Quicklet on Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
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Jon Krakauer has climbed some of the most difficult peaks in the world, including the Devil's Thumb in Southeast Alaska, the West Face of Cerro Torre in Patagonia, and Mt. Everest. It was his trip to Mt. Everest that would go on to give Krakauer a National Magazine Award for his article in Outside Magazine and "Book of the Year" for Into Thin Air. In both, Krakauer tells of the descent from Mt. Everest's peak in which a storm killed off four of the five teammates. Along with Into the Wild, and Into Thin Air, Krakauer has also written Eiger Dreams, Under the Banner of Heaven, and Where Men Win Glory. His work has published into GEO, Architectural Digest, Rolling Stone, TIME, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and National Geographic.
In 1998, Krakauer created the Everest '96 Memorial Fund as a tribute to his companions lost on Everest which provides humanitarian relief to the indigenous peoples of the Himalaya and supports organizations working to preserve the natural environment throughout the world. After writing an article in Outside magazine, author Jon Krakauer decided to write a more detailed story of the young man - Christopher Johnson McCandless - who was found dead in the Alaskan brush. A difficult task as Christopher was constantly on the move the two years before he died backpacking across North America. Krakauer felt a personal connection with the young man's story and set out to interview those who had contact with McCandless along the way.
The book, a huge success, went on to become adapted into the 2007 Sean Penn movie starring Emile Hirsch as McCandless. It was also the supposed inspiration behind the Discovery Channel's show "Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment," a show in which volunteers face the Alaskan great outdoors.
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