I've often wondered if one should take a local's advice in an unfamiliar area, especially during bad weather. This guy was lucky to have found his way out; he could've just as easily died from hypothermia...


Man survives 3 days in snowbound SUV

link -- http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14359565?source=rss

Well, what is there to say?
The man went onto a snow covered road that he was unfamiliar with.
He drove his FWD beyond what it could be expected to do and then got it stuck.
He had no way to get unstuck.
He ran out of fuel.
He sweated himself up on his walk out.
He survived by accident really.

I can not put the responsibility on the person who told him about the short cut.
At some point you need to have the good sense to not put yourself into survival situations.

Though I agree that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves
the OP wanted to address the reliability of LOCALS.

I had a very similar experience after receiving local advice;
I turned around and made it back to town, with considerable
trouble. A real Adventure.

Never trust locals as to short-cuts, unless they are in some
position of authority and knowledge.

Even then, be suspicious and verify, if possible.

People from the Eastern USA, do not realize that roads in
the West can be closed officially or just ignored.

In the West:

In winter, even some state highways may, or may not, get
plowed for a while, and some might even close for long
periods or close for the whole winter.
[This is based on first hand knowledge of a few decades ago,
and I assume it still to be true. Please comment on this
if you guys have pro or con verification.]

County roads are real "ify". If near to a Large town, they
will probably be plowed, but out in nowhere, forget it.

Stay on main roads for safety. Also consider, that the short
cut is probably harder on your car than taking the long way,
on a main highway.

I would think that, on a shortcut, particularly in bad weather, travelling it would be a BAD idea-regardless of the advice of locals. It likely isnt travelled much, and if something were to happen, and you couldnt self-rescue, you may be stuck for some time-or die. Saving time isnt a reason to die, IMHO. I would MUCH rather be late to an appointment, and arrive safely, then shave 20 mins off a commute on a sparsely travelled road-again, in bad weather, the likelihood of others travelling it are small. At least on main roads, if something goes wrong, there is a decent possibility of another commuter coming by.
Of course, this is all assuming you are travelling by vehicle.

Continuing on when the snow is up to the hood of the vehicle?

Maybe the local told him correctly and he took a wrong turn or didn't remember the "during the summer we....." part of the route description?

The local man could not be considered an authority on the precise conditions of any road at any time. Chances are the local guy would have turned back much sooner. People get a little crazy when their GPS or a local tells them a route is real.

Any advice we receive in life has to be tempered with our own good judgement. I would not blame the local person for anything. He might have provided adequate warnings that were ignored.

It would be OK to take advice from a local. It is important to listen carefully though. Fragments like "with his SUV" or "plow" should ring alarm bells especially in bad conditions. If in doubt ask and do not be afraid to tell that you want to play it save. That can influence the advice. If you ask for shortcuts be prepared for an unpleasant surprise. They may be hard to follow and hard to drive.

Lots of things may be implicit when giving out local advice. Such as "I haven't a clue about the weather forecast because I'm not going anywhere today" and "I would turn if encountering X, Y or Z conditions" or even "I hardly go there myself, but I did use that route on our summer trip 7 years ago".

There's a lot of good advice to be heard locally, but don't digest any advice without some pinch of salt and common sense. Easy access to the wilderness is one of the benefits of living in a remote location, but face it - A LOT of people hardly ever go outside the bubble of their every day routine. Far from everyone in the bush will actually DRIVE on the disused back roads, but they will know about them.

"Free advice is usually worth about what you paid for it" - source unknown.

Was his last name Donner?

IMO Local advice was not at fault here, it was a shortcut, When Clear!
Sometimes Locals can't be trusted with a shortcut either.
I could tell you a story of a local recruiter to took a shortcut in winter and almost ended up as a Popsicle in the same
situation. The snowmobiles finally found him with his vehicle, he was not able to walk out.

I found that locals often give subtle explicit clues e. g. "you could ..." vs "I would ...". The trick is to ask the right questions, listen and watch the body language. On some occasions that saved me trouble. Eventually the locals adjusted advice when I did ask the right questions. It´s often "well there is a rarely used back road but I wouldn´t use it right now (or at all)".
I agree with you that advice should be judged with common sense and never be relied on blindly.

IMO you have to take local advice, all advice really, even the stuff you read here, with a grain of salt. I wouldn't ignore any of it but I wouldn't take any of it to be the final word.

I'm reminded of an account by some hikers. They asked some locals about how long it would take to hike up to a peak and back. What they didn't take into account was that the locals grew up climbing steep hills, they know the paths, and travel light because they have little need for supplies like extra water because they know all the little streams.

They were told it was an easy one day round trip. Took the hikers better than two days to complete and they had to rest a day afterward. It was a potentially fatal trip if the two days had meant they got stuck in a storm or walked off a cliff trying climb down in the dark.

Yes, locals can talk without really knowing. Some of this comes from people making easy assumptions. People walk up to a guy in some rural area and assume he knows the area. For all you know he is a trucker delivering a load who knows little about the area. But if you ask a specific question he is likely to give it a shot without telling you he doesn't really know. You didn't ask if he knew anything. His opinion might not be any better than yours. Or they can mislead you as a joke. But even giving you their best estimate can be deceiving.

As someone who has told someone flat out, "ain't no good way to get there from here," my free advice:

-Let me see your car.
-Tell me what kind of driving you normally do. If you drive stick, do you know how to use it going up and down. If you drive an automatic, do you know what the 1 and 2 on the gear shift are for.
-Have the right gear for the seasonal weather.
-Have a full tank of gas.

And most importantly, ask me route my Mother with her Geo Metro would use. I don't care if you are driving a tank, ask me what route I'd use my mother with her little toy windup car would use. Please.

It didn't matter what kind of rig he was driving, what experience he had, what he had with him or anything else!

From Saguache to Aspen, a distance of over 100 miles as a CROW FLIES, over the effing CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, in WINTER???

State Hwy 82 from Aspen is a 2-lane road that goes over a 12,000', and is closed in winter.

I hope this guy is sterile! He's 32 and still alive? He must have a keeper and got away from him.

I shall give some credit to the guy that gave him the information, assuming that he recognized someone from the extreme shallow end of the gene pool and decided to add some chlorine.

Sue

I always trust the rangers advice about bears.

Wow. Are you really such an angry person that you take pleasure in the fact that someone almost died because a stranger gave bad directions? That's pretty low, even for you. So would you knowingly try and mislead someone into danger who you thought didn't deserve to live?

I'm starting to see a disturbing trend in the attitude of this forum.

Take my post in the spirit it was intended, sweetie.

Forrest Gump was right.

Sue

Bashing someone for having made a mistake or used poor judgment is counter productive.

At the best, this forum provides insight in to the nature of such mistakes and a) how to avoid them, b) how to deal with the consequences as the situation unfolds. A collective "lessons learned". I hope it stays that way.

I am probably guilty myself of letting the joy of sarcastic characterizations degrading the information to noise ratio in several threads. I'll try to restrain myself... (not easy, sarcasm can be so much fun).

Please remember we NEVER have all the details, nor do we know that what we know is correct. My experience is that you can only trust media with one thing, and that is to get the details all wrong. We can exercise our "lessons learned"-session based on "if that is true, then..." assumptions. But slandering someone based on that level of uncertainty is not right.

As stated earlier in this post, take what you hear with a grain of salt. And really is this site getting so sensitive that we are going to have to get a polical and social advisor that we dont offend the masses. There is a LOT of very good information here and just as many personalities. Susan has been here quite a while and has good input.

I comment on this as a National Park Service retiree, with a 40+ year career in the parks. Use a bit of discretion, even when dealing with advice from a ranger. Don't take anyone's advice uncritically, just because they happen to bein uniform.

Ideally, you are talking to a competent, knowledgeable old hand who has current, up to date experience and a vast store of knowledge.

You might also be conversing with a new, wet-behind-the-ears punk who hasn't a clue, and hasn't even found the restrooms yet(universally the subject of the most frequent question in any park).

Back to the OP:

Aha, another example of a situation where 4x4 gets people *into* trouble instead of out of it. This is becoming a common theme.

Local advice is useful, and indeed sometimes indispensable. It can lead you to amazing stuff you would never find otherwise. But it's never complete or thoroughly considered. You need to do your homework and fill in the gaps with experience and uncommon sense.

When taking back roads, there is no substitute for a well-tuned "situational B.S." detector. If you start down the local shortcut and your spidey sense starts tingling, you better listen to it ... and back off from the natural tendency to keep pushing on. Stop, get out of the vehicle for a minute and look around, have a cup of tea, look at the map again, and make a decision.

I am not politically correct. When I see stupid, I call it stupid.

This guy didn't make just a little wrong turn -- the Kims didn't make this big of a boo-boo, and people called them stupid.

If those of you who don't know Colorado would look at a map, note where the very HIGH Continental Divide is, then see where Saguache is, and then where Aspen is. And I'm not talking about the height of the mountains in that area, I'm talking about the elevation of the ROADS. Except for luck, he would be as dead as a wedge, and the poor little dog that he left behind, too.

No one in their right mind would try that. No one with an IQ at least as high as his shoe size, anyway.

Sue

I guess it was the jump from merely calling someone stupid to say that this guy shouldn't enjoy the luxury of life or having kids. And yes, I've had a great time reading about Darwin awards.

But hey, I probably take it all to seriosly. I don't want a political correct forum. Political correctness has nothing to with my honest opinion that namecalling someone based merely on inaccurate media reports is slander.

But let's stop there, shall we? I've made my point on this issue. I don't feel like involving in further debate about this, I'm OK with honest disagrement, and suggest we just leave it there. Back on topic?

I have learned that the value of information you receive is directly proportional to the quality of the question you ask, and your level of concentration when offered an answer......Peace


Edited for grammar

Excellent point, Byrd_Huntr.

But backing up a bit, I think that an essential point to consider is "how do you gain the essential experience to judge the validity of local advice?"

You're not born with it. You won't get it in the dealership that sells you a 4x4. The only real answer is that you get it the hard way. Perhaps from someone who knows and has been there (ideally), or in small increments from say, weekend excursions in friendly conditions. Mostly, you learn a process. Some get it all at once, and the outcome is not generally happy.

Sue's point about crossing the freaking continental divide is valid. It's either gross stupidity or gross naivety. I'll bet real money that it's the latter. (I say this understanding the number of stunts I've pulled and survived, out of which I should be getting a bill from the squadrons of guardian angels assigned. So I'm not inclined to throw stones.)

My $0.02.

This is rather speculative, but quite possibly the reason he was asking a local was because he did not have a map which would have provided him with all the relevant information. I am amazed at the number of people who travel long distances without a map or who cannot interpret a standard road map.

Any time we travel out of state now, I stop at the first rest area when we enter a new state as there are usually welcome centers there with free maps. I have one of those school type zip up binders that I store under the seat and collect maps there.

Slander isn't when you don't like the opinion, slander is when it isn't true.

BTW, this guy has changed his story, and is now blaming his GPS.

And... "Pede, 31, has made his living escorting big loads across the nation's highways..."

Except he's never seen Colorado, apparently. It has mountains.

*snort!*

Sue, who has also traveled over a lot of country, and has never made a decision remotely that bad

I think you are spot-on with this comment. Map and compass reading are becoming an arcane art in some circles. I carry an old regional atlas along with current state highway maps. I also have a high quality dashboard compass, a button compass in the glovebox, and detailed topo map books for the two states where I go into the back country a lot.

Sage advice...Some people are pretty good at imitating outdoors men/women in their banter, dress, and outfit. If an impersonator exited a capable-looking 4x4, approached a local, and said, "Is there a shortcut over the mountain?" A local may quickly size him up, assume he knew what he was doing, and then say 'yes', and point the way. My point is, that person could safely rely on local advice, but like dealing with a car salesman, it's because this person has enough background knowledge to tell good advice from bad, and enough common sense to react properly.

Local advice? Some of my best outcomes have come from locals who know exactly what they're talking about. And some of the biggest screw-ups I've had ... came from local "do-gooders" who meant well - but didn't know diddly squat about their own backyard.

You need to verify that you're talking to someone who's knowledgeable. If you can find the right person - local tips are worth their weight in gold.

other Pete