“If you look at McCandless from my point of view, you quickly realize that what he did wasn't even particularly bold, just stupid, tragic and reckless. First of all, he spent very little time learning to live in the wilderness. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he had a good map, he would have gotten out of his predicament using one of the many paths that could have been successful” (2). “Trusting Samel and Thompson, veteran Alaska hunters who have killed many moose and caribou, I duly reported McCandless's mistake in the article I wrote for Outside, thus confirming the opinion of countless readers that McCandless was ridiculously unprepared , who had no business heading into the wilds, let alone the big league wilds of the Last Frontier. Not only did McCandless die because he was stupid, an Alaska correspondent observed, but "the scope of his self-styled adventure was so small as to seem pathetic: hunkering down on a wrecked bus a few miles from Healy, poaching jays and squirrels, mistaking a caribou for a moose (pretty hard to do).... Just one word for the guy: incompetent”