Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a novel that was published in 1997 that tells the true story of Chris McCandless (also known by his other self-given name Alex Supertramp) who embarks on a journey to live off-land in Alaska.

Although McCandless is brave to cut off all communication from family and live on his own in the wilderness, many readers of Krakauer's novel are not satisfied with the way McCandless went about his adventures.

Throughout the entirety of the book, I found myself constantly questioning McCandless's decisions and strategies (in the rarities of which he had them) because they either seemed spontaneous or poorly thought through.

He continuously traveled by hitchhiking, and when he reached his destination, in the middle of Winter, he had one pair of ankle-cut boots. Surely those weren't going to help him. Luckily for him, the man that gave him a ride gave Chris his pair of Winter boots which went up to the knees.

I respect McCandless as a person because he did the one thing most people wish to do - drop everything and travel somewhere completely unknown to us. However, he lacked critical thinking skills. To say that McCandless was prepared for his journey was not true. He was confident enough, but not even close to prepared.

In his last days of living, McCandless was slowly dying of starvation on the Stampede Trail in the Fairbanks Bus 142. Little to his knowledge, there was civilization not too far from him. McCandless did not travel with a map, so he was not aware of this fact. He easily could have saved himself if only he had been equipped with the proper materials.

Even in the novel, Krakauer writes that "McCandless was ridiculously ill-prepared", "Not only did McCandless die because he was stupid...but the scope of his self-styled adventure was so small as to ring pathetic", and that there was "only one word for the guy: incompetent."

While it's easy to admire what McCandless was trying to do, he obviously was not ready for this new lifestyle. He even cut off all ties with his family, and if he ever wrote to them, it was on rare occasion. Walt and Billie McCandless were both worried for their son and said that if they would have been able to find him, they most certainly would have helped.

I acknowledge what McCandless was trying to do, but I agree with Krakauer's statements about the boy. He was not ready for his journey, and if he were truly passionate about being out in the woods, he should have been more prepared.

While it was a personal choice of his, many people still view McCandless's story as controversial. If someone genuinely loved the wilderness and wanted to live a life off land, they would not set themselves up to die.