People always omit the fact that he had survived in the same location for more than 100 days and had actually decided to leave but was prevented from doing so by a flooding river. Makes him seem a little less stupid.
I bring up McCandless's hubris and the dumb mistakes he made-the
two or three readily avoidable blunders that ended up costing him
his life. "Sure, he screwed up," Roman answers, "but I admire what
he was trying to do. Living completely off the land like that, month
after month, is incredibly difficult. I've never done it. And I'd bet
you that very few, if any, of the people who call McCandless
incompetent have ever done it either, not for more than a week or
two. Living in the interior bush for an extended period, subsisting
on nothing except what you hunt and gather-most people have no idea
how hard that actually is. And McCandless almost pulled it off.
"I guess I just can't help identifying with the guy," Roman allows
as he pokes the coals with a stick. "I hate to admit it, but not so
many years ago it could easily have been me in the same kind of
predicament. When I first started coming to Alaska, I think I was
probably a lot like McCandless: just as green, just as eager. And I'm
sure there are plenty of other Alaskans who had a lot in common with
McCandless when they first got here, too, including many of his
critics. Which is maybe why they're so hard on him. Maybe McCandless
reminds them a little too much of their former selves."
