By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A Brazilian tourist who made a pilgrimage to an abandoned bus made famous by the book and film “Into the Wild” has been rescued from the remote site outside of Denali National Park, the Alaska State Troopers said on Thursday.
The tourist, one of hundreds of visitors who have hiked out to the site where Christopher McCandless died of starvation in 1992, activated an emergency beacon after he ran out of food, the troopers said.
The troopers identified the hiker as 26-year-old Gabriel Dias Da Silva.
Da Silva was picked up by a trooper helicopter on Wednesday from his campsite near the bus, Peters said. He had been able to cross the river on the way to the bus, but conditions had worsened when he tried to return, Peters said.
“The river was open and raging. Apparently when he had headed out about a week ago, ice bridges were still up,” she said.
The abandoned and rusted bus, which McCandless used as his final campsite, has become a shrine of sorts for fans of the book by Jon Krakauer and the 2007 movie that was based on it.
Dias Da Silva is the latest in a long list of hikers to the “Into the Wild” bus who have required rescue. In February, five Italian tourists, one with frostbitten feet, were rescued after hiking to the site.
Two of the treks have been fatal. Last summer, a woman from Belarus died after being swept away in the Teklanika River on her return from the bus. In 2010, a woman from Switzerland also died in the river in a similar incident.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Daniel Wallis)
