Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival (19 page)

As sad as Chris’s death may be, I believe that for a couple of months, before his situation became desperate, he got to live the life he had sought. He was able to live a pure, simple existence, surrounded by the glory of the outdoors. The sad thing is that he didn’t have to die, and I don’t think he wanted to.

Compare McCandless’s experience with someone like Henry David Thoreau, who was clearly one of Chris’s heroes. Thoreau is heralded as one of the great voices of simple wilderness living, and yet he walked to town regularly! If anything, Thoreau proved that you don’t have to live like an ascetic to have the pure experience that Chris sought. In fact, I would argue that Thoreau’s approach enhanced the experience.

This is the big difference between Chris and me. For all the surviving I’ve done, I’ve never done it to be noble, or because I had something to prove or was thumbing my nose at society. I go into the bush because of my love for all things wild and free, for nature, and not to escape society. I go there to receive the positive energy flow that is unrestrained by the building of modern society. With every trip I’ve ever made into the wilderness, I’ve always taken the very realistic view that I may blow it, so my eyes and ears are wide open. And for every survival situation I’ve been in, I first went off and trained with a local expert, because there are so many things that can go wrong. I think Chris felt he didn’t need anyone else’s help. That attitude ultimately killed him.

Bus 142 still sits in the exact spot that it did when Chris McCandless called it home. They say you can still see the bones of the moose scattered around the bus, Chris’s jeans folded on a shelf inside. It is, by all accounts, a beautiful place to have called home—for a time.

Chapter 8 - In the Season of Love

The aluminum canoe I have borrowed from a nearby lodge squawks as I drag it over the rocks. I am making my way across the shoreline of a remote, fog-enshrouded lake in Algonquin Provincial Park, a jewel of a place about 150 miles north of Toronto. The day is going to be easy for me. I am at the peak of my guiding and survival instructor days: fit, tanned, confident. My mission? To boldly go off the beaten path, deep into the Algonquin forest, where I will find a good spot to teach survival to my students. I have already decided on the place by softly dragging my fingertip over a topographical map and stopping, index finger tapping, on what seemed like the ideal location. We wilderness adventurers are funny that way. We can stare at a map for hours on end in a kind of dreamy, euphoric state. It’s kind of like, well, map porn.

So off I paddle into the morning mist, alone and unafraid. “This won’t take more than six or seven hours,” I tell myself. “A few hours of paddling and a few hours of bushwhacking.” I’m right, and the spot is perfect: not much more than a mile into the bush, far from canoe routes and hiking trails.

If the trip in to my perfect place has gone entirely as planned, the trip out will prove to be anything but. I am tramping leisurely through the bush to my canoe when I look up to see a beautiful female (cow) moose standing majestically in a boggy area not fifty feet away. What a sight she is, grazing quietly in the shallow water, seemingly unaffected by my presence.

This is when things start to go wrong. I begin to think it would be a good idea to test my moose-calling abilities on this unexpected audience. I’m smart enough to know not to try a bull-moose call. The last thing I want to do is entice any bulls in the area to come in for a challenge, especially because it’s rutting season—or, as I like to call it, the season of love. During this time, the bull moose may well be the most dangerous animal in North America. Bull moose have been known to use their antlers like can openers to open up large trucks. So I’ll only be trying out my female call on this day.

Carefully, I cup my hands over my mouth and send forth a long, semi-vibrating groan that trails off into the quiet of the forest around me. The cow looks up at me for a bit, then returns to her eating. I try again. This time, I elicit no response at all. I guess my moose call needs more work after all! I stand there, enjoying the day and watching her eat for a few more moments before turning to walk away.

With one leg still in the air during my first step, my world becomes a slow-motion vision as I first hear and then see a thousand pounds of fully antlered bull moose crashing out of the forest—and headed straight toward me, its eyes red and bulging in anger, nostrils flared and snorting, massive hooves pounding through the tall grass and water. I search my store of wilderness knowledge for options and decide upon the best course of action: I run. I run for all I’m worth.

I’m less than a hundred yards into the chase when I grasp the severity of the situation. The bull moose is chasing me into the forest, away from my canoe. That’s when I again turn to my survival and wilderness knowledge and quickly scramble up a tree and hold on for dear life. The bull moose stays near the bottom of the tree, grunting and snorting all the while, digging furiously at the ground with his powerful hooves, and trampling small trees as if they are blades of dried grass.

As I cling to the tree, trembling, sweating profusely, my heart pounding through my chest, it occurs to me that, aside from the obvious one, I have made some very classic mistakes:

As if that isn’t enough, darkness is beginning to descend upon the boreal forest. I realize I can’t stay in the tree all night, so Plan B is becoming a real necessity. After only a few minutes (which seem like hours), and as soon as the bull moose ventures just a little bit away, I make a break for it. Just like in a cartoon, my feet are spinning before I even hit the ground, and the chase is on again!

This time, though, I carve my escape path in a wide arc, trying desperately to make it back to the shore of the lake, if not my canoe. The angry bull stays behind me the whole way, until I finally reach the shore. I slip into the water and immediately try to hide myself as best as I can. I sink my fully clothed self as deep as I can into the cold September water, with only my head sticking out, and make as little noise as possible. The trick works! Once I fall completely silent, he can’t locate me.

As bad luck would have it, the moose is still waiting firmly between me and my canoe. So I inch my way along the shoreline in the opposite direction, my head just peeking out above the water, toward the part of the lake that is a canoe route. A few hundred yards later, the moose still hasn’t spotted me, so I climb onto a rocky shoreline at a park campsite.

An hour passes. Finally, with night falling, a couple in a canoe paddle by. I must be quite a sight: soaking wet, no tent or gear, blabbering on about a moose. To their credit, they don’t come close to me for about fifteen minutes, after which I am able to convince them I’m really not a raving lunatic. The couple then paddle me back into the bull-moose zone, where my canoe is still hidden in the trees. Years later, I won’t be quite sure, but my memory will have me dashing into the trees and picking up the canoe with one hand, throwing it in the water, and jumping in to paddle back out to safety, all in the span of about three seconds.

I have been stalked by a jaguar in the Amazon jungle at night, sniffed by a lynx, bitten by a nine-foot reef shark (three times), and trailed by a pack of wolves. I’ve had to sneak around temperamental elephants in the Sri Lankan jungle, built a thorn shelter to protect against lions in Africa, and slept in the scorpion-infested desert. But nothing compares to the fear and heart-pounding awe of being chased by an angry bull moose in his season of love.

Chapter 9 - Survival Not Far from Home

IT WAS LATE DECEMBER 1992.
JAMES STOLPA
HAD JUST LEARNED OF HIS GRANDMOTHER’S DEATH, AND HE AND HIS
WIFE
, JENNIFER, DECIDED TO DRIVE THE MORE THAN
EIGHT HUNDRED MILES
FROM THEIR HOME IN CASTRO CITY, CALIFORNIA, TO ATTEND HER FUNERAL IN POCATELLO, IDAHO. UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS IT WOULD JUST BE AN AVERAGE
DRIVE,
BUT THESE WERE FAR FROM NORMAL CONDITIONS . . .

After several years of drought, the winter of 1992 had come with a fury to the west coast. Persistent wind, rain, and snow had battered the area, wreaked havoc on holiday travel, caused power outages for thousands of residents, and was predicted to continue for the foreseeable future. Common sense likely told Jim and Jennifer Stolpa that the best decision was to stay home and offer their condolences from afar. Yet twenty-one-year-old Jim was driven, a dedicated family man. He knew how much his attendance at the funeral would mean to his mother. So, despite official warnings against travel, the couple, along with their five-month-old son, Clayton, decided to drive through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and make it to Pocatello in time for the funeral. It was the first wrong decision they would make in a series of mistakes that ended in catastrophe.

Jim was likely under a significant amount of stress, having just learned of the death of his grandmother. The sort of single-mindedness he displayed in deciding to press on has been the cause of many survival situations because when people have one overriding thought on their mind, they ignore voices of reason. Driving a 1988 Dodge Dakota pickup stocked with little more than tire chains and a couple of sleeping bags, they set out on Tuesday, December 29.

Later that morning, Jim and Jennifer found out that Interstate 80 over Donner Pass was closed due to heavy snow and would not reopen until the following day, at the earliest. With time now of the essence, they had two choices: turn around and head back to Castro City, or find some other way to race through the mountains, through northern Nevada, and into Idaho.

A stop at a convenience store and a look at a road map yielded the possibility of an alternate route, so they made a fateful decision: they would bypass Donner Pass and continue to Pocatello, this time taking unmaintained secondary roads. During winter storms, all travelers—especially those traveling through the mountains—should stick to primary highways, as these are the first to be plowed and searched should people go missing.

At this point, Jim and Jennifer could easily have turned around. They didn’t. They could have called Jim’s mother and stepfather and informed them of the change in plans. They didn’t. Jim would later lament that his biggest mistake was not informing people of their route change. He was wrong. It was a huge error not to inform people of the less-traveled route they were now taking, but they were already too far down the path of impending tragedy by that time. In fact, their biggest mistake was their “get there at any cost” attitude and attempting the trip at all.

If anything, the Stolpas were guilty of survival skill ignorance. I think they were convinced they could take on the elements with their truck and win. It’s a mistake many people make, especially in the winter. The truth is, the weather is always bigger than us
and
our vehicles. The problem is, we never realize that until it’s too late.

As bad weather began to descend, Jim and Jenn had an important realization: they would stand a much better chance in winter driving conditions with their tire chains. Unfortunately, this is where their preparation ended. They had no survival supplies other than some junk food they’d bought at a convenience store and their sleeping bags. Frankly, this is ridiculous. If you know you’re in for trouble, either avoid it or prepare for it, fully and completely.

They stopped at a local service station to have the tire chains installed, reconfirmed their route through the mountains, and moved on. But what made them think that, if the main highways were closed, a less-traveled one would be passable? They put all their eggs in one basket by convincing themselves that the blizzard only existed where the main highways were closed. It was a winter-weather version of “the grass is greener on the other side.”

By the time the Stolpas crossed from California into Nevada, some ten miles east of the town of Cedarville, Jim thought the worst of the driving was behind them. So he went out and removed the chains from the tires so they could make better time. I can’t blame them for this decision; most of us would do the same. But the next question is, why wouldn’t he put them back on once the snow hit again?

And it did, with a vengeance. A full-blown blizzard was soon raging. Mounds of snow stretched across the road. After they passed the ghost town of Vya, Nevada, Highway 299 turned to gravel and became Washoe County Road 8A, a seldom-used track that cut through the high desert and rugged mountains of northwestern Nevada. Jim should have quickly realized that the tire chains were vital to their safety. Yet he never managed to put them back on the truck. It may be that they were too tight, Jim too inexperienced in their use, or the weather too bad. Whatever the case, the chains never made it back onto the tires, where they belonged.

Visibility was near zero. The drifts across the road became bigger and more frequent. Still the family forged ahead. Soon after dark, though, they got stuck in deep snow and were unable to get themselves out. The Stolpas were stuck, a blizzard was raging outside, and night had fallen.

With light gone and the truck stuck in deep snow, the Stolpas decided to spend the night in their vehicle. At this point, digging the truck out of the snow was an option, far easier than it would be the following morning, after the blizzard had raged all night. I imagine the couple was exhausted from their journey, though, so sleeping a little and waiting for light to break was the right decision. It was not a comfortable night, though. The wind howled and drove sub-zero air through every nook and cranny of the truck. Luckily, they had lots of gas and could occasionally start the vehicle to generate heat. They were also convinced someone would drive by in the morning.

As the dawn of morning turned to full-blown daylight, the Stolpas were horrified to find that they were in the middle of what seemed to be vast wilderness. Indeed, the Stolpas had stumbled into the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, more than half a million acres of rugged wilderness. The refuge is closed in the winter. Not surprisingly, there was no sign of other travelers on the deserted mountain road.

With virtually no tools, Jim and Jennifer tried to dig the truck out of the deep snow by hand, a brutal task at the best of times. Jim finally decided to try to attach the chains to the tires, to no avail. He realized he would have more luck by jacking up each wheel, but there was no jack to be found in their ill-equipped vehicle. They laid the chains out in the snow to gain some traction, but the truck only moved a few feet before becoming stuck yet again. Had he carried a shovel, Jim could have dug out the truck, then rammed the vehicle’s floor mats, some towels, clothes, or blankets under the tires to give the truck some traction in the snow. They were not that prepared. They might even have been able to use rocks, gravel, branches, or tree limbs to gain a foothold under the tires. They didn’t.

So the Stolpas made another fateful decision: they would stay with the vehicle in the hopes that help would find them. But it was an ill-advised decision, particularly in light of the meager supplies they carried. They had enough fuel, blankets, and sleeping bags to keep themselves warm in the short term, but their food was limited to some baby food, cookies, a fruitcake, a bag of corn chips, and a jar of prenatal vitamins. Unbelievably, Jenn would not eat the fruitcake because she didn’t like it. It was a shortsighted and foolish position; there is no room for pickiness in a survival situation. I’m sure her feelings would have changed as real hunger set in, but she didn’t have the chance, because Jim had already finished it. It was a selfish move on his part; he should have saved half the cake for his wife in hopes that she would eventually accept it.

The first day passed, and amazingly, it seems the Stolpas did little to try to attract rescue or improve their situation, which, in light of the circumstances, completely perplexes me. Even worse, they didn’t seem (or at least made no mention in subsequent interviews) to take the time to realistically assess their situation. Assessment is an extremely important part of any survival emergency, and the Stolpas seemed to ignore it completely, at least for the first few days of their ordeal.

Once they realized they were not going to be rescued by another driver, the Stolpas could have gone into full-blown survival mode and scoured the truck for anything and everything they could use to their benefit. Their first task should have been to try to attract attention to themselves, which they never did. Had I been in that situation, I would have used the truck’s spare tire to make a smoky fire, which may increase your chances of being seen.

Start by siphoning gas from the truck’s gas tank, a tricky proposition at the best of times. You need a long, thin hose about the diameter of a thick pen. Put one end of the hose down into the gas tank and suck on the tube until the gas begins to flow out the top end of the tube. There is a real danger of swallowing gas here, so suck without inhaling, using only the suction power of your mouth cavity. Most “old-timers” know how to do it and can tell you that they have tasted a lot of gas in their day. Once the gas flows freely out the top end of the tube (and you’ve stopped choking from the dribbles of gas in your mouth), you have created a suction flow. The gas will drain out of the tank and into your receptacle.

Lay the tire down flat, then pour gasoline into the inside trough of the tire. If you’ve got a lighter or matches, great. Light the gasoline and watch the tire burn. Take note that this also is dangerous, depending on how much gas you have in the tire. And remember that it’s the fumes
that ignite, not
the liquid itself. So even a spark near the fumes will cause the gas to “explode” into flame.

If you’re not lucky enough to have matches or a lighter, then it’s a spark you need. Simply remove the battery from the car and attach jumper cables to its positive and negative terminals. The cables now have power running through them; tapping the free ends of the cables will create sparks. Send some sparks toward the gas on the tire—aiming for the fumes, not the liquid. Eventually, the gas will ignite in a large bang, so be ready for it and keep everyone back a few paces for safety.

Don’t stop here, though. The bigger the fire, the greater your chances it will be seen. Grab any trees, brush, or bushes you can find and add them to the fire. Young trees create more smoke than old, dry ones.