"It is the exact same thing that happened south of your place a few years back when that Canadian couple decided to take a shortcut through Jarbidge to get to Elko from Twin Falls, in the winter. That turned out badly. "
Lived near there at the time. Late winter with heavy snow in the mountains. Couple missed their US-95 road from Boise to Vegas and were headed east on I84. Realized mistake and asked GPS for shortest route to Vegas without specifying paved roads only. GPS sent them straight south across the Jarbidge mountains. They drove across the valley with their 2 wheel drive van and started up the mountains, encountered deep snow and slid off the unmaintained USFS road. Instead of walking back downhill, out of the snow, and toward the freeway, the husband took his trusty GPS, and started walking over the 9000' pass to a state highway shown 12 miles to the south. Hunters found his remains 18 months later. His wife was found alive at the van 42 days later. She survived on a bag of Jolly Rancher candy and melted snow water.
You can't blame the gps for that. It did exactly what they asked and did it well. Too often a gps is blamed for user error. The biggest problem is that a user doesn't have the sense to turn around when the road is obviously deteriorating. There's also such a thing as zooming out with a gps and taking a look at the whole area, not just what's down the road in front of your nose. They would have easily seen Wells, NV, Hwy 93, and I-80.
