Pilgrimage Lost.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — An abandoned bus in the Alaska backcountry, popularized by the book “Into the Wild” and a movie of the same name, was removed Thursday, state officials said.  The decision prioritizes public safety, Alaska Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige said.

The bus has long attracted adventurers to an area without cellphone service and marked by unpredictable weather and at-times swollen rivers. Some have had to be rescued or have died. Christopher McCandless, the subject of the book and movie, died there in 1992.

The rescue earlier this year of five Italian tourists and death last year of a woman from Belarus intensified calls from local officials for the bus, about 25 miles from the Parks Highway, to be removed.  The Alaska Army National Guard moved the bus as part of a training mission “at no cost to the public or additional cost to the state,” Feige said.