Good News...

...we made it to the bus and back!

A couple of things —

A slide show of our hike that we put together with some interviews of what we were doing.

A quick walk-through of the bus as it stood on 6-22.11

It was in fact very wet and muddy - but not more than what we were prepared for. Overall the trail was in good shape, and easy to follow. The mosquitoes were terrible - especially in the last 4 miles to the bus. The river was about waist high on us both times we had to cross. The first time we crossed when you first come to the river up at the Denali border on the map. On the way back we crossed closer to where the trail is - just a little to the south.

I just heard from Mr. Stevens about his trip out to the bus this break-up. Here's what he had to say:

"Just crossed the tek last night after some light snow the past few days. Water was a little over ankle deep on the way in, april 30. and Just under knee deep last night, may 1 and would splash a little higher. This is about 1/4 mile up stream from road crossing. Still small ice bridges over a channel. Some ice on bank. The river bottom is ice free. Would think the river would continue to rise during breakup. Much icy water on trail and ankle deep snow over much of trail, melting fast. Would recommend neoprene socks. Some trail water is over knee high. Saw a few caribou. Last guest entry was from end of march. Always feels good to get out and stretch the legs. Snow was deep at regular parking area had to walk an extra ~1 mile. Three day trip this time. On trail April 30-may 2 2011"

Emails with Sin Mong Xing

To read the full email exchange between myself and Sin Mong Xing click here.

After reading the article in the Daily News Miner, I decided to try and get ahold of Sin Mong Xing myself. I wanted to hear his side of the story. The papers in Alaska seem to feel a need to overdramatize anything and everything having to do with the Stampede Trail. Last year a couple of young guys got a vehicle stuck along the trail and had to be towed out. It was branded as a rescue and the boys were branded as hippy idiots who were on a pilgrimage to see McCandless' bus. That's not fair though. If those same boys had taken their vehicle up towards Knik glacier, gotten stuck along the way and had to be pulled out, it wouldn't have even made the paper.

It's gotten to the point that if you simply mention the bus, or the name McCandless, there are a large percentage of Alaskans who just immediately assume you are a nut job with no outdoors skills on a suicide mission. That's certainly not true about me, nor was it true of anyone in my group when I went. In fact, I would go so far as to say it's not true of the majority of people who set off down the stampede trail.

According to what I gathered from my emails with Xing, he actually went about his adventure in a very logical fashion and took a lot of time in getting prepared. He learned as much as he could from locals, and practiced his winter camping and fire starting techniques. He stayed in a tent, out in the cold for some time before attempting the trail. He even hiked a portion of the trail on a scouting trip with a local man and his dog.

Xing did find himself off course when he realized he had passed the bus. He had planned to backtrack though to find his way. In fact, when the trooper airplane flew over, he raised one arm to signal that he did not need help. Apparently the real reason for the troopers to come and escort him back to Healy had more to do with him being a foreign national in possession of a handgun. He had acquired a .380 handgun that he planned to use to scare off any attackers if he needed to, while in Fairbanks. It's actually illegal for him, because he is not a U.S. resident, to own the gun. The gun was taken from him by ATF, but he was cooperative and they didn't throw the book at him. The troopers had responded because they had been told by someone who called them that Xing was irrational and suicidal. Though I can only speculate, I would venture to guess that was not the case, and the only evidence that individual had to support that was that Xing had a gun and was headed to the bus in the middle of winter.

I thought about trying to condense, or summarize the emails that Xing and I exchanged yesterday, but I feel that it is better to post them in their entirety, and let you readers judge for yourselves what you will.

To read the full email exchange between myself and Sin Mong Xing click here.

Another Rescue On The Trail

To read the full email exchange between myself and Sin Mong Xing click here.

I just read an article from the Daily News Miner of Fairbanks about another rescue along the Stampede Trail. This time it was a man from Singapore. From what I gathered in the article, he actually had done a fair amount of training for the kind of environment he would be in; perhaps not enough, but he certainly did try. He was rescued unharmed, but the rescue brings up all the usual arguments for having the bus removed. The winter is a pretty rough time, actually a VERY rough time to be out in the sticks in those parts. Take all the challenges that have been discussed on this site and just multiply them a couple times to get an idea of what it would be like to do that trek in the winter. The only exception is that the rivers would be much more managable, but the distance would be harder to hike, and the temperature can drop to obscenely low numbers. I personally would not recommend hiking the trail in the winter to anyone who doesn't have a LOT of sub-arctic winter trekking experience. There are just too many things that can go wrong.

This man simply made a slight navigational error and soon found himself completely lost. At this point in my life, I myself wouldn't even try to hike out there on foot in February. I'd want some better winter gear and some more winter camping experience before I'd consider it.

If we don't do something to curb the number of incidents like this one, we will very likely see the issue of "removing the bus" getting discussed more and more until it's a reality, or some nut-job 'do-gooder' decides to go torch the bus or something. All I'm saying is that if we wan't preserve this place so others can come and see a part of the story for themselves we need to be careful, prepared, and consciencous about what we do when we're out there.

And Sin Mong Xing, if you read this, no hard feelings man. I appreciate that you DID take the time to practice your winter camping skills and do research with the locals.

To read the full article go here.