[at-l] Kim Tragedy Oregon - OT

[RoksnRoots at aol.com]

       I still haven't found out if the Kim's got stuck or just decided to 
stop and wait. If they made it that far in they should have used the hub caps to 
dig out snow and turn the car around and drive back out following their 
tracks. If not Kim should have started off right away the first morning to get 
help. The rules say "stay where you are" but the rules were wrong in this case. If 
Kim had started out on the logging road he would have had fresh energy from 
eating recently. He also would have left his family with enough gas to keep the 
children warm while he went for help. What he ended up doing, instead, was 
going for a long period without food and getting desperate before he set out. 
The timing was best to start right away. 

        The people who cut the lock on the barricade were probably land 
rights westerner types who didn't like being locked out of their mountain haunts. 
Or punks. Those people killed Kim. If the barricade was locked as it was 
supposed to be it would have prevented exactly what it was designed to prevent. They 
probably left the gate open so others could access the area. They could have 
achieved the same purpose by leaving the cut lock in the closed barricade and 
opening it when needed, but they left it wide open. Probably as some kind of 
statement. Kim made the mistake of missing the tiny little snow-covered sign 
saying "coast" going uphill (uphill being counterintuitive - Therefore Kim went 
right and onto the logging road).

         If he set out the first day he could have taken the umbrella for a 
small tent. This could have been supplemented with fir cuttings for an 
emergency shelter. 

        It turns out Kim was 2/3rd's down the woods road leading to the 
highway when he decided to cut down into thick, steep wilderness to follow a river. 
I can imagine what he must have been thinking. Desperate, tired, lacking 
energy and food he was looking at that river the whole time he was walking down 
the road. Thinking to himself that he was going to walk this road for 60 miles 
and end up in a dead end in the center of a vast wilderness. He was sure the 
river would lead to a town where he could hail help. Frustrated he cut down to 
the river over trail-less ledges and cliffs. This was a fatal decision. If Kim 
had only continued another 4 miles or so on the road he would have reached the 
paved road and gotten help. 

          This is where AT through-hiking experience comes in handy. I can 
only imagine the task would be quite different between city people and 
experienced trail walkers. 






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