Couple hunting for Christmas tree fails to return

Ongoing story...

"Helicopter and ground searches turned up nothing in the Siskiyou Mountains south of Medford, where the couple got stuck for four hours while getting their tree last year,"

Thank goodness they didn't take their children on this outing. Big mistake not leaving behind their specific route. The article says he is a camper who knows the woods well so hopefully they are somewhat prepared. But if they went off the road then all bets are off.

I grew up on Mt. Hood and every year we got a USFS permit and made a day of hunting for our Christmas tree. It's a wonderful tradition. Mom made her fabulous chili and we had plenty of hot cocoa. Always had a couple 4x4s along as my Aunt and Uncle joined us.

Countless trips over the years on the backroads of northern California, Oregon and Washington. Never a problem, other than getting stuck occasionally but then after some effort we'd get unstuck. Drove my '69 Mustang on snow-packed roads with nary a worry. Studded snow tires. Tire chains always in the trunk. I had no appreciation for the peril or how luck could instantly turn bad.

God bless these people, I pray that they come through this.

Oregon tree cutters safe after 2 nights in snow.

(The Yahoo news story was updated about 15 minutes ago.)

Great news!

"It was like something you see on TV news," Jennifer Lee said. "It was really surreal — not like it was really happening to us."

The couple had taken blankets and water bottles, but they didn't have much food, she said.

"Neither one of us had any appetite, believe it or not," Jennifer Lee said.

On Thursday, she said her husband put rocks under the wheels of the Subaru and managed to maneuver it to hard ice in order to free it.

"We got up at about 5 a.m. and he said we're not staying here another night," Jennifer Lee said.

Good to hear they made it out. But... in reading the article online, seems they got stuck for four hours last year, basically doing the same thing, in the same vehicle.

"Gee, we got stuck last year, maybe this year we should maybe take some tools with us. Or perhaps borrow a 4wd with a higher center?" "Nah honey, we will be ok. Let's go, what can happen?"

To this couple, one big freaking DUH.

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Possibly not a good move:

We have a 4x4 car, we should be ok if we stick to logging roads and are careful.

vs.

We're lost - but it's ok we have this SUV. We can just drive through the trees down that ravine, I saw it on the commercial!

Fake trees sound better every year.

My tree is not only fake but has the lights built in, just take it out and plug it in, quick deployment.

I like my trees alive and outside where they belong.

That's where I like my dummies, too.

"The couple also ventured into the Siskiyou Mountains near the California border last year, but got lost. They were better prepared this time, bringing two maps, a cell phone equipped with GPS, three blankets and 24 bottles of water. They purposely drove their all-wheel-drive, but didn't take chains."

Pity they didn't take the chains, put them on, leave a map of where they were going, and pack some brains in a box to take along. These people aren't quick learners, are they?

"Jennifer Lee said she spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday praying while her husband worked to free the car."

What's wrong, honey, can't you help hubby and pray at the same time?

Sheesh!

Cynical Sue

"..where they were lost last year for 4 hours"

I sense a pattern here somewhere, not sure where.

I suppose there is a pattern; but education happens in stages. They got stuck, but got out on their own too. They packed maps, blankets, and water. Next thing, who knows, they may turn up here.

Three things I know:

1. Given some of the stunts I've pulled and survived, I'm not inclined to throw stones.

2. Four-wheel drive gets more people into trouble than out of it.

3. Being "stranded" with a girl on a seldom-travelled road is not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm glad to hear they made it.

Driving on unfamiliar and poorly maintained mountain roads in snow can be very risky. I've been told every year a couple of people drive off the mountains in Virginia because they misjudge where the road is under the snow and ice. Ice builds up on rock faces where the road is cut into the face of the mountain and also beside the road producing overhangs that make it look like the road is three or four feet farther out than it really is. If you get two wheels out on the overhang and it breaks off suddenly it often doesn't matter if you have a 4WD or not.

With slopes below roads often being vertical to forty-five degrees the vehicles slide or tumble down. If they slide into a snow bank or a snow bank falls after them the vehicle can be lost until spring thaw.

Good point. If you don't know the area, the risk factor goes way up. There are certainly areas I would avoid in winter, especially with a car, even though GPS would lead you right into them.

I take my Subaru on unpaved mountain roads all the time, but not in snow.

Snow is an equal opertunity traction removal device.

Yes, some tires improve your ability to get traction but when it comes to ice, if there are no studs or chains, your going to go down.

I have literaly slid off a crowned road completly stopped. I pulled to the sid of the road to let a car pass. While stopped the 4runner slid off the road and almost rolled over.


While there choice of cars is not totaly perfect, I will say Subaru is a good car for the area that they are in during non snow times of the year.

what concerns me more is the fact that they got lost last year and didn't seem to make any changes to there aproch and way of getting in to and out of the area they went in. even just having a second Subaru following them would have helped. Granted not great on the fule usage thing, but definatly safer.

They actually are not that great on mountan roads, at least the steep narrow twisty WV ones. When gas gets expensive everyone trades their f150's in on suburaus then finds out that they don't get any better gas mileage because they are running near the redline all the time to get enough power to get up the hills so they end up trading them back in on a truck after a while.

Seems like a load of BS to me or someone who's never owned a Subaru opinion. MY wife travels 1hr one way to work down the mountain and back up in the evening... she went from 15mpg in a Jeep Wrangler to over 25mpg in our Subaru. Not even comparable to my 13mpg I get in my Ford F250.

After seeing Navajo drivers guide conventional passenger cars through the bottomless sands of Canyon de Chelly, indisputably 4WD territory, I concluded that the nut holding the wheel was an extremely significant factor is determining any vehicles performance.

Does it ever! We had a kid at work years ago, who said that he was patrolling areas in a 4wd F150, that the rest of us used to patrol with dirt bikes. One of the other guys doubted him, and decided to ride shotgun, to see if he was really getting into those areas. When the driver stopped to shift into 4wd, the guy riding shotgun hopped out to lock the hub on the passenger side. The kid driving asked him what he was doing--he had no idea that he needed to lock the hubs for 4wd...

I heard about someone like that once that was doing 4x4 trails except his 4x4 was broke! He was going places others had to go into 4x4 but this guy had perfected driving so much he could do it without needing a strap most of the time... when he got 4x4 fixed he was an animal! (He never new it was broke until years later... haha)

(Sigh) Chop the tree up, put the branches under wheels. Drive yourself out.

If that is not practiable, green branches make a dinkum signal fire.

To do that: pile up branches, take your T-shirt off. dip in petrol tank and place under branches. Light. If you don't have a match or lighter, use the battery and your jump leads supply a spark.

Only problem you now face is that the smoke is white against a white background.

So put the spare tire on the fire. That should give you a nice big cloud of black smoke.

The mountain roads in WV are very steep and narrow and twisty, you have a state that hasn't been able to properly maintain for years. My cousin/friend owned a suburu for years, never got over 20mpg, my silverado hit 21. The roads there are so steep that smaller 4/6 cylinder engines just can't do it. Our Dodge minivan would drop from 25 highway to 15mpg in those mountains. I have several other friends and relatives who have had or currently have subursus who complain about how bad the MPG is in the mountains there

They were in a car, for heaven's sake. Cars can carry lots of weight, like food and nice warm sleeping bags and whatever luxuries you might wish to include, perhaps even a come along - the better to easily pull your vehicle out of a bad spot.

I can understand hikers being under equipped because of the inevitable weight involved, but if you are driving, unprearedness is inexcusable.

Interesting... my wife drives on a 2 lane, twisty road the whole 1hr to work and back. From point A to point B elevation change is 4000ft, however during the drive she goes up to 1500ft, down to 200, then up to 4k.

What kind of roads do you have there ?? I just can't imagine getting worse than 25mpg. On the highway we get 28mpg+.

-Todd

Roads that don't have center or edge lines painted, don't have any berm on the sides, blacktop crumbling along the sides which pulls you off the road if you get too close. Loaded coal trucks going up the mountain at 15-25mpg belching diesel smoke. A brake check pull over at the top and run away truck ramp at the bottom.

http://maps.google.com/maps?source=ig&am...sa=N&tab=wl

See where route 7 crosses the river at Cadel? Camp Dawson is actually slightly down the river and there is a golf course where google has the marker. See the sharp curve in the road right below the circled 7, years ago before the run away truck ramp was there an tractor trailer lost it brakes and went off the road right at that turn, the road is on the side of a mountain with a very deep drop off there, the truck went airborn and landed in the golf course. There wasn't a part of it too big for someone to pick up and carry with their hands, not a hollywood fire explosion but rather an impact explosion. right before that curve see the small spot where it looks like the road isn't aligned, thats where the abandoned coal mine under ground collapsed and the road sunk, first few people driving up the mountain hit the drop off and flattened all their tires. It took months for them to drive steel tubes in the ground to keep the land from sliding, they said at night when there was no traffic and it was quiet you could hear the ground sliding. Most of the roads there were paved over horse paths.

Thats the biggest complaint anyone has about the subs around there, that the gas mileage gets no where near what was advertised.

A similar thing happened to me about 30 years ago.

Three friends and I set out in a Ford Maverick to find a Christmas tree near our home town in Southern Ontario. We went to a large wooded valley and left the car on top of the hill because with a foot of snow on the ground it would never make it out of the valley. The area was dense conifer with firebreaks cut through it and we started walking without paying any real attention. I remember we had winter clothing on (boots, coats, hats, mitts) but probabaly only jackknives and maybe a lighter as survival equipment, plus a small hatchet to cutdown the tree. We got so far down the valley that we decided to walk out to the highway instead of backtracking through the snow, that is when we got lost. After a couple hours we found an old road which lead to a Scout Camp that we had been to a couple of years before. From there we walked out to the highway then the long walk around the valley on the county roads back to the car, we arrived just at dark, and still did not have a Christmas tree.

In the dark we went to another area to to look for a tree, we were now a lot less picky. We found a nice tree at the edge of a river and my partner started to cut it down with the hatchet. On the third strike the head came off the hatchet and fell into the river! I can still picture my buddy laying on the snowy riverbank with his bare arm in the water to retreive the hatchet head. We got the head back and because it was very dull it took a long time to chop through the 4 inch spruce tree.

This was one of those teenage adventures that you learn from, but how your children have the sense to avoid.

Mike