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Christopher McCandless’ body was found in his sleeping bag inside the bus by Butch Killian, a local hunter, on September 6, 1992.[6] McCandless had been dead for more than two weeks and weighed an estimated 67 pounds (30 kg). His official, undisputed cause of death was starvation. Krakauer suggests two factors may have contributed to McCandless’s death. First, he was running the risk of a phenomenon known as “rabbit starvation” due to increased activity, compared with the leanness of the game he was hunting.[7] Krakauer also speculates that McCandless might have ingested toxic seeds (Hedysarum alpinum or Hedisarum mackenzii) or a mold that grows on them (Rhizoctonia leguminicola produces the toxic alkaloid swainsonine).

However, an article in Men’s Journal stated that extensive laboratory testing showed there was no toxin present in McCandless’s food supplies. Dr. Thomas Clausen, the chair of the chemistry and biochemistry department at UAF said “I tore that plant apart. There were no toxins. No alkaloids. I’d eat it myself.”[8] Analysis of the wild sweet peas, given as the cause of Chris’s death in Sean Penn’s film, turned up no toxic compounds and there is not a single account in modern medical literature of anyone being poisoned by this species of plant.[4] As one journalist put it: “He didn’t find a way out of the bush, couldn’t catch enough food to survive, and simply starved to death.”[8] However, the possibility of death through the consumption of the mold, which grew on the seeds in the damp bags which McCandless stored them in, was considered a suitable explanation by Krakauer.[2]
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McCandless died of starvation. Talk to native Alaskans and many who subsistence live, will say he died of stupidity.