Jon Krakauer
走入荒野
乔恩。克拉库尔
云天译
CHAPTER ONE
THE ALASKA INTERIOR
第一章 走进阿拉斯加
April 27th, 1992
Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne. Arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory. But I finally got here.
Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know you 're a great man. I now walk into the wild. Alex.
Postcard received by wayne westerberg
in carthage, south dakota
1992年4月27日
来自费尔班克斯的问候！韦恩，这是我写给你的最后一封信。我两天前抵达此地。在育康地区搭便车相当难。不过我终于到了。
请把写给我的所有信件退回寄信人。我大概要过很久才会返回南方。如果这次冒险以灾难收场，我从此音信全无，那么我希望告诉你，你是一个高尚的人。我此刻走入荒野。 亚历克斯
韦恩。韦斯特贝格收到的明信片
于南达科他州的迦太基
Jim Gallien had driven four miles out of Fairbanks when he spotted the hitchhiker standing in the snow beside the road, thumb raised high, shivering in the gray Alaska dawn. He didn't appear to be very old: eighteen, maybe nineteen at most. A rifle protruded from the young man's backpack, but he looked friendly enough; a hitchhiker with a Remington semiautomatic isn't the sort of thing that gives motorists pause in the forty-ninth state. Gallien steered his truck onto the shoulder and told the kid to climb in.
吉姆。加利恩开出费尔班克斯4英里时，看到路边雪地里站着一个人，在阿拉斯加灰色的黎明里瑟瑟发抖，竖着大拇指，请求搭便车。他看起来年龄不大，也就十八，最多十九的模样。年轻人扛着背包，里面伸出一支步枪，但他面相友善。在美国第四十九州，一个身背雷明顿半自动步枪的搭车人, 并不会让司机心生犹疑。加利恩把车停到路边，让男孩上车。
The hitchhiker swung his pack into the bed of the Ford and introduced himself as Alex. "Alex?" Gallien responded, fishing for a last name.
搭车人把背包甩到福特车厢里，自我介绍叫亚历克斯。”亚历克斯？“加利恩反问，想钓到他的姓。
"Just Alex," the young man replied, pointedly rejecting the bait. Five feet seven or eight with a wiry build, he claimed to be twenty-four years old and said he was from South Dakota. He explained that he wanted a ride as far as the edge of Denali National Park, where he intended to walk deep into the bush and "live off the land for a few months."
”就叫亚历克斯，“年轻人回答，坚决不肯上钩。他身高五尺七、八左右，瘦而结实，自称二十四岁，来自南达科他州。他说他想搭车到迪纳利国家公园边上，再从那儿走入丛林深处，“在与世隔绝的地方住几个月。”
Gallien, a union electrician, was on his way to Anchorage, 240 miles beyond Denali on the George Parks Highway; he told Alex he'd drop him off wherever he wanted. Alex's backpack looked as though it weighed only twenty-five or thirty pounds, which struck Gallien，an accomplished hunter and woodsman as an improbably light load for a stay of several months in the back-country, especially so early in the spring. "He wasn't carrying anywhere near as much food and gear as you'd expect a guy to be carrying for that kind of trip," Gallien recalls.
加利恩，一个工会电工，当时正行驶在乔治公园高速公路上，开往距迪纳利国家公园240英里的安克雷奇。他告诉亚历克斯他随便在哪儿下车都行。亚历克斯的背包不过25或35磅重，加利恩是个有经验的猎人和伐木工，看了不免吃惊，要到人烟渺茫之地呆几个月，尤其是寒冷的早春，这点装备轻得几乎令人难以置信。“他带的那点食物和行头，根本达不到那种性质旅游的基本要求," 加利恩回忆当时的情景。
The sun came up. As they rolled down from the forested ridges above the Tanana River, Alex gazed across the expanse of windswept muskeg stretching to the south. Gallien wondered whether he'd picked up one of those crackpots from the lower forty-eight who come north to live out ill-considered Jack London fantasies. Alaska has long been a magnet for dreamers and misfits, people who think the unsullied enormity of the Last Frontier will patch all the holes in their lives. The bush is an unforgiving place, however, that cares nothing for hope or longing.
太阳出来了。他们从俯瞰塔纳纳河的葱郁山脊上一路下行。亚历克斯凝望着大片伸向南面的寒风肆虐的沼泽地。加利恩寻思，这小伙子没准也是个来自南方48州的疯子，北上此地，体验杰克。伦敦式的盲目幻想。很久以来，阿拉斯加就吸引着那些追梦人和社会异类。他们以为这块广袤纯净的最后荒野会补偿他们生命中大大小小的缺失。然而，丛林绝非仁慈之地，希翼也好，渴望也罢，又与它何干。
"People from Outside," reports Gallien in a slow, sonorous drawl, "they'll pick up a copy of Alaska magazine, thumb through it, get to thinkin' 'Hey, I'm goin' to get on up there, live off the land, go claim me a piece of the good life.' But when they get here and actually head out into the bush--well, it isn't like the magazines make it out to be. The rivers are big and fast. The mosquitoes eat you alive. Most places, there aren't a lot of animals to hunt. Livin' in the bush isn't no picnic."
"外来人嘛，” 加利恩声如洪钟，慢悠悠地拖着长腔，“ 他们拿起一本阿拉斯加杂志，边翻边想，‘哈，我要到那去，远离人烟，好好享受人生。’ 可等他们到了这儿，真的走进林子里， 就发现跟杂志上说的完全两码事。河流又宽又急。蚊子能把人叮死。大部分地方，没多少动物可以捕猎。住在林子里哪是闹着玩的。”
It was a two-hour drive from Fairbanks to the edge of Denali Park. The more they talked, the less Alex struck Gallien as a nutcase. He was congenial and seemed well educated. He peppered Gallien with thoughtful questions about the kind of small game that live in the country, the kinds of berries he could eat-- ”that kind of thing."
从费尔班克斯开到德纳利国家公园边上，约两小时。两人话越聊越多，他在加利恩眼里也就不怎么像狂人了。亚历克斯很友善，看起来受过良好教育。他一路上不停地问加利恩一些经过思考的问题，比方野外什么小猎物可以捕获，什么野果可以摘来吃，“诸如此类的事“。
Still, Gallien was concerned. Alex admitted that the only food in his pack was a ten-pound bag of rice. His gear seemed exceedingly minimal for the harsh conditions of the interior, which in April still lay buried under the winter snowpack. Alex's cheap leather hiking boots were neither waterproof nor well insulated. His rifle was only .22 caliber, a bore too small to rely on if he expected to kill large animals like moose and caribou, which he would have to eat if he hoped to remain very long in the country. He had no ax, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass. The only navigational aid in his possession was a tattered state road map he'd scrounged at a gas station.
尽管如此，加利恩还是不放心。亚历克斯坦承，他唯一的食物就是背包里的一袋十磅大米。四月的丛林仍是冬雪覆盖，要对付如此恶劣的环境，他那点行头简直微乎其微。亚历克斯便宜的皮革登山靴既不防水也不保暖。他的来复枪口径仅仅。22，要想靠它射杀麋鹿之类的大动物，也太小了点。可他若想在野外呆一阵子，没肉吃绝对不行。而且，斧头、杀虫剂、雪鞋、指南针，这些他都没带。他身上唯一可以用来辨路的，是在加油站搞到的一张烂兮兮的阿州公路图。
A hundred miles out of Fairbanks the highway begins to climb into the foothills of the Alaska Range. As the truck lurched over a bridge across the Nenana River, Alex looked down at the swift current and remarked that he was afraid of the water. "A year ago down in Mexico," he told Gallien, "I was out on the ocean in a canoe, and I almost drowned when a storm came up."
开出费尔班克斯一百英里后，高速公路开始攀行阿拉斯加山脉的丘陵山坡。卡车从尼纳纳河上的桥摇摇晃晃驶过时，亚历克斯看着桥下的湍流，说自己怕水。他告诉加利恩，“一年前在墨西哥，我划着独木舟出海，差点儿让暴风雨给淹死。”
A little later Alex pulled out his crude map and pointed to a dashed red line that intersected the road near the coal-mining town of Healy. It represented a route called the Stampede Trail. Seldom traveled, it isn't even marked on most road maps of Alaska. On Alex's map, nevertheless, the broken line meandered west from the Parks Highway for forty miles or so before petering out in the middle of trackless wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. This, Alex announced to Gallien, was where he intended to go.
过了片刻，亚历克斯掏出皱巴巴的地图，指着煤矿小镇希利旁边，一道与公路交叉的红色虚线，那是一条叫斯坦佩德小径的路。由于野径人稀，阿拉斯加大部分公路图上甚至都没有标注。可在亚历克斯的地图上，这条虚线从乔治公园高速公路，向西蜿蜒四十英里左右，才消失在麦金利山以北荒无人径的旷野里。亚历克斯向加利恩宣布，这，就是他的向往之地。
Gallien thought the hitchhiker's scheme was foolhardy and tried repeatedly to dissuade him: "I said the hunting wasn't easy where he was going, that he could go for days without killing any game. When that didn't work, I tried to scare him with bear stories. I told him that a twenty-two probably wouldn't do anything to a grizzly except make him mad. Alex didn't seem too worried. ‘I'll climb a tree' is all he said. So I explained that trees don't grow real big in that part of the state, that a bear could knock down one of them skinny little black spruce without even trying. But he wouldn't give an inch. He had an answer for everything I threw at him."
加利恩认为这小伙子的计划太冒失了，再三劝阻，“我说他去的那疙瘩打猎不容易，可能多少天下来都一无所获。我看这招不灵，又拿熊故事吓他。我告诉他，用.22 口径的步枪打大灰熊，可能无济于事，只会把他惹恼。亚历克斯一脸无所谓的样子，只说了句，’我会爬到树上‘ 。我跟他解释，阿州他要去的那一带，树木都长不大，大熊不费吹灰之力，就能撞倒瘦小的黑云杉。但他不为所动。不论我说什么，他都振振有词。”
Gallien offered to drive Alex all the way to Anchorage, buy him some decent gear, and then drive him back to wherever he wanted to go.
加利恩提议带亚历克斯一路开到安克雷奇，为他置些像样的行头，然后掉转车头，把他送回到他想下车的地方。
"No, thanks anyway," Alex replied, "I'll be fine with what I've got."
“不必，但多谢了，”亚历克斯回答，“我背包里的东西就够了。”
Gallien asked whether he had a hunting license.
加利恩问他是否有打猎许可。
"Hell, no," Alex scoffed. "How I feed myself is none of the government's business. Fuck their stupid rules."
“当然没有，” 亚历克斯嗤之以鼻，“我怎么喂饱自己，关政府鸟事。让他们的滥规定见鬼吧。”
When Gallien asked whether his parents or a friend knew what he was up to whether there was anyone who would sound the alarm if he got into trouble and was overdue. Alex answered calmly that no, nobody knew of his plans, that in fact he hadn't spoken to his family in nearly two years. "I'm absolutely positive," he assured Gallien, "I won't run into anything I can't deal with on my own."
加利恩问他，他父母或朋友可知道他的计划，如果他遇上麻烦逾期未归，是不是有人会报警。 亚历克斯平静地回答没有，没人知道他的计划，事实上他跟家里人近两年来都没说过话。“我绝对有把握，”他向加利恩打包票，“我不会碰上我对付不了的事。”
"There was just no talking the guy out of it," Gallien remembers. "He was determined. Real gung ho. The word that comes to mind is excited. He couldn't wait to head out there and get started."
"跟他说什么都白费口舌，“加利恩回忆，”他铁了心了，狂热得一塌糊涂。我脑袋里想到的词儿就是兴奋。他迫不及待地要赶到那儿，开始新生活。“
Three hours out of Fairbanks, Gallien turned off the highway and steered his beat-up 4x4 down a snow-packed side road. For the first few miles the Stampede Trail was well graded and led past cabins scattered among weedy stands of spruce and aspen. Beyond the last of the log shacks, however, the road rapidly deteriorated. Washed out and overgrown with alders, it turned into a rough, unmaintained track.
出费尔班克斯三小时后，加利恩下了高速公路，把他破旧的四轮驱动卡车开到铺满积雪的小路上。斯坦佩德小径前几英里路况还不错，路两边丛生的云杉和白杨树间零星散落着些小木屋。可是过了最后一片木屋，路况就一下子变得惨不忍睹。这段路坑坑洼洼，年久失修，被水冲毁的路面上长满了赤杨。
In summer the road here would have been sketchy but passable; now it was made unnavigable by a foot and a half of mushy spring snow. Ten miles from the highway, worried that he'd get stuck if he drove farther, Gallien stopped his rig on the crest of a low rise. The icy summits of the highest mountain range in North America gleamed on the southwestern horizon.
夏天时，这段路崎岖不平，但还能凑合着开过去。但眼下，路上积了一英尺半厚的泥泞春雪，车子根本过不去。已经出了高速公路十英里，加利恩担心再朝前开，会陷在雪地里，于是把车停在一个矮坡上。西南地平线上，北美最高山脉的冰峰雪光闪闪。
Alex insisted on giving Gallien his watch, his comb, and what he said was all his money: eighty-five cents in loose change. "I don't want your money," Gallien protested, "and I already have a watch."
亚历克斯坚持把他的手表、梳子，连同85分零钱-- 据他说这是他全部的钱，都送给加利恩。“我不要你的钱，” 加利恩不肯收，“并且我有自己的手表。”
"If you don't take it, I'm going to throw it away," Alex cheerfully retorted. "I don't want to know what time it is. I don't want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters."
“如果你不收下，那我就扔掉，” 亚历克斯乐呵呵地反驳，“我不想知道时间、日期，也不想知道我在哪儿。这些统统无所谓。”
Before Alex left the pickup, Gallien reached behind the seat, pulled out an old pair of rubber work boots, and persuaded the boy to take them. "They were too big for him," Gallien recalls. "But I said, 'Wear two pair of socks, and your feet ought to stay halfway warm and dry.'"
亚历克斯下车前，加利恩从座椅后面拿出一双旧的橡胶工作靴，说服小伙子收下靴子。“他穿着太大了，” 加利恩回忆，“ 但我说，‘穿两双袜子，你的脚就会比较暖，不会湿掉。”
"How much do I owe you?"
"Don't worry about it," Gallien answered. Then he gave the kid a slip of paper with his phone number on it, which Alex carefully tucked into a nylon wallet.
"If you make it out alive, give me a call, and I'll tell you how to get the boots back to me."
“我欠你多少钱？”
“别担心这个，” 加利恩回答。然后他把一张写有他电话号码的纸片递给这孩子，亚历克斯把它小心地塞进尼龙钱包里。
“如果你活着走出林子，给我打个电话，我会告诉你怎样把靴子还给我。”
Gallien's wife had packed him two grilled-cheese-and-tuna sandwiches and a bag of corn chips for lunch; he persuaded the young hitchhiker to accept the food as well. Alex pulled a camera from his backpack and asked Gallien to snap a picture of him shouldering his rifle at the trailhead. Then, smiling broadly, he disappeared down the snow-covered track. The date was Tuesday, April 28, 1992.
加利恩的太太给他准备了两份烤奶酪金枪鱼三明治和一袋玉米片做中餐。他说服年轻人也收下这些食物。亚历克斯从背包里取出相机，让加利恩给他照张肩扛步枪站在斯坦佩得小径路口的相片。然后，他满面笑容地消失在积雪覆盖的小径上。那天是礼拜二，1992年4月28号。
Gallien turned the truck around, made his way back to the Parks Highway, and continued toward Anchorage. A few miles down the road he came to the small community of Healy, where the Alaska State Troopers maintain a post. Gallien briefly considered stopping and telling the authorities about Alex, then thought better of it. "I figured he'd be OK," he explains. "I thought he'd probably get hungry pretty quick and just walk out to the highway. That's what any normal person would do."
加利恩掉转车头，回到乔治公园高速公路上，继续朝安克雷奇开去。又开了几英里，他来到一个叫希利的小镇，阿拉斯加州警在这里有一个哨所。加利恩一度想停下来，向当局报告亚历克斯的事，然后又改了主意。“我想他应该没事，” 他解释说，“我以为他可能很快就会饿得受不了，走出林子，到高速公路旁搭车。任何正常人都会这么做。”
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