who is alex

Christopher McCandless

Chris McCandless is the subject of Into the Wild. McCandless is an intelligent, extremely intense young man with a streak of stubborn idealism. He grows up in a wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C., where he succeeds both academically and athletically. He graduates from Emory University with honors in 1990, and soon afterwards gives all of his savings to charity, starts going by the name of "Alex," abandons almost all of his possessions, and spends two years hitchhiking and traveling around the west. He then hitchhikes to Alaska, where he walks alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley in April 1992. He is found dead four months later.