The Kim family -- parents James and Kati and children Penelope, 4, and Sabine, 7 months -- disappeared Nov. 25, 2006, as they drove to Gold Beach from Merlin, just north of Grants Pass off Interstate 5. Kati Kim, 30, and her daughters were found Dec. 4 with the car after being stuck in the snow for nine days with few supplies. James Kim, 35, was found dead two days later in a creek. He had walked more than 16 miles in the cold and snow in a futile effort to get help.
Earlier that year, I hunted that wrong turn intersection with Seafire.
Very sad deal...
That incident still haunts me. It showed what dumbasses city people can be, when they get back off main highways, and in places like Oregon.
The husband was the only casualty in that incident. He was Korean and his wife was American., they had two young kids...
They were up here in Oregon, and coming back from Potlandia, they decided to cut over to the coast, and take HWY 101 down, back home to San Francisco. There were signs that tells the roads are considered closed from Nov 1 on. However being all knowing Californians, they owned a SAAB.
Having seen the same happen in Minnesota, I am sure they were told by the car salesman, how tough these cars are.. they will go thru anything, or any type of weather... Heck you never even need snowtires on a SAAB. They are made in Sweden and they are built for any kind of weather on the planet. I've seen billboards on I 80 going up over the Sierras, where car dealers have posted the same kind of crap on 4 WD cars and SUVs... YOU"LL NEVER NEED SNOW TIRES!
Kim was one of these California city people, aka Clueless. So he drives up into the snow, until it gets so deep, and hangs up his SAAB. He just figures he'll wait until someone comes along. TWO days pass and no one has come along. The passes are listed as closed! He has burnt up all his fuel, keeping the car running so his kids are warm. Wifey complains that its so cold, so he takes the tires off the car, one by one and burns them to try to keep warm. They've ate all the food they had with them.. Kids and wife are complaining they are hungry. Where they were, I am glad that a bear or cougar didn't wonder into where they were. Those animals are all over the place up in the mountains of our county. and its winter, so the bears are looking for anything to eat, to fatten up before hibernation.
No one ever came along, not only was the passes listed as closed, he was on Forest Service Roads.. They get no maintenance all winter. He also took a wrong turn on what looked like the main road. It eventually just dead ended... that is where he got hung up. Welcome of Southern Oregon, where the road forked to head over to the coast ( he wouldn't have made it anyway), but the only sign you see directing to the coast, is spray painted on the hard top, with an arrow pointing left, up a narrower road. It was covered in snow, so they never saw it.
Kim finally decided to walk out for help., to get food and warmth for his family. Search and Rescue were looking all over the place for them, as their family had contacted Oregon State Police, and said they were due home and had never made it. A private pilot found the car from the Air, and directed S&R to where they were. They went up and saved the mom and the kids. Thank God...
But Kim himself, he succumbed to his death, by freezing to death. He stayed on the main road for about 10 to 12 miles. He finally got to a point, that down off the mountain, he saw a road with cars going back and forth on it. Down there, it was low enough, there wasn't snow on the road, or mountain side.. it was only up higher on elevation, where the temps are below 32 degrees. So he gets off the hard top, and tries to make his way down a mountain side, which is at a 45 degree angle, on top of being full of snags, drop offs etc. In snow and ice.
So he decides to try and walk in a stream, which was running with high water in it, off the mountainside. He made it about 1/2 mile off the mountainside, and succumbed to hyperthermia. Sad way to have to die... but he also leaves behind a wife and two kids.
If he would have stayed on the same road he was on, instead of trying to take that short cut, in 4 more miles he would have come along to where there were houses, and people live there year round.
What really made me mad over this, was the guys on lack of knowledge for the environment he was in. This is basic stuff we teach 11 and 12 year old boys, in Boy Scouts. NOT long after this happened, it was on the news, that some 11 year old scout in Utah had gotten lost on a group hike.
He was alone and by himself for three days, but he stayed where he was at, and was discovered, and rescued.
you are out in the wild country, at elevation and where there is no one living there for miles and miles, and its winter. you shouldn't be there in the first place. But you move, you turn yourself into a needle in a moving hay stack, making it 10 times harder for those looking for you to find you.
Kim had no clue and made his wife a widow and his two kids fatherless. If he would have stayed on the pave road, and kept going , as that was the way he got up there, he would have come across those houses with people in them and been able to save himself and his family.
They drove by his frozen body, down a creek bed, 1/2 mile off the road. A route he chose to take...
Sure he was trying to save his family, but he had no clue of what to do, and it was his and his own wife's cluelessness that put them and those two kids in that situation. Its what happened to his wife and kids that angers me over all of this. Thank God they didn't end up like Dad, or even worse, been eaten by a cougar or bear.
After that, the Forest Circus now has barricades on that road, and signs all over the place. Yet at the same time, there is a cut off road, down by where those houses are, that got paved and goes up to that same area, when they were repairing a rockslide several years later, and
re-routing traffic. That road is much more dangerous, with real steep inclines and declines in it.. and curvey as hell. Its call Peavine RD, if that gives one a clue, what it might be like. There are NO Signs saying it is closed and has no maintenance on it from NOV to April., there are no barricades to block traffic from using it. typical Forest Circus, put a bandaid on a crack in the dyke.
Years ago, I came across a Motorhome up there. California plates. They were out of fuel, on a road that has signs banning motorhomes, 5th wheels etc from using the road. Narrow, not many places to turn a rig like that around etc..
These people were up there crossing the mountains on Forest Service Roads, because they wanted a scenic drive heading north, more than the coastal hwy ( US 101) offered. Like many Californians and City People, they ignore signs, like the sign doesn't apply to them. These two elderly people got stuck. They ran out of fuel, not filling up or topping off before they headed over the mountains. They had no cell service up there, because there are NO Towers for miles.. many many miles. They ran their batteries down to nothing try to call for help. They burnt up all their fuel trying to stay warmer at night. .They were finally almost out of food.
I came across them. I was there as I knew that road. The only source of life that had seen, was some bears that had tried to break into their Winnebago for food. They had no guns to defend themselves what so ever. There family members hadn't been looking for them, as they were retired and on vacation, and had left telling family they'd be home when they got home.
When I came across them, they were ragged, scared to death, had run out of their medications, were eating little, to conserve what food they had.
They had been stranded up there for 6 weeks.. I came across them in late July.
I took them down to civilization, and stayed with them, until they had contacted family, contacted the Forest Service over their ordeal. Left them in a motel in Gold Beach. Their credit cards still worked and they had money. Guess someone went up there and towed their motor home in and out of the wilderness. I often wonder if I hadn't come across them, they would have probably starved to death up there, if the bears hadn't gotten them.
Its hard to have sympathy for people who put themselves into situations like that. Makes me wonder how many clueless folks have never made it out of being stranded out and up in those mountains.. which cover much of Oregon, California and Washington.... IN fact most of the West.... just seems people are smarter in the Rocky Mtn states vs the West Coast. Even the Urbanites.
