For those folks who thought the Kims were idiots

There was a post a couple of days ago about the California couple and their two kids who ran into trouble on a back road in Oregon while on their way down the Oregon coast. A number of posters, one in particular, seemed to think that they had acted recklessly and with the predictable results. In effect, while it was sad, they deserved it. I hope the following makes them rethink their position.

The road that James Kim and his family took on their tragic trip to Oregon's Gold Beach was unlocked by vandals said a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management. A gate crossed the road on November 1 to prevent anybody from taking the road but someone destroyed the lock and opened it.

The Kims were on their way to a resort at Gold Beach but missed their turnoff. They checked their map and found the road they took would take them to their destination. They drove 15 miles up the road and got stuck in the snow. The freed their car then started back down the road. They stopped because they were afraid they would run out of gas.

Tragic, yes. Reckless, no.

more concerned about. If they are found they should be prosecuted to the full extant of the law.

I live about 20 miles from where Mr. Kim died. I can't say some of the things I want to say because they just sound mean and bigoted. But this is republican territory. It's beer, guns, monster trucks, and tossing garbage out the window as you drive drunk. I swear if I were a cop, I could make a dui bust every fifteen minutes here.

I have one of those roads ON my property. I have even fought with BLM to get a lock on that stinking gate, because even though the idiots have miles of road to shoot on, they chose to shoot on private property, just behind my house. And I'm talking everything from hand guns to CANNONS. I kid you not. Try walking out to your garden on a Sunday morning to gunshot. I better use some brevity here, because I'm pretty damned enraged about having moved here. So I'll just leave it at that.

But not only do they shoot every animal that moves, but they crash any gate that is locked. BLM even admitted that it would be useless to lock it. So I locked it, at the risk of committing a federal crime. Just for one weekend. And by the end of the weekend, someone had literally chainsawed a trail around the gate, down to the creek and up the other side.

Oh, and one more thing. I have learned not to confront these people, however nicely. I tried to persuade someone shooting above my house one time, and they gave me that republican look of defiance. And then shot until long after dark, just to make a point.

This place is rabid retarded republican land.

And that's just my introduction. Want to buy the most beautiful property on earth? It's for sale. Sadly, I want out of here. It's a logging community. Not a place to live.

Have this as an apology. It's not all bad. I'm eating salmon this week. I found it a few hours after it had finished spawning. I would never kill the fish. I have fantastic fish in the creeks right now. I spent the day just walking around looking at the few that are here. Logging on the west coast has decimated them. But some is better than none.

particularly if I could learn how to smoke it and make lox.

Sorry to hear that you are having all of these problems but I am kind of dialed in to what you are talking about. I live in Indiana which I don't think it can get any more red than what it is now. However, I live in central Indiana and most of the gun nuts are in the south part of the state. You are right not to confront these people as some of them can be flat out dangerous.

You're story though does remind me about a couple of years ago my wife and I were staying with some friends on their farm out in the woods just south of Atlanta. The first morning we woke up there was at sunrise to the sound of gunfire from the hunters. And you are right it sounded like cannons going off. My host and I decided later on they must be using Mossberg's as at first I thought that the war had started.

Best of wishes and good luck. You are wise to keep a cool head when dealing with some of these people.

FFC

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Oh, and one more thing. I have learned not to confront these people, however nicely.
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My neighbor (a retired farmer) had an artificial leg because one of these types simply shot him in the leg when asked to get off the property (they were hunting without permission on the farm). Guns and booze and good buddies trying to top each other's testosterone levels = bad combination.

I spend a lot of time in the mountains of northern NM. Same song, different verse. Sure I want to move there but after the last several years of dealing with exactly the same kind of folk... I have to ask why?

On my last 2 week trip, I had 4 ATV's drive through my campsite not once but several days in a row. Same group of hunters. Hootin' and hollerin' all the way... wavin' like some how this was "cool".

It only ended after I went up to a logging area, grabbed me some large stumps and brought them back down to our site to block their path. Of course then they got pissed. What part of "the rule for entering someones camp site" did they not understand??? Not to mention "property" as in your case ???

My point is... it doesn't matter if you "own" your land or are just visiting in a Natl. Forest... these asshats are completely out of control.

BTW: What do you want for your property.. maybe we could work out a trade ??? I've got a nice 2 story here in Austin that has none of these problems...
I'm willing to sell or trade.... seriously.
MZr7

I can't believe it myself. It's crazy.

Being a music lover, I've heard about Austin. It might not be too bad.

But I'm trying to get back down to N. California where I came from. And I'm looking for bare land. That is if I can find any. The inventory is just the opposite as for houses. It's almost zero. And very expensive.

Plus I don't want less than 100 acres. So that kind of limits me to a pretty small target.

But thanks!

you move closer to the coast where I live (lots of acreage for sale), but there ain't no getting away from the gun people here.

A year or so after I moved here, I was in a surplus store checking out some feathers for jewelry making. From a large area in the back, I heard several men talking about guns. (I am a city girl from SF and never knew you could buy guns and ammo in your local corner store.)

I wheeled back there asked asked the men who they thought they needed protection from. Since it was after 9/11, I expected them to say "terrorists". Wrong! They said they were protecting themselves from...







the government.

So, in case of Martial Law, I guess I'm living in the right place?

that just sucks. Better to leave.

It gets the adrenalin pumping and who needs peace and quiet when everyone is telling you, "Damn, IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL HERE!" and isn't it funny to see the dog quivering like she's going to melt into a puddle of fright and stuck to my leg like glue whenever the guns start booming 300 feet away.


They say they're setting their sights. I say bullcrap, but I'm in cowboy country where men are men, and if a man can't shoot his gun every time there's a beautiful day outside, he ain't no kind of man, now, is he?

:sarcasm:

You sure got that one right.

This place has turned me off of guns. I've two shotguns which eventually I'll pull out for my skeet shooting some day. But I also sold both my dirtbikes, which I've had a lifelong love for. AND I have a newfound appreciation for having grown up in a progressive town. Ah the stories...

I knew this guy once. He'd pound a few lengths of rebar into the ground on either side of the gate and sharpen them with a grinder and cover them with a piece of bamboo (don't want to hurt anybody). Then he'd lock that gate again.

You could also plant some bamboo on either side of that gate. You can't drive through a bamboo thicket or cut it down with a chainsaw. Ask a Vietnam vet.

He's the kind of guy who would do that to 3-5 randomly chosen gates in the area just to throw people off.

He might also rig a few tripwires to a noisemaker; the kind with all wad and no pellets. Oh and keep a few peacocks; they set up an awfull fuss when somebody comes near. Word would got around that a person was likely to get shot near his land.

Don't ever show a gun or confront the idiots. Just make sure all the obvious sign in your area says "crazed survivalist in the area; you will be shot on sight." Then play innocent. Being the dumb peacefull hippie is just as likely to get you ripped off and hurt when one of your local logger types needs his next meth fix. Don't do it.

Don't be violent. Be smart.

:crazy:

understand that they're going to roast in hell some day.

Redstone

Not the "getting trapped in the snow" business, but years ago I wound up driving up a road that should've been gated, had, apparently, been gated, but opened, and our car got stuck in the mud.

Never occurred to me that perhaps there should be criminal penalties associated with breaking open a gate in such circumstances, but yeah, there should be.

some hunting lodge full of food and clothes. Only he didn't know it was there and died.
Heartbreaking.

the victims dying a short distance from help.

I don't want to even think about how many times I've gotten a little lost or almost run out of gas when driving in an unfamiliar area, but I was lucky. We all do the best we can and hope for a little good luck. I'm glad the babies and mom survived at least.

My heart breaks for them; they lost a loved one.

who relish in every death of anyone who doesn't believe EXACTLY as they do. They are the same people who have driven good people from this forum by their black-souled posts. They are the people who no breathing individual will talk to so the only person to person communication they have is safely hidden behind a terminal. They hate every holiday because have driven off their former friends and relatives. And........(to be posted later)

the tourist bureau in Wilsonville told them NOT to go down the main road they were on. I'm not sure how they got onto this other road, they were probably lost. It really is a tragedy but it pays to listen to locals.

as I presume the Kims more or less were, would have a hard time digesting how SERIOUSLY bad -- impassable, narrow, gravel, dangerous, poorly kept, etc. -- some of those very lonely and isolated roads are. You see a road on a map, you assume it's a ROAD, dammit, not a cow path. Not necessarily true in some parts of the country. Parts of Oregon are very, very much wilderness. It's a very beautiful part of the world, but it can be terribly unforgiving.

I think one clue about how little they expected much danger is the fact that this careful, extremely resourceful young family didn't seem to have any emergency provisions or even serious winter clothing along. That's not recklessness in my mind, it's just lack of understanding.

I can remember before I lived in Oregon, but was on the way up there thru central California, how shocked I was to find parts of northern California very remote, unfriendly, and essentially dangerous (depending on time of year and circumstances). I expected California to be all Land of Milk and Honey.

Heck it's even hard to understand how LONG a trip can take over windy mountain roads. You think 17 miles would take 20 - 30 minutes and it can be much closer to an hour, in GOOD weather.

They just didn't understand, that's all.

the posts I read. Too bad those who cut the lock will not be standing trial for murder.

When I read about the gate, my fantasy was of building a steel gate between substantial stone pillars, perhaps with a metal work design -KIM- worked into the steel panels. <sigh> Sometimes I really, really wish I was an escentric millionaire!

Maybe I missed the post you're complaining about...most every one I did see expressed sadness at Mr. Kim's fate, but it's pretty clear to me that he/they must have overestimated their capabilities and very possibly that of the technology James was clearly enamored of. Reckless?...probably not, but
careless? definitely.

At first, I thought they had gotten caught in a snow storm with 6 foot drifts. That wasn't the case.

If they had waited 72 hours they could have easily driven back down that road. There weren't even any snow banks on the side of the roads. Did they burn the tires before that time period? I saw the pictures of the road and any "experienced" driver could have made it through.

Lows in the 20's and 30's are not life threatening if you were prepared for mountain conditions. We have homeless sleeping under bridges in these conditions and worse. Their vehicle was shelter. They didn't realize the importance of shelter.

These two adults with young children should have never traveled in the mountains at night. That was reckless and/or stupid in the Pacific Northwest. They should have never opted out for an alternative route over the mountains. That was either stupid and/or reckless.

My heart goes out to this family and I hope others can learn from their tragedy.

not. :eyes:

downplayed - and they did make major blunders - then others will not learn from their mistakes. Others have mentioned, yet not picked up on, the fact that they had over 50 miles to go but were afraid they'd run out of gas after 15!?! Even in hte middle of a summer's day they would have been stranded for a while on that road.

I heard an official on the tv today say that James Kim did nothing wrong. That's bullshit. They did lots of things wrong. I travel I5 four times a years from SF to BC. I would never go over the Siskiyous without an emergency kit, food, water, blankets etc. and that's on the freeway.

The story is tragic but it was completely avoidable.

heading to the Oregon Coast from I-5 in the summer!!
We had to move downed limbs to pass the road we were on to get out.
Also got lost in the Olympic National Park. We ended up in a gully having missed the turn in the path. Old growth forests are so dense and the trees are so tall you cannot even see the sky except for small patches here and there. Visibility on the ground is just a few feet due to undergrowth.
My partner and guide on these trips is a practicing physician somewhere in the US.

Vandals routinely destroy the gates in the Olympic National Forest and surrounding forest land. They are built now with concrete pillars set into the ground. The gates are broken often so people can access the land for cedar scavenging and salal etc. Salal is a business that is managed with guns by the pickers. VERY very serious business. People are killed for trespassing on "someone else's" territory.

I will never judge anyone in the Kim's circumstances because I know how a mistake can teach just how treacherous nature can be. I am just so sorry for them.

But it was dark. They should have spent the night in Roseburg. They had two little ones with them.

the whole thing was just tragic.