Just glad to hear they were prepared and able to get out of the situation on their own, despite the error.

RE Getting stuck in the snow - I can remember it happening with Dad - once, Missed a turnm stuck about 10 ft later - sign was missing, and we were about 600 yds or so from where we were going. We had just gotten the chains on the car when the resorts snowplow showed up saying "Are you the Gallo Gamily?" - they figured we might blow it on that corner - we were out about 2 minutes later - we would have gotten out anyway (hey, we were 10 ft from semi plowed road, and chains, and shovels), but I will say the plow made short order of the job

A GPS is like any other tool. You decide what the tool is going to do. Tools makes no decisions. A hammer is used for pounding and a saw is used for cutting. Likewise a GPS is used to calculate positions and the new ones calculate routes based on whatever bad data they have. We need to be able to tell when the recommendation is flawed.

Do not mindlessly follows GPS directions and you won't have to blame the GPS when you get stuck.

"Did you know that 12 years before the Kim tragedy a man died in the same area after getting stuck? He died of starvation. Also, in the very same year as the Kim tragedy a motor home with a family of six was stranded in snow in that area."

The Stivers family in the motorhome was loaded with supplies. The inlaws were also wanted on felony warrants, which made me wonder if that was an issue in this situation. Once they decided to rescue themselves, they did fine.

The guy that died of starvation, DeWitt Finley, IMO, was the closest thing to suicide that could still be attributed to accidental death or death by misadventure. This case is one that really made me grind my teeth with frustration. This guy got his truck/camper stuck in deep snow, and just sat there. He never made any attempt to try to walk out (18 mi one way, 22 mi the other). Had he even bothered to get out and walk a short distance, he would have discovered that he was stuck in the deepest snow in the area -- he could have hiked out. But no, he sat there and wrote letters to his wife and wrote, "I have no control over my life its all in His Hands. 'His will be done.' Death here in another month or so, or He sends someone to save me".

God also gave him a brain, two hands and two feet, and he failed to use any of them. He had had no food or water with him, and had forgotten to fill the propane tank.

But there were a couple of problems with his waiting to be saved: he had changed his route from the one planned so no one knew where to look; and the forest rangers (two of them) had locked the gates at both ends (one at each end), and lazily hadn't bothered to actually lock one gate and drive the length of the road to the other end to make sure no one was there before they locked the other one.

He got stuck in mid-November, died sometime in mid-January, and his body was found in mid-May. Ironically, when the boys found him in May, his wallet had disappeared, so someone must have found him sooner and 'forgot' to mention it to anyone.

Sue

Because maps are never out of date and are never wrong? Does your map somwhow indicate unplowed roads better than a GPS does? You could just as easily have seen that road on your map and decided it was quicker only to get stuck on the same unplowed road.

The issue isn't the GPS it's not using common sense when starting down an unknown road.

I would like to see the condition of that Forest Service Road where they turned onto it. It might be in good condition there, with no hint it was a bad route, if a county commissioner lives a few blocks that way.

I have no idea what a "Forest Service Road" is. Never seen one; it's possible they hadn't either. Around here we have "Farm to Market" roads and "Ranch Road" designations, which are often major roads near town. I think that all of the major roads in Austin except the Interstate and one US highway also have an FM or RR designation. No particular reason for a city person from here to assume FM or RR means poorly maintained.

It's worth noting they seem to have been well prepared in every other respect, handling three days in those conditions apparently without difficulty, and may have been able to go longer.

Given that they did everything else right I'd hesitate to condemn the decision to turn onto the road with knowing what they saw when they took the GPS' advice.

PS. GPS errors can be more exciting than this. Errors at lakes formed by dams are surprising common. Old roads that existed before the lake & damn often still exist with the same name on either side of the lake, and GPS software generally assumes that if the map data in an area is blank that a road continues uninterrupted if it seems to be in the right place to connect and the name matches ... even if in reality both sides now end in a public boat ramp.

PPS. Another example of technology's helpful suggestions gone awry: I misspelled "condemn" above and my software's spell checker offered a correct spelling of "condom".

Very true and too the point.


Now that is not only a little harsh, but shows poor understanding of the conditions. In reality, once you've started on a narrow road you've essentially passed the point of no return. By the time you realize you've made a mistake it is too late unless you find a convenient spot to turn (which is difficult - the snow covers everyting, hard to see those spots).

Going in reverse in deep snow on a narrow road is very, very difficult. You need speed (= momentum) to traverse challenging spots and going uphill. Too slow and you get stuck. Very few people are good at reversing at 10-15-20 mph. Unless you've done a lot of practice on high speed reverse driving recently this is NOT something you're going to excell at.

I had a very humbling experience trying to challenge a steep, very slippery hill which started just after a sharp curve. After some interesting pirouettes when the car started sliding backwards at the steepest point (FUN! Skidding around in the parking lot finally paid off!) I tried going up the hill in reverse. This is an old trick that maximises the weight on the front wheels (the driving wheels on my car). This trick also involved negotiating the sharp curve at 15 mph in reverse. Came a bit too close to the inner edge - bummer! Stuck! The snow plow pulled us out 20 minutes later.

Forest Service Roads in the PNW vary by condition and size. There are many FSR roads that rival a 2 lane highway in width and are usually kept in better condition then rural gravel roads. It is not uncommon to be able to almost drive the speed limit on some of these roads and not worry about your vehicle falling apart.

This FSR in the photo is not far from where I live and is at an elevation of ~6000 feet. As you can see, the road is in good condition for late fall and is considered an all weather road...but in the winter, it may be all but impassable due to the snow which could blanket the road within hours.

Maps are notoriously incorrect, in certain areas. However, that's not the point in this case.

Let's be real here. Grandma and Grandpa had no business being in the middle of "Who-Flung-Dung" anyhow. They wanted the fastest route said the article. So they blindly followed what a device told them to do. I reckon they did take the "fastest", if fastest = least numbers of miles. But experience tells me that the fastest and the shortest are almost never the same road. Quite frankly, I would have looked at the unplowed road, said no thank you very much and found an alternate that was plowed.

I agree, they over-relied on the GPS. Maybe I am smarter, I learned a while back using Mapquest and the like that quite often the directions will have you going the wrong way on a one way road, or going to where the hotel was spozed to be, not to where it actually is.

So yeah, the hard copy map may be wrong, but at the very least you can see alternatives that the GPS usually can't/won't/isn't designed to give you.

The Garmin GPS units I have can be programmed to show the fastest route or the shortest route. I don't know if they had a Garmin unit and if they did I don't know which option was selected. I'd bet it was shortest distance. No clue how receivers other than Garmin are set up.