Ben East was a writer for Outdoor Life from the '40s to the '70s and reported on many survival stories. One of his favorite maxims was, "Never step off a road or a marked trail unless you're ready to spend the night in the woods."

Saw an intrview tonight on the news. Daughter said next year the tree was going to be plastic.

They were even luckier. From what I heard on the news was the flight that spotted them was going to be the last flight.

Okay, this brings up and interesting question...when do you start walking out? James Kim decided to walk out after several days and it killed him but his family stayed put and was later saved (although wikipedia says they were seen by a helicopter pilot while walking down a remote road). While this family was rescued by the last flight since weather was worsening. How long do you sit in the snow cave wondering whether anyone is coming? A week, two? Should you walk out while you're still strong or wait until your body has used up much of its reserves?

For people who've done SAR work, when are search efforts normally called off?

Sounds like a confession to me.

+1 on that.

I don't expect normal people to be prepared like us. I don't even expect us to always be as prepared as we'd like- we all have done the "I'm just going a mile to get milk" or "it's only a hundred yards off the road to get to those crab apple trees" and left everything but what is in our pockets behind.

In some ways they were better prepared than most of us are with our EDCs- they had a good saw. The difference between planning and luck sometimes is just do you make a habit of it?

I don't think the dad and the oldest son deserve medals, but they do deserve credit- everyone survived, even if the one daughter did get some frost bite. They got a shelter up. They stayed warm, even if it meant doing things that might seem counter intuitive to Joe Average. And he moved when he needed, rather than taking time to put his shoes on first.

In some ways, that they pulled it off without being like us is more worthy of merit than if we did it with our EDC.

Although it does nicely illustrate my point about a KISS pocket kit built around shelter for people who aren't as heavily trained.

Why is he driving in areas with snow in the first place like that? Either prepare to get stuck, don't go there, or turn back as soon as a key assumption fails (snow!). It appears he checked the weather forecast, saw no prediction of snow, and then started - and didn't turn back when the weather forecast proved wrong, even though a pick-up is not the best snow vehicle around...

Sure he could have hauled a lot of gear along to handle being stuck for days with the kids, but most people don't have that kit and can't afford it. A better answer might be, avoid that situation, don't drive a pick-up into snowy areas, turn back when weather is so much worse than forecast. And perhaps just take along the older boy, so you can perhaps take along a couple of thick blankets, etc.

One suspects that when snow was first seen on the road his comment may have been "hmm, snow, better hurry" not "Uh oh, I've got a truck full of kids & can't handle snow, time to head back, *now*".

I'm not sure the lesson here is so much prepare to spend the night in the woods as it is to know the limits of what you prepared to handle and turn back rather than go further. Dealing with a multitude of possibilities is expensive, but *not having to deal with them in the first place* is often a practical alternative.

I dunno, I don't like passing judgement on such things. Were it me, I would've either planned to go up earlier, got more suitable transportation for those conditions, or bought a tree downtown. It seems like the father was stupid, lazy, cheap, and a little too egotistic. That he risked such an act with children without a back-up plan is reprehensible. I would encourage parents to take their kids into tough situations, but with the understanding that if things don't go as expected, then there should be an out; some alternative to recover the situation effectively. What he did is incompetent and he ought to be treated as such, not rewarded for being lucky.

My KISS kit is centered on navigation as most cases (just like this one) start with getting lost/turned around and "where the hell are we" sets in. A compass and map (assuming you know how to use that lost art), or a mapping GPS, or a compass, map and any GPS.

A non-mapping Garmin Geko can hold a whole bunch of waypoints and the first one you set before walking should be where your car is parked. Then mark points on the trail or just leave it on and it will mark your path. Getting lost is very easy, but not getting lost isn't that difficult.

My walking kit (Camelbak Rim Runner) has all I need to make an expedient shelter and boil water. Tea, chicken soup -- all the comforts of home. . .okay, not all, but enough for an unexpected overnight.

As for my "confession", I don't have a PLB yet, looking seriously at the SPoT, but will probably wait for Doug's final assessment and maybe v2.0.

Another thought is that he was being a Dad and trying to bring back memories of cutting his own tree and turned it into a family thing. Not necessarily cheap, but very traditional. I remember doing the same thing with my Dad in the late 50's. After that we moved on to live trees and we planted them. . . most are quite tall now.

... but it usually happens when you least expect it