bus that he will eventually die in.

On a literal level, Chris McCandless's biggest challenge was his final one: fronting the Alaskan wilderness alone, where he met unexpected hardships and had to cope with the inevitability of death at early age.

On a more profound level, McCandless's biggest challenges, as he well knew, were his own inner demons. He went to the Alaskan wilderness to challenge them, and from what we know from the writings he left behind, he won the inner battle even as he lost the outer fight for physical survival.

In journals he kept in the last weeks of his life, he recorded a change of consciousness. For example, after his failure with the moose he shot, he came to grips with himself and his disappointment and was able to write,

I am reborn. This is my dawn. Real life has just begun.

On July 2, about six weeks before his death, after reading Tolstoy, McCandless wrote that the only happiness in life is living for others. He showed he was on a path to contentment and inner peace when he stated the following:

I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor—such is my idea of happiness.

And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps—what more can the heart of a man desire?

As he was dying alone in the wilderness, McCandless penned a final note, writing in all caps:

I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!

Chris's acceptance of his death and his ability to find happiness and think about blessing others in the worst possible circumstances, as a young man on the brink of adult life, show how he had matured inwardly. Much of his anger seems to have peeled away in his final days as he faced severe challenges.

On a pragmatic level, Chris Mccandless struggled with gaining the skills to survive on his own. His determination to live alone and far from the world of capitalism and greed that he abhorred was a way of rejecting his own participation in that system. But by avoiding having a community, Chris made certain he would have no one to turn to when he needed help. In the end, it was solitude that killed him, not only because having people around could have helped Chris avoid starvation but because other people could have helped him see he was being naive and stubbornly idealistic.

Despite being well read and an autodidact to some extent, Chris failed to educate himself about what it really meant to live off the land. He was blithely unaware of his own ability to survive without assistance. Without learning more self-sufficient means of feeding himself, like identifying edible plants or storing hunted meat for winter, he guaranteed he would starve in the wilderness.

Chris's stubbornness was perhaps his biggest challenge in this regard. He was so determined to leave his old life behind that he was blind to the fact that he had actually been very reliant on what money and privilege did for him: it kept a roof over his head and his belly full. By refusing to admit defeat—or that he was vulnerable when he was alone—he was also setting himself up for failure.

Chris McCandless faced an identity crisis in which he failed to balance realistic and romantic views of himself.

Ultimately, he convinced himself that his book-hero persona Alexander Supertramp could survive the Alaskan outback with a small caliber rifle and a ten pound bag of rice.  This act of hubris was a result of mistaking the realism of Jack London and Leo Tolstoy as Romantic cult pulp.  Rather than confronting his father's past and his own role in the materialistic American culture at large, McCandless isolated himself in nature to spite mankind.  Ironically, he failed to realize how profoundly he impacted even the unlikeliest of strangers (in Ron Franz).  His epiphany of "happiness is only real when shared" was realized in the throes of starvation.

I think one critical event in Chris McCandless's life was his decision to go off onto the Stampede Trail woefully under-equipped. The book begins with Jim Gallien picking up a hitchhiking McCandless. The two men begin talking, and McCandless explains what he plans on doing in Alaska. Gallien knows what the Alaskan wilderness can be like, and he can plainly see that McCandless doesn't have enough gear or the right kind of gear. It's why Gallien offers to drive him back to town. He wants McCandless to get the right kind of gear. McCandless refuses and Gallien is left insisting that McCandless at least take a set of his better boots.

A second critical event is McCandless's interactions with Ron Franz. The two men bond in a very deep way. Franz even offers to adopt McCandless, but McCandless is too much of a wanderer and independent to accept the offer. The relationship is good for both men, and Krakauer's account seems to indicate that Franz was a good source of emotional support for McCandless.

A third critical event is McCandless's canoe trip down the Colorado River into Mexico. The trip is fraught with danger and bad luck. McCandless is lucky to survive and make it back to the United States; however, he does survive with minimal supplies and knowledge of the land. This trip helped to give McCandless confidence in his ability to survive on his own in the wilderness through some harsh conditions. This trip likely gave him confidence in his ability to tackle the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless even mentions that he survived Mexico to Gallien.

One critical event in his life was his trip in which he discovered the truth about his father and his divorce.  Chris discovered that his father had an affair with his ex-wife while dating Chris's mother. At this point in his life, Chris had decided he valued truth over anything else, including love.  Therefore, because his father had not proven truthful, Chris felt he could no longer love his father.  He deeply resented his parents for this and said this made

"his entire childhood seem like a fiction." (p.123)

This shaped McCandless' life because he no longer had respect for his parents. He felt, more than ever, that he had to escape his parents' lifestyle and find himself and the truth. It cemented his need for truth above all.

A second critical event in Chris's life was his time with Wayne Westerberg in Carthage, South Dakota. This time in his life was significant because:

"If McCandless felt estranged from his parents and siblings, he found a surrogate family in Westerberg and his employees...He liked the community's stasis, its plebeian virtues and unassuming mien." (p. 18)

This was the first time Chris found people whom he felt he belonged with, who understood him.  At this point, McCandless began to understand that people really did live this way, happily without riches, and it only solidified his resolve to do the same (although he would pursue it in a more extreme way). Without forming a family bond with these people, Chris surely would not have had the familial strength needed, someone to send postcards to so as to feel like he was needed or wanted.

A third critical event in the book can beMcCandless' abandonment of his car, his Datsun, in the desert, and the subsequent burning of all of his money.  This event shows Chris's devotion to his new lifestyle, as he loved that car, but felt that

"it was his moral responsibility to flout the laws of the state." (p. 28)

He drove the car off-road in the desert, where he was not supposed to, and then refused to approach officials to get it back because he would have to answer to the law.  This led Chris's life further in the direction he desired it to go; it made certain that neither money nor materialistic items would contribute to his life and happiness.  This event led Chris to understand his feelings even more deeply.

"Instead of feeling distraught over this turn of events...McCandless was exhilarated: He saw the flash flood as an opportunity to shed unnecessary baggage." (p.29)

Also, this event showed Chris's apparent belief that he did not make mistakes.  It solidified his belief that it was a good thing he ignored the warnings of others and instead traversed his own path.

While we can never know about Chris McCandless's mindset and precise circumstances at the time of his death with certainty, little to no evidence would support the notion that he committed suicide. 

The evidence we do have includes his journals/marginalia, the impressions he left on those who knew him, and his autopsy. 

His writing and daily log do not suggest any suicidal thoughts or tendencies. In fact, on the contrary, he notes in his journal on Day 94, "Extremely weak. Fault of potato seeds. Much trouble just to stand up. Starving. Great Jeopardy." One can assume that he believed he was in "great jeopardy" of dying, and his wording suggests foreboding and apprehension about this, as opposed to excitement or relief.

On Day 100 he writes, "DAY 100! MADE IT! But in worse condition of life. Death looms as serious threat. Too weak to walk out, have literally become trapped in the wild -- No game." Again, his choice of words, "trapped," "serious threat," suggests that death was not his aim. 

Additionally, the hikers and locals who discovered McCandless's body saw a note he left on the abandoned bus in which he was staying that read,

"Attention Possible Visitors. S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone. This is no joke. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August ?"

His journals also reveal that McCandless decided to head back to civilization but was thwarted by the fact that the trail was blocked by a then-swollen Teklanika River (which had been much lower in the spring when McCandless arrived). 

Turning to McCandless's relationships with others, he had made plans with various friends of his for the other side of his Alaskan adventure. Specifically, he expressed an intention to return and work at Wayne Westerberg's grain elevator in Carthage, South Dakota. 

Finally, McCandless's autopsy has led most to believe his cause of death was a combination of starvation and poisoning due to the long-term ingestion of a certain breed of toxic potato seed. The coroners determined that McCandless weighed only sixty-seven pounds at the time of his death, his body containing no subcutaneous fat, and chemists found that the potato seeds he'd been eating indeed contained a potentially lethal dose of a neurotoxin called beta-N-oxalyl-L-alpha-beta diaminopropionic acid (ODAP).

In the final analysis, I am not certain if any one person can identify the most important event in the work.  The reader has to select what they determine to be the most important event in their own mind, and connect it to the overall meaning of the work to them.  In think that you can get different ideas as to what others feel the most important event might be, but since they will have their own justification behind it, the effectiveness lessens.  In the final analysis, you will have to determine what you think the most important moment or event is in the work because it will be on your shoulders to have to justify the choice.  Some would argue that renaming himself could be the pinnacle moment because it sets him on his path to live a new life.  Another could be the events that cause him to pursue his new life.  Based on your own reading of the work, you will have select what you think is the most important event.  I think it might be cool to select your moment and then start a discussion forum on enotes comparing your selected event or moment with others'.

Chris McCandless tried to avoid creating emotional attachments to people, believing that it would hinder him in the pursuit of his personal goals. Therefore, although many of the people he met on his journey were important to him, he never tried to make them part of his own life, preferring to accept their hospitality and then leave before they made any requests. Wayne Westerberg and Ron Franz, with whom Chris corresponded regularly, were perhaps the two men who got to know Chris the best. Through reading, he was inspired by Leo Tolstoy, Jack London, and Henry David Thoreau; he adopted many of the ideals of those authors, becoming a modern-day acolyte of transcendentalism and spartan living.

Similarly, he had no permanent residence, preferring to travel so as not to get bogged down in a daily life routine. However, the old bus that he found in Alaska, where he lived and later died, is probably the most important place in his life; whether he personally considered it important is a question only he could have answered.

One of the most important events in Chris's journeys came after his car was disabled by a flash flood; this spurred him to take an even more rigorous approach to spartan living:

He saw the flash flood as an opportunity to shed unnecessary baggage... He buried his Winchester deer-hunting rifle and a few other possessions that he might one day want to recover. Then, in a gesture that would have done both Thoreau and Tolstoy proud, he arranged  ll his paper currency in a pile on the sand... and put a match to it.
(Krakauer, Into the Wild, Amazon.com)

This event exemplifies Chris's determination to live solely through his own abilities, not even relying on minor comforts such as the ability to buy food. Throughout his journeys, Chris used every opportunity to rid himself of as much physical and emotional baggage as possible.

Chris McCandless, by determining to go into the Alaskan wilderness by himself with minimal supplies and without certain equipment that was considered to be essential by seasoned Alaskan hunters, deliberately placed himself in danger. What adds greatly to this self-endangerment is that he chose to do this alone, deliberately cutting himself away from both his friends and family. Krakauer explores at great length the motive that caused Chris to do this, and comes up with the following solution: Chris chose to isolate himself and to enter the wilderness alone to explore his own spiritual soul. For those who are tempted to dismiss him as a deluded, arrogant young man who has insufficient respect for nature, Krakauer offers the following words:

McCandless wasn't some feckless slacker, adrift and confused, racked by existential despair. To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily. He demanded much of himself--more, in the end, than he could deliver.

The self-imposed isolation of Chris therefore led to his death because he was literally stuck in the wilderness by himself. The presence of somebody else would have helped him in so many ways, as both could have worked together to support each other and to help each other. The old adage "Two heads are better than one" is particularly true in this case. Cutting himself away from everybody else was one major factor that contributed to his tragic and early demise. In the end, by determining to go it alone, Chris built the foundation of his own destruction.

Krakauker introduces the circumstances surrounding McCandless' death early in chapter 2. McCandless is living on a bus in the remote Alaskan wilderness, and he leaves a note, hoping someone will find him:

S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?" (p. 12)

Weeks later, hunters approach the bus, wanting to use it during moose season.  They find the body in the bus and call the bus. At this point, they have no idea who he is or how he died. All they know is that it was difficult to get to the bus; they used rigged vehicles to get across the river, then continued on all-terrain vehicles.  They know there must be more to this story than they are seeing.

If McCandless had not gotten sick until a couple of weeks later, he may have made it out alive.  No one was around when he got sick because it was not moose season yet.  The reason people found the body was because moose season had opened.