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Singapore man was seeking adventure near bus on Stampede Trail
by Mary Beth Smetzer/[email protected] Fairbanks Daily News Miner
Feb 06, 2011 | 3463 views | 10 | | 8 | |
FAIRBANKS — Like many adventurous young men, Sin Mong Xing, 23, of Singapore, had a dream to travel to Alaska and test the wilderness on his own terms.
Xing’s interest in Alaska took hold when he was a teen, reading books and watching films about the north country.
One book in particular, “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, and the film of the same name, intrigued Xing.
The book and movie detail the wanderings and eventual death by starvation of Christopher McCandless, a 23-year-old Virginia man. McCandless spent two years trekking across America before traveling to Alaska and perishing in the wilderness on the edge of Denali National Park.
“Initially, I idolized him,” said Xing in an interview Thursday, two days after he was rescued and guided out of the wilderness by a search party of Alaska State Troopers and Denali National Park rangers.
McCandless may have inspired Xing to call himself Alex and to travel thousands of miles from his island country of Singapore, but not long after arriving in Fairbanks on Dec. 1, Xing’s opinion of McCandless’s meager plan for surviving in the Bush quickly started changing.
After 10 months of saving for the journey, the full-time accountant and part-time student took a leave of absence from his job in Singapore and flew to San Francisco, arriving on Nov. 10.
For the next few weeks, Xing traveled via a Greyhound Discovery Pass visiting the Grand Canyon, Sedona and Flagstaff, Ariz., before heading to Seattle and continuing north by bus, stopping in Whitehorse, Yukon, and arriving in Fairbanks on Dec. 1.
Two months later, Xing said, “I had planned to hang around for a week.”
Xing lodged at Billie’s Backpackers Hostel off College Road, where he found a welcoming, temporary home with a stream of interesting people passing through — some experienced outdoorsmen from Alaska villages and the Bush.
“He sat there and he talked to everybody,” said Billie Cook, hostel proprietor.
A day hike quickly convinced Xing that he had a lot to learn about surviving in the subarctic.
“He didn’t do very well the first time,” Cook said. “He went out on a very cold day with one of the hostelers and he came right back with him.”
The experience did not change Xing’s intention to seek the place where McCandless died, a dilapidated bus in the wilderness near Healy off the Stampede Trail.
Instead, he set about preparing for the journey with the advice of the people he met at Billie’s.
A slight man weighing 110 pounds, Xing began a daily conditioning program, walking and running in bunny boots, learning how to build a fire and pitch a tent.
“I got very good at building a fire and I could pitch a tent in three minutes,” he said.
Xing accrued warm clothing and equipment, mostly secondhand, as well as stocking food.
He packed a waterproof Denali Park map and a compass that attached to his mittens.
The first month at Billie’s, Xing slept indoors, then he pitched his tent in the hostel’s yard and slept there to acclimate.
“I woke up every day smiling and realizing I’m living my dream, right here, right now,” he said.
Xing began to realize how disparate his and McCandless’ backgrounds were.
“I couldn’t help but compare myself with him when I was planning and setting up for the trip,” Xing said.
Unlike McCandless, who was born into an upper middle class home and had no money worries, Xing said he began working at a young age to help his mother pay for college. He served in the Singapore National Defense Force and became a sergeant.
“I wasn’t one of those pilgrims trying to find myself out here,” he said.
Xing said what he shares is McCandless’s final journal entry, “Happiness only real when shared.”
“It’s the only thing I agree with him, and I’ve tried to make it part of my moral code.”
Xing said he chose to hike the 26 miles to the bus in the winter because of the absence of mosquitos and the rivers would be frozen.
He was aware of the death of a Swiss woman last summer who drowned attempting to cross the Teklanika River en route to the bus.
Xing began his trek on Jan. 28. Like McCandless, he started south hitchhiking along the Parks Highway.
His third ride was from a man named Cyrus who drove him four miles up the Stampede Road.
“He was just like in the movie, saying ‘If you get into trouble, give me a call,’” Xing said.
Xing wouldn’t have been able to make that call. By his fifth day on the trail his cellphone was frozen.
At the Stampede trailhead, Xing started on foot, pulling his sled loaded with about 80 pounds of provisions.
Fortunately for the novice outdoorsman, temperatures in the area were warm for January averaging about 15 degrees.
Along the trail, Xing met four friendly snowmachiners hauling building supplies. They were concerned about him, Xing said, once they noticed his supply of food consisted primarily of calories but little protein.
“They gave me a bag of pigskins, cheese, ham, pepperoni and a chicken sandwich which was very good,” he recalled.
Xing thinks it was one of the travelers he met who became concerned about his welfare and notified Alaska State Troopers.
On the fifth day of his journey, he began to realize he was lost.
Xing thought he was four miles from the bus site, but he had walked past it a mile and half and found himself laboring in rugged terrain. That is where rescuers located him Tuesday afternoon.
Trooper spokesperson Beth Ipsen said the initial report received by troopers was that Xing was mentally erratic, possibly suicidal and armed.
The first two descriptions were wrong; rescuers found Xing in good mental condition. He was carrying a .380 auto pistol he bought from someone in Fairbanks, which he willingly turned over to an ATF agent.
Xing said he carried the firearm in the event he was charged by a moose or a bear awaking early from hibernation because of the warm temperature.
“I would’ve fired it into the air in an attempt to scare potential attackers away,” he said. “I have never got my hands dirty killing and never will.”
Ipsen said rescuers visited the bus site on snowmachines and not finding Xing there enlisted the aid of a park ranger aircraft.
“We would probably not have found Mr. Xing without the help of the aircraft because he stayed on hard-packed snow and wasn’t leaving a trail,” Ipsen said.
Once Xing was located, the rescue party went back to the bus to pick up stowed equipment.
Only then did Xing see the bus, which continues to draw inexperienced hikers, usually during summer.
“I was disappointed,” he said. “It was vandalized with broken windows and bullet holes.”
While looking at the bus, Xing said he felt sorry for McCandless’s death and his family.
With daylight waning, the rescue team whisked Xing back to Healy and treated him to a hamburger at the 49th State Brewery Company.
According to troopers, the trek to the bus is extremely hazardous for hikers and search and rescue teams who are called to help.
Ipsen said when Xing was found, he was a mile and a half from the bus and walking away from it. The troopers’ assessment was he wouldn’t have made it much longer.
“Our fear is that other people will attempt this same journey,” Ipsen said. “People don’t realize this is not a walk in the park. It’s the Alaska wilderness and people can get hurt or die. It’s potentially dangerous territory and people can quickly get in over their heads.”
In spite of his close call, Xing has fallen in love with Alaska and intends to come back some day.
Before going back to Singapore Friday, Xing said he wants to return, buy a small piece of land, build a cabin and raise his own food.
“I’ve seen the shortest day of the year. Next time around I want to see the longest day of the year,” he said.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - The voice of Interior Alaska since 1903
Singapore man was seeking adventure near bus on Stampede Trail
by Mary Beth Smetzer/[email protected] Fairbanks Daily News Miner
Feb 06, 2011 | 3463 views | 10 | | 8 | |
FAIRBANKS — Like many adventurous young men, Sin Mong Xing, 23, of Singapore, had a dream to travel to Alaska and test the wilderness on his own terms.
Xing’s interest in Alaska took hold when he was a teen, reading books and watching films about the north country.
One book in particular, “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, and the film of the same name, intrigued Xing.
The book and movie detail the wanderings and eventual death by starvation of Christopher McCandless, a 23-year-old Virginia man. McCandless spent two years trekking across America before traveling to Alaska and perishing in the wilderness on the edge of Denali National Park.
“Initially, I idolized him,” said Xing in an interview Thursday, two days after he was rescued and guided out of the wilderness by a search party of Alaska State Troopers and Denali National Park rangers.
McCandless may have inspired Xing to call himself Alex and to travel thousands of miles from his island country of Singapore, but not long after arriving in Fairbanks on Dec. 1, Xing’s opinion of McCandless’s meager plan for surviving in the Bush quickly started changing.
After 10 months of saving for the journey, the full-time accountant and part-time student took a leave of absence from his job in Singapore and flew to San Francisco, arriving on Nov. 10.
For the next few weeks, Xing traveled via a Greyhound Discovery Pass visiting the Grand Canyon, Sedona and Flagstaff, Ariz., before heading to Seattle and continuing north by bus, stopping in Whitehorse, Yukon, and arriving in Fairbanks on Dec. 1.
Two months later, Xing said, “I had planned to hang around for a week.”
Xing lodged at Billie’s Backpackers Hostel off College Road, where he found a welcoming, temporary home with a stream of interesting people passing through — some experienced outdoorsmen from Alaska villages and the Bush.
“He sat there and he talked to everybody,” said Billie Cook, hostel proprietor.
A day hike quickly convinced Xing that he had a lot to learn about surviving in the subarctic.
“He didn’t do very well the first time,” Cook said. “He went out on a very cold day with one of the hostelers and he came right back with him.”
The experience did not change Xing’s intention to seek the place where McCandless died, a dilapidated bus in the wilderness near Healy off the Stampede Trail.
Instead, he set about preparing for the journey with the advice of the people he met at Billie’s.
A slight man weighing 110 pounds, Xing began a daily conditioning program, walking and running in bunny boots, learning how to build a fire and pitch a tent.
“I got very good at building a fire and I could pitch a tent in three minutes,” he said.
Xing accrued warm clothing and equipment, mostly secondhand, as well as stocking food.
He packed a waterproof Denali Park map and a compass that attached to his mittens.
The first month at Billie’s, Xing slept indoors, then he pitched his tent in the hostel’s yard and slept there to acclimate.
“I woke up every day smiling and realizing I’m living my dream, right here, right now,” he said.
Xing began to realize how disparate his and McCandless’ backgrounds were.
“I couldn’t help but compare myself with him when I was planning and setting up for the trip,” Xing said.
Unlike McCandless, who was born into an upper middle class home and had no money worries, Xing said he began working at a young age to help his mother pay for college. He served in the Singapore National Defense Force and became a sergeant.
“I wasn’t one of those pilgrims trying to find myself out here,” he said.
Xing said what he shares is McCandless’s final journal entry, “Happiness only real when shared.”
“It’s the only thing I agree with him, and I’ve tried to make it part of my moral code.”
Xing said he chose to hike the 26 miles to the bus in the winter because of the absence of mosquitos and the rivers would be frozen.
He was aware of the death of a Swiss woman last summer who drowned attempting to cross the Teklanika River en route to the bus.
Xing began his trek on Jan. 28. Like McCandless, he started south hitchhiking along the Parks Highway.
His third ride was from a man named Cyrus who drove him four miles up the Stampede Road.
“He was just like in the movie, saying ‘If you get into trouble, give me a call,’” Xing said.
Xing wouldn’t have been able to make that call. By his fifth day on the trail his cellphone was frozen.
At the Stampede trailhead, Xing started on foot, pulling his sled loaded with about 80 pounds of provisions.
Fortunately for the novice outdoorsman, temperatures in the area were warm for January averaging about 15 degrees.
Along the trail, Xing met four friendly snowmachiners hauling building supplies. They were concerned about him, Xing said, once they noticed his supply of food consisted primarily of calories but little protein.
“They gave me a bag of pigskins, cheese, ham, pepperoni and a chicken sandwich which was very good,” he recalled.
Xing thinks it was one of the travelers he met who became concerned about his welfare and notified Alaska State Troopers.
On the fifth day of his journey, he began to realize he was lost.
Xing thought he was four miles from the bus site, but he had walked past it a mile and half and found himself laboring in rugged terrain. That is where rescuers located him Tuesday afternoon.
Trooper spokesperson Beth Ipsen said the initial report received by troopers was that Xing was mentally erratic, possibly suicidal and armed.
The first two descriptions were wrong; rescuers found Xing in good mental condition. He was carrying a .380 auto pistol he bought from someone in Fairbanks, which he willingly turned over to an ATF agent.
Xing said he carried the firearm in the event he was charged by a moose or a bear awaking early from hibernation because of the warm temperature.
“I would’ve fired it into the air in an attempt to scare potential attackers away,” he said. “I have never got my hands dirty killing and never will.”
Ipsen said rescuers visited the bus site on snowmachines and not finding Xing there enlisted the aid of a park ranger aircraft.
“We would probably not have found Mr. Xing without the help of the aircraft because he stayed on hard-packed snow and wasn’t leaving a trail,” Ipsen said.
Once Xing was located, the rescue party went back to the bus to pick up stowed equipment.
Only then did Xing see the bus, which continues to draw inexperienced hikers, usually during summer.
“I was disappointed,” he said. “It was vandalized with broken windows and bullet holes.”
While looking at the bus, Xing said he felt sorry for McCandless’s death and his family.
With daylight waning, the rescue team whisked Xing back to Healy and treated him to a hamburger at the 49th State Brewery Company.
According to troopers, the trek to the bus is extremely hazardous for hikers and search and rescue teams who are called to help.
Ipsen said when Xing was found, he was a mile and a half from the bus and walking away from it. The troopers’ assessment was he wouldn’t have made it much longer.
“Our fear is that other people will attempt this same journey,” Ipsen said. “People don’t realize this is not a walk in the park. It’s the Alaska wilderness and people can get hurt or die. It’s potentially dangerous territory and people can quickly get in over their heads.”
In spite of his close call, Xing has fallen in love with Alaska and intends to come back some day.
Before going back to Singapore Friday, Xing said he wants to return, buy a small piece of land, build a cabin and raise his own food.
“I’ve seen the shortest day of the year. Next time around I want to see the longest day of the year,” he said.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - The voice of Interior Alaska since 1903
