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.