ANCHORAGE, Sept. 19— A young hiker who starved to death after he was stranded by injury was identified Friday, two weeks after his body and a diary describing his efforts to survive were found at a remote camp in the Alaskan interior.
The key to confirming his identity was a roll of film that was also found at the camp. On it was a self-portrait.
State troopers said the hiker was Christopher J. McCandless, a 24-year-old from Annandale, Va., who graduated from Emory University in Atlanta after studying psychology and philosophy. He went by the name of Alex, they said.
"He was out on an expedition of life," said Wayne Westerberg, who had hired Mr. McCandless for seasonal work at his small wheat-harvesting operation near Madison, S.D. "He had to try everything, to do everything."
Mr. McCandless's badly decomposed body was found Sept. 6 by hunters on the sparsely traveled Stampede Trail just outside Denali National Park, 100 miles southwest of Fairbanks.
The diary was found near his body. Its 113 entries, some as brief as "misery" or "lonely, scared," suggested that he hurt himself in a fall through ice and weakened over several months.
State troopers said they believed McCandless died in late July.
At the camp, troopers found a roll of film that had a picture of an emaciated Mr. McCandless. "We faxed it to his parents, who were pretty sure -- 90-plus percent -- that it was their son," Trooper First Sgt. Mike Corkill said Friday. Dental records supplied by Mr. McCandless's parents were used for a positive identification.
An autopsy revealed no massive internal injuries or broken bones, the authorities said.
Just before Mr. McCandless headed out in Alaska, he sent a postcard to Mr. Westerberg that broadly hinted he knew he might not be coming back.
"This is the last you'll hear from me, Wayne," he wrote to Wayne Westerberg, who lives near Sioux Falls, S.D. On the other side of the card, dated April 27 and postmarked Fairbanks, was a picture of a polar bear.
"Please return all mail I receive to the sender," the note said. "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 are a great man."
