandless because he didn't show basic respect for the wilderness he claimed to love.

> The dynamics of this subject on HN in particular are really sort of obvious, given that McCandless has come up at least half-a-dozen times on HN over the years, a site not known for its enthusiasm for the outdoors. The treatment here is often about as embarrassing as someone might imagine the topic of machine learning to be on a forum for mushroom pickers.

Give the comments in this thread a read rather than projecting your own misconceptions and you will find there are a number of people with personal experience with wilderness and the Alaskan wilderness is specific.

>In almost every case, there's something that someone could point to that the victim did wrong

In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of compounding mistakes. (The victim didn't have a lot of experience, went out in worsening weather, lost the trail, and didn't have the gear to survive overnight.)

On the other hand, it's easy to identify "mistakes" in retrospect. Someone got caught in an avalanche so they "clearly" shouldn't have been somewhere that they could get caught in an avalanche--even if the danger was just moderate and the danger in that particular area is often moderate.

Which also speaks to your statistics comment of course. There are various levels of danger to many activities and you can reasonably reduce your chances of something going wrong but not eliminate them.

And, also of course, many people who don't participate in many of those activities see them as unreasonably dangerous. And, depending upon their political views, may think rescuing mountain climbers or even winter hikers as a waste of societal resources.

> In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of compounding mistakes.

Yep! One of my favorite elements to many backcountry accidents is what mountaineers call "summit fever". It's a prevalent bug in human psychology. It gets people into trouble in the wilderness all the time, and it has a close cousin in tech circles, the "sunk cost fallacy".

I was on a day hike up a mountain several years back with a group of friends and acquaintances. Some of the folks had really been wanting to get to the top of this particular mountain -- it's known for its views. It was late spring, and we had beautiful weather until we got maybe 3-4 miles in, closing in on the top. At that point there was thick snow still on the ground, it started to get foggy, and (I can't remember exactly why) the trail became harder to recognize.

We were equipped for a quick afternoon hike, nothing more -- some of us I think just had t-shirts and shorts -- and some of us started to get nervous. Others really wanted to keep going to the top, especially since we knew we were close (though not how close).

We did end up turning around and heading down after just a few hundred feet of walking in the snow. I wonder about our decision from time to time -- were we smart or overly cautious? Would it have been fine or a disaster? I guess there's no easy answer -- you can't know what would have happened.

It was the right call because even if you were overly cautious, you can always go back again.

Not necessarily. You could die and never get the chance, or whatever. There's certainly a cost that you're assuming by not going forward. Not saying it's super high, but it's non-zero.

Most people have a blind spot in poker. They think they won simply because they took the pot, when in reality they lost because the pot odds were too low to give them a positive expected value. The problem extends to analyzing hands after the fact. It's too easy to see the final outcome, and say, oh, I knew I should have folded, when the reality might be, no calling was the right thing to do given the information you had at the time. Playing a lot of poker taught me to ignore the feeling that I played wrong simply because I lost the pot, and instead analyze what happened, and whether or not I missed some key piece of information, or misinterpreted some behavior.

I would say, based on the information you had at the time. You made the smart play. Don't second guess based on possibly being closer than you realized, you were far enough that you couldn't see the end, that means (and most people don't realize this) that without any other information, you had even odds that you were at no more than the half way point (in terms of either time or distance). Maybe you can look back, and can say, "oh, I knew x at the time, I just forgot to take that into account, and it would have been enough to change the risk/reward equation. But any other analysis is dangerous to dwell on.

Interesting perspective, thanks.

You do the right thing. Nature can be cruel and merciless. And hypothermia is not just for winter.

There are countless histories in the Alps and the Pyrenees of weekend hikers that go up in t-shirts and shorts, and then suddenly the weather change... One of the members of the team fall with hypothermia and an heli need to be dispatched. Taking out resources for other rescues and putting the life of the rescuers at risk.

There are discussions in some European countries if the rescued people shall pay in case of fragrant unpreparedness, because it has begun to be quite common.

You said it's famous for its views, but I bet the view sucks when it's so foggy you can't see the trail.

Absolutely true :) I'm sure this had some effect in convincing the eager ones to turn around.

Saw this outsode the wilderness plenty of times as well. Hiking back down from half dome. At 5pm, miles from the summit groups in flip flops and a small water bottle, clearly exhausted and not sure what they were in for, asking if the were close. Nope, turn around folks and enjoy your walk.

I don't think this was just a case of statistics where someone caught a bad break. He had no workable plan for surviving out there, and he had no resources for self rescue. In my mind, a good outcome would have been the statistical oddity.

I think it's pretty clear this isn't just about the bus.

It's the general issue of people who have the idea to live in or travel through the wilderness (worthy, IMO), but attempt it without a reasonable attempt at preparation.

It's worth calling out.

These people endanger their own lives -- I think unintentionally in most cases.

And they endanger the rescue workers whose job it is to help people in trouble, whatever the reason.

Hopefully calling this out will catch the attention of at least some of the right people, and there will be a few less of them and their rescuers injured or worse.

The ranger wasn't referring just to the bus but to all the people who do things like this.

Even if the ranger were referring only to the bus, does two search and rescue operations per year not prove the point?

This is off base - the article is about McCandless and people like him, not specifically people who have later gone to find his bus.

It's opinionated, but not far out there. He (McCandless) died due to a combination of poor preparation and compounded mistakes; it was almost certainly avoidable. There is an interesting question of how much responsibility individuals should take for this sort of thing.

>Since 1992, only two people have died trying to reach the bus

He wasn't just speaking of the bus, he meant the whole state of Alaska

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