If a "cocky, outspoken, daring and stubborn" person succeeds in one of these "lunatic gestures of independence" then they are smart and well prepared. If they die, then they are stupid and ill prepared. I get it.
No, I don't think you do.
Where does Reuss fall in your comment? I am calling him smart and well prepared. Even if he died.
Who called Robyn "smart and well prepared"? I thought "some said lunatic?" In fact, she was raised on a cattle station and spent two years training and preparing with the camels. And oh, yeah, getting National Geographic sponsorship. If anyone did call her "smart and well-prepared" maybe it was because she was , well, smart and well prepared.
As for Reuss, what, did he just grab a couple of donkeys one day hanging around Valparaiso High and take off? He was, as a matter of
fact, very well prepared. As attested by his known work and four years of successful experience. And as a matter of
fact we don't know whether he died in 1934 or 1994.
So what exactly did McCandless
do to get so smart and well-prepared? Read a book on Alaska? Had a conversation with a guy in a grain elevator in South Dakota? Kayaked a flat-water river? You would do a hell of a lot more than that to prepare for even a fully supported trip on the Stampede, even if you weren't committed to hiking its whole length without a map. Even if you were, say, only going 22 miles in and holing up in a bus.
Attacking straw doesn't really advance the discussion, does it?
