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4.2.3.1 The world of freedom
The backpacking life offers a word that every human want, freedom. Freedom is something that out of the line, out of the rules, out of the routine. The modern
society which is created with new system such as: power of money, bureaucracy, and rules that imprisoned human are pressed and seize human freedom. While in
backpacking, it offers human something that they cannot get in modern society, such as: when people have a tour for their vacation, they have to obey the rules
about the time and schedule, but while in backpacking you can spend as much time as you want, or when you have a schedule for wake up early for school or go
to office or deadline and home works, it does not exist. The rules and the schedule are in your hand. In this story, McCandless had undetermined schedule or plan for
his own trip, he managed to get around America without any limited time or deadline as we found in datum 4:
He was elated to be there. Inside the bus, on a sheet of weathered plywood spanning a broken window, McCandless scrawled an exultant declaration
of independence: TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH. NO PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS,
NO CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM. AN EXTREMIST. ANAESTHETIC VOYAGER WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD. ESCAPED
FROM ATLANTA. THOU SHALT NOT RETURN, ‘CAUSE “THE WEST IS THE BEST. “ AND NOW AFTER TWO RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE
FINAL AND GREATEST ADVENTURE. THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE TO KILL THE FALSE BEING WITHIN AND VICTORIOUSLY CONCLUDE
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THE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION. TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS OF FREIGHT TRAINS AND HITCHHIKING BRING HIM TO THE GREAT WHITE
NORTH. NO LONGER TO BE POISONED BY CIVILIZATION HE FLEES, AND WALKS ALONE UPON THE LAND TO BECOME LOST IN THE
WILD. ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP MAY1992
In this datum we can analyze that his trip was an ultimate freedom, full of many adventurous trip, hitchhiking along the way, and unlimited time had for his
trip, which no schedule and no rules, in other word ultimate freedom.
4.2.3.2 Adventurous life
We cannot never resist that adventure is the blood and flesh of backpacking life, stretches to its flesh and hangs on its bones. Because in backpacking life they do
not offers conformity stay such as: luxurious hotel with its swimming pool and satellite TV, or well-planned trip which tight on schedule. In backpacking, they
obsessed to look for places that not touristy, exotic, unvisited place and unusual way. Datum 16 is one of McCandless adventurous during his backpacking trip;
Still, Gallien was concerned. Alex admitted that the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of rice. His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for the
harsh conditions of the interior, which in April still lay buried under the winter snowpack. Alex’s cheap leather hiking boots were neither waterproof
nor well insulated. His rifle was only .22 caliber, a bore too small to rely on if he expected to kill large animals like moose and caribou, which he would
have to eat if he hoped to remain very long in the country. He had no ax, no
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bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass. The only navigational aid in his possession was a tattered state road map he’d scrounged at a gas station.
This datum tells about the story of McCandless before entered Alaska, his dream to live in and his heaven as he laid his faith on it. A driver, named Gallien
drove him to the Alaska was afraid about McCandless tools to spent an undetermined time in Alaska, he only brought ten pound rice, old hiking boots
which is not waterproof, a riffle that only could kill little animal, no ax, no bug dope, and no compass. This adventurous was whom he called the greatest of his
adventure, because he would live in the area that nobody lives there and of course with limited tools. This is one of McCandless adventurous trip during
backpacking, he also used canoe as his one of adventurous trip, and here is datum 17;
While he was in town, he noticed a secondhand aluminum canoe for sale and on an impulse decided to buy it and paddle it down the Colorado River
to the Gulf of California, nearly four hundred miles to the south, across the border with Mexico,This lower stretch of the river, from Hoover Dam to the
gulf, has little in common with the unbridled torrent that explodes through the Grand Canyon, some 250 miles upstream from Topock, From Topock,
McCandless paddled south down Lake Havasu under a bleached dome of sky, huge and empty. He made a brief excursion up the Bill Williams River,
a tributary of the Colorado, then continued downstream through the Colorado River Indian Reservation, the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge,
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the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, On December 2, he reached the Morelos Dam and the Mexican border.
This datum tells about how McCandless went around America by his canoe, he start to paddle it down from Colorado river to the Gulf of California
until Mexican border, without license nor with proper equipment, such as safety helmet and etc, he does not court danger but rather stumbles across it, thrillingly
and then fatally, on the road to joy. Datum 18 is one of backpacking trip’s McCandless by hitchhiking:
After loading his few remaining possessions into a backpack, McCandless set out on July 10 to hike around Lake Mead, he managed to flag down
some passing boaters, who gave him a lift to Callville Bay, a marina near the west end of the lake, where he stuck out his thumb and took to the road.
McCandless tramped around the West for the next two months, spellbound by the scale and power of the landscape, thrilled by minor brushes with the
law, savoring the intermittent company of other vagabonds he met along the way. Allowing his life to be shaped by circumstance, he hitched to Lake
Tahoe, hiked into the Sierra Nevada, and spent a week walking north on the Pacific Crest Trail before exiting the mountains and returning to the
pavement.
This datum tells about how McCandless did hitchhiking during his trip from Lake Mead to Pacific Crest Trail, moved from one place to another place by
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hitchhiking, met some vagabonds along the way, spent a week on the mountains then drove back to the roads.
From the description and analysis above we can conclude that most of backpacking trip is full of adventurous thing start from hitchhiking, canoe trip,
Alaska and many trips which had not mentioned.
4.1.5 Lifestyle
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