Into The Wild Chris Mccandless Quotes

to begin climbing in the first place. Chris McCandless was determined to not only go but to complete the climb as well. Furthermore, as Chris aged and entered high school, his rareness showed even more prominently. He became the captain of the cross-country team. He loved the role and concocted grueling training regimens that his teammates remember still well. “He was really into pushing himself,” recalls Gordy Cucullu, a former member of the team. “Chris invented this workout he called Road Warriors: he would lead us on long, killer runs through places like farmers’ fields and construction sites, places we weren’t supposed to be, and intentionally try to get us lost. We’d run as far and as fast as we could, down strange roads, through the woods, whatever. The whole idea was to lose our bearings, to push ourselves into unknown territory.

Then we’d run at a slightly slower pace until we found a road we recognized and race home again at full speed.

In a certain sense that’s how Chris lived his entire life” (112). Chris was creative in everything he did, separating him from his classmates and most of society in general. He was also intensely spiritual from such a young age and viewed running an almost religious exercise. “Chris would use the spiritual aspect to try and motivate us,” recalls Eric Hathaway, another friend on the team. “He’d tell us to think about all the evil in the world, all the hatred, and imagine ourselves running against the forces of darkness, the evil wall that was keeping us from running our best. He believed doing well was all mental, a simple matter of harnessing whatever energy was available. As impressionable high school kids, we were blown away by that kind of talk” (112). McCandless was wise beyond his years to say the least. Testimony from Eric Hathaway’s experiences with Chris should be more than enough to prove how individual Chris was, even in high

school.
Continuing, Chris graduated high school and moved onto Emory University. As Krakauer writes about Chris’ college experience, readers learn more about how exceptionally bright he was. This is another characteristic that set him apart from other young men. Krakauer writes, “His grades were nearly perfect. He started writing for the school newspaper. He even talked enthusiastically about going on to get a law degree when he graduated” (119). Chris took to college easily and loved it, which is something rare for someone only so young, as he was only a freshman. Following his freshman year, Chris spent the summer working for his parents’ company, developing computer software. Chris’ father, Walt, remembers, “The program he wrote for us that summer was flawless” (120). For such a young kid, Chris was wildly smart, and it wasn’t a surprise to who he was close with that he could make a computer program arguably better than his parents.