Emile Hirsch stars in Into the Wild.
Sean Penn’s adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild looks like it may be pitching its tent on the box office charts for awhile – according to Variety, it racked up one of the “top per-screen debuts” of any film in limited release. (It’s also one of Fandango’s top-rated movies, according to our user reviews – click here.) Wild has even begun conjuring ghosts of another rousing but doomed road trip: Easy Rider, which 40 years ago roared to immortality as the most successful independent film ever.
Nature plays a starring role in this movie. In fact, it’s one of the few films for which the scenic locations are listed second in the end credits, right after the actors.
So, as the film rolls out across the country, Fandango, with the guidance of Wild’s supervising location manager Nancy Haecker, thought we too would head out on that highway to some of the film’s destinations – especially as Penn decided to shoot at many of the same places and with some of the same people visited in real life by the buoyant, nomadic Chris McCandless (played in the film by Emile Hirsch).
Emory University (Atlanta, GA) – Much to the alarm of his conservative parents, Hirsch rushes the podium during his graduation ceremony from prestigious Emory, considered a Southern Ivy League school (or “Coca-Cola U”, for the huge endowments received from Coke bigwigs). Then he turns his back on his life of material privilege and sets off on a voyage of discovery.
Lake Mead, NV: The aquamarine splendor of America’s largest man-made lake has been so overrun by the sort of outdoor enthusiast that insists on dragging along all the comforts of home – if not home itself – that no outdoorsperson worth his or her salt (see Salton Sea, below) would go anywhere near it. The film makes this abundantly clear when Hirsch, traversing the silent, vast desert wilderness, suddenly comes upon the lake (yay!)… and a water-skier (boo!).
Cape Disappointment State Park, WA: Hirsch gets picked up on a county road south of Astoria, Oregon, by two huggable hippies (Catherine Keener & Brian Dierker), and they all head up to the Long Beach Peninsula, at the mouth of the Columbia River (where Oregon and Washington meet). Here, underneath the rugged headlands of Beard’s Hollow Beach, Hirsch frolics with Keener in the surf, surrounded by seabirds at sunset.
Mt. Hood National Forest, OR – Hiking through the fern-covered forest primeval, Hirsch discovers a deer. Now, if you haven’t seen the film and this description leaves you somewhat less stirred than, say, “Russian Baddies Hijack Air Force One,” then you’ll just have to trust us: it’s really cool. By the way, exteriors of Timberline Lodge, located on the southern side of Mt. Hood, were used to depict the deadly Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
Grand Canyon West /Hualapai Reservation, AZ – After being told by the National Park Service that he’d have to wait 12 years for a permit, Hirsch defiantly kayaks solo down the churning Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Today, the wait can be almost as long, so you can either join a commercial, guided trip – have you figured out yet who snarfed all the permits? – or clear your calendar in 2019. His launch site is Peach Springs, privately owned by the Hualapai Nation which offers whitewater rafting day trips from this site.
Hirsch climbs the rocks of Travertine Falls in the Grand Canyon area, at River Mile 229.3. He runs into a quirky Danish couple along a beach at Colorado River Mile 243, in Grand Canyon West, owned and operated by the Hualapai Nation. Some 4,000 feet above this beach and on the canyon rim is the tourist landmark known as the Grand Canyon Skywalk (not seen in the movie, as it didn’t exist during the movie’s timeframe of the early 1990s).
Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, SD – Hirsch is overjoyed to be surrounded by mustangs here. BHWHS is open to the public, and bills itself as America’s largest wild horse herd. It’s 14 miles south of Hot Springs, SD, across the state from the seen-better-days small town of Carthage, SD, where Hirsch works in the grain elevators for a farmer (Vince Vaughn).
Sea of Cortez (aka Gulf of California), Mexico – Hirsch, kayaking, ends up illegally crossing the border at a cave here. The crew speaks fondly of shooting in a funky little nearby fishing town called El Golfo De Santa Clara, 65 miles south of Yuma, AZ, along a road dotted with military checkpoints.
Slab City (near Niland, CA, at the eastern edge of the Salton Sea) – So named because of the cracked concrete slabs still remaining from a World War II military base, this remains one of the last “free spaces” in America. Every winter, thousands of “snow birds” migrate to this desert site for unpatrolled, fee-free camping. Every parched, kiln-hot summer, they depart – except for a hard-core group of about 150 full-timers, including folk artist Leonard Knight, whose nutty Salvation Mountain clay-and-plaster art project has been going strong for years.
Here, Hirsch hangs with hippies Keener and Dierker and attracts 16-year-old cutie Kristen Stewart (Panic Room). Hirsch and Stewart take a tour of the real Salvation Mountain (adorned with flowers and painted messages like “JESUS, I’M A SINNER” and “GOD IS LOVE”), conducted by Knight himself. Now, we’ve been to Slab City, and must dutifully report that there were no Kristen Stewart-types frolicking about when we were there. (Quite the opposite, actually.)
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, CA – The hilltop desert vista, surveyed by Hirsch and likely Oscar nominee Hal Holbrook, comes courtesy of Blow Sand Hill (aka “Competition Hill”) – but we’re not recommending you go there. No, that place is too beloved by the off-roader/dune-buggy crowd (“the water skiers of the desert”), as it’s in the noisy Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area, which abuts Anza Borrego but is not actually in the protected park. You can hike up the rocky side, but it won’t be as peaceful as it was in the movie. (They shot there on an especially quiet day.) You’re better off taking in the view at Font’s Point, within the park, for an equally great vista that would surely be more to Chris McCandless’s liking.
Denali National Park, AK – Alaska has beckoned American adventurers since the mid-19th century. In fact, Into The Wild’s location manager, Nancy Haecker, tells us that she herself set out in a Plymouth Fury for the 49th state on the night of her Las Vegas high school graduation. So it’s only natural that Chris McCandless would end up here.
You can literally follow in his footsteps and hit the Stampede Trail, an old, abandoned mining road in what might be our most untamed national park. If you hike about 20 miles in from the trailhead (10 miles west of Healy, AK), you’ll encounter the actual old city bus where Chris spent his last days. It’s become a pilgrimage site, and is still adorned with his graffiti.
The production replicated the bus elsewhere, feeling that using the actual bus would not only be disrespectful, but also impractical: it’s inaccessible to automobiles, and sometimes, as Chris fatally discovered, difficult to reach even on foot. The movie bus was situated over 50 miles away, southeast of Cantwell, off the Denali Highway, along the Jack River, on Ahtna tribal land.
The film’s incredible 360-degree Alaskan vista features the Talkeetna Range, and was filmed from above the bus site. (Alaska is hot this fall, and not only because of global warming. Two October horror movies – The Last Winter and 30 Days of Night – also take place here.)
A few years ago, producers seriously considered an Easy Rider sequel – this despite the fact that all three major characters are killed off by rednecks in the original. With this in mind, as much as we love Into the Wild, we're hoping there won't be any sequels.
Jack Barth is a frequent contributor to Outside magazine, which first published Krakauer’s original 9000-word piece on McCandless’ touching, inspiring story.
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