[BruceysMom]

They passed four signs that told them that the road was impassible when there is snow. They kept going. If you trust computer generated maps more than signs put up by people that know the area, you end up in trouble. Local reports said that they burned the tires on their vehicle to attract attention, so they did start a fire. I fault the national media for not emphasizing how rugged the terrain is. There was no cell phone signal in the area. One of the local reports said that officials believe that no man had ever been where they found Mr. Kim. People die in that area at pretty frequent intervals. It's a scary road even in summer.

[saquin]

They passed four signs that told them that the road was impassible when there is snow. They kept going.

From what I read, when they started seeing signs to that effect, they decided to turn around and go back to the interstate. The road was too narrow at that point to turn around so Kim backed up for a while until he saw a road turnoff (this was the spur road that is usually locked by a gate in the winter) and took that, probably thinking it would loop him back to the road or that he'd find a place to turn around. They got stuck in the snow on that road.