was McCandless admirable for his courage and noble ideas

I think Chris was an idealistic but fundamentally flawed person. Chris lets his parents think that he is interested in law school, but instead, after graduating with honours, he donates his $25,000 savings anonymously to charity, gets in his car, and drives away without telling anyone where he is going, abandoning the use of his real name along the way. He never contacts his parents or sister, Carine, again. No Chris was not justified in treating his family the way he did. Despite the romanticism to his cause (whatever it was) he also caused his family great pain and suffering. A post card here and there to his sister only confounded their pain and sense of loss. Chris, in many ways was selfish.