offroadjosh1

i live about 200 miles north of gold beach. i have taken that exact same road in the summer and winter. we used the jeep in the winter and several of us still got stuck with tires no smaller than 40in. its a nasty road in the winter. there was like 4ft of snow

Hankpac

Mr Kim was a prime example of what a person who is doomed to die, does to seal that doom. At every step of the way, he made exactly the opposite choice from that which would have saved him.
The SF papers are spinning this to make him seem like a hero of some sort.
He disregarded the warning signs, drove into deeper and deeper snow until he got stuck, walked the WRONG direction to find help, left the road to go cross country, and in the end even walked in the creek getting himself wet.
When he started leaving clothes behind, and walking in circles it was a matter of whether the teams would find him before the bears whch had been tracking him.
He walked almost 10 miles, and ended up less than a mile from where he started.
Those city types seem to not understand a basic set of truths: the wilderness ISN"T glad to see you. You CAN get killed out there. You are NOT as smart as you think you are. Bambi, Thumper and Flower are not waiting to sing you songs, and yes, the bear WILL eat you.
I have spent a lifetime in the wilderness hunting and camping, summer and winter. I live in the mountains, and daily have to deal with the realities of life up here, Including rattle snakes in the back yard, and cougars coming down the creek to hunt the deer sheltering in the town.
Even in medicine we warn about being too reliant of gadgetry: "Don't be a scope watcher, watch the patient." Beleiving his mapping service, and not looking at the reality right outside his window, was his first lethal mistake.

Fronty Owner

Maybe we need a car smart enough to keep people from driving beyond the ability of the lowest common denominator.
If you cant park your car, we will make the car park for you.
If you cant drive in snow, we will make a car that wont let you get stuck.
If you fall asleep driving, we will make a car that will safely pull over to the side of the road, turn on the hazard lights, cover you up with a blanket and turn off the engine so you can sleep safely.

Its a tragedy that someone died, but I honestly believe we are making things worse. We are promoting and rewarding stupidity while hampering and punishing intellegent thought.

bmoeller

Well said Fronty.

If there is an attempted lawsuit with a on-line map service because of this, I hope it either is thrown out, or ignored by by a judge.

I somehow doubt this guy ever took many road trips. Particularly in the winter. That guy should've also checked the road conditions on-line, or called any state DOT for road conditions, and kept a better eye on the weather forcasts.

I use the on-line maps for a quick guide, and check several different sites, and check them against my truckers atlas.

bkrukow

Last August I was ATVing in Colorado. We had started in a little town called Pitkin. This town is has only 5-10 year round residents so its not much of a town obviously. Its mostly a summer vacation cabin place. We headed up and over Wiliams Pass twards the revived gost town of St. Elmo wich has 0 residents only a small gift shop and a few other tourist type of buisneses. Williams Pass is only open during the month of August so 11 months of the year it is gatted on both ends and stryctly off limits to motorized transport. From Pitkin to St. Elmo is abought 15 miles 5 of wich are the gatted portion of Williams Pass. There is anouther rout around the other side of the mountain that paralels Williams known as Hanckock pass. Both are serious off road trails that are only passable on an ATV or Jeep type of vehicle. After we had made our way over Williams and where on a "road"(of sorts anyway) again we met a lady in a minivan full of kids. The first people in our group blew buy her because they figured they where just heading to the trail head and gona do some hikeing. I was bringing up the tail of our group and she stopped and waved me and anouther guy down. She wanted to get to Gunnison. That is abought 30 miles from Pitkin down a gravel road. She asked if the road got any better or if it was like this(where she was was abought the limit of a minivan) the rest of the way. I abought fell off the machine laphing. I politely told her to do a U turn and go back the way she came. She then exclaimed that she had directions that told her to go this way. I told here they where wrong and that the road as she knew it ended a mile ahead. She then grabbed her "directions" off the dash and it was a GPS navigation system that she was following. I told her to throw it away and gave her directions to get where she was going. She had abought a 3 hour drive ahead of her to get back where she started to catch the only road her van would go down to get her to Gunnison.

This is the "road" she was on when I met her. This is a interstate compared to where she was headed.


This is Williams Pass where her GPS Navigation system had her going.





Ya, I think Ill save my money for something that works.

Fronty Owner

That makes me want a GPS Nav system. Just to see what kind of crackhead directions it gives me.

I mean come on, I have taken my 1995 edition Rand McNally road atlas everywhere I have gone and I have never ran into any problems.
Of lately, I use the web to find a particular "place" in a city. Its even helpful to get from my house to Point B and figure out how long it should take.