Chris McCandless, the young man Jon Krakauer writes about in Into The Wild, has made the decision to give up everything and abandon civilization. This is one of the big questions here, Chris was a reckless idiot for leaving everything and only relying on what nature provided. This is what a lot of people seem to be talking about when they talk about Chris McCandless. There are many people who think that Chris McCandless was a reckless idiot who was mentally ill, or that there was something else wrong with Chris. It seems like almost everyone who met Chris thought that maybe Chris was crazy or had some issues. Here are just a few things people have said about Chris and his state of mind. “Zarza admits by saying, “he was always talking about trees and nature and Burres said, “I thought Alex went crazy when he told us about his 'great Alaskan odyssey,' as he called it” (Krakauer 45). “Alex is a madman in my opinion, wrote a Healy resident” (Krakauer 71). "because someone who intends to 'live off the land for a few months,' forgets the number one rule of the Boy Scouts, be prepared. Why would a child cause his parents and family such permanent and bewildering pain?" (Krakauer 71). There were a lot more people who thought Chris was a reckless idiot, but there were also a lot more people who didn't think Chris was a reckless idiot. idiot, and instead thought Chris was smart and brave. There were many people that Chris had met during his travels, and he had managed to truly touch their hearts and change their lives forever McCandless, Carine McCandless, Charlie, Ronald Franz and Jan Burres were some of them. Chris knew these people in life or met them before the great Alaskan odyssey. Had Chris definitely made an impact on all these people's lives and these people probably would have. I wouldn't call Chris a reckless idiot, but instead I would call him smart and brave. One of the people Chris met before the Alaska trip that really impressed me was Ronald