Hiker on honeymoon dies trying to get to ‘Into the Wild’ bus

A woman who was trying to hike to an abandoned bus made famous in the book and movie "Into the Wild" died after being swept away in a river.

ANCHORAGE, July 26 (Reuters) – A woman who was trying to hike to an abandoned bus made famous in the book and movie “Into the Wild” died after being swept away in a river, Alaska state troopers said on Friday.

Veranika Nikanava, 24, was pulled underwater when she tried to cross the Teklanika River with her husband, Piotr Markielau, also 24, in their journey to the site where hiker Christopher McCandless perished in 1992, the troopers said.

There is a rope stretched across the river to help hikers, but waters were waist-high and swift-running when the Belarusian couple tried to cross on Thursday night, said Ken Marsh, an Alaska State Trooper spokesman.

“Ms. (Nikanava) apparently lost her footing and her grip on the rope,” he said in an email.

Hundreds of visitors have ventured over the years to the now-famous Stampede Trail on the northeast edge of Denali National Park to try to reach the wrecked vehicle now known as the “Magic Bus.”

The abandoned Fairbanks city bus was used as shelter by the 24-year-old McCandless before he died of what the state coroner determined to be starvation. A diary he left describing his final days became material for the book written by Jon Krakauer and the 2007 movie, which stars Emile Hirsch.

A woman from Switzerland died in 2010, also drowning while trying to cross the Teklanika River. Several others have been rescued.

According to the latest available data, there were 15 state search-and-rescue missions into the area from 2009 to 2017, Marsh said.

Nikanava and Markielau had been married less than a month, Marsh said.

Her body has been recovered and sent to the state medical examiner’s office, the troopers said.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage Editing by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Sonya Hepinstall)