Posted on 11/30/2006 7:34:44 PM PST by rit
NET senior editor James Kim and his family are missing.
The 36-year-old Kim, his wife Kati, and daughters Penelope (4 years) and Sabine (7 months) left their home in San Francisco last week on a road trip to the Pacific Northwest. They were last seen on Saturday, November 25, in Seattle, according to the San Francisco Police Department, which has opened a missing persons' investigation. They were driving a 2005 silver Saab station wagon with California personalized plates of "DOESF."
Those with information about the Kim family's whereabouts are asked to contact the SFPD immediately--at 415-558-5508 during normal business hours and at 415-553-1071 after-hours. The Portland Police Department can be reached at 503-823-4000.
Someone has linked it in the next post. I have read about the Tu Tu Tun Lodge for many, many years. It is supposedly a great place to stay.
Well I guess it's not a Motel 6 franchise is it...
Sounds like it is up river from the 101 bridge. My First Wife and I spent 5 days in Gold Beach a Couple of years ago. We had a beach front room with breach access. I don't remember the name and my FW is already asleep in the next room...
The Kims were pretty savvy for couple from the City. Did you read my last link...
This is the map the Lodge offers:
http://www.tututun.com/images/tututun_map.pdf
It just doesn't look like a place to take two little kids (especially in winter).
Doesn't look like there's child care...so snowshoeing, etc., would have to be one parent out at a time.
Just looks like a romantic place for couples.
Yes, that's why I told the poster that you had linked it in the follwoing post. :)
Don't know about that. I read about it in a book of the very best bed and breakfast places in the US. IIRC, it is right across from the beach .. a great place for children to explore.
A 4-year-old and an infant ain't gonna get much 'splorin' done in late November wind-chills.
Thanks for the link. The site tells me they're actually looking for him this evening, to some extent - which is good to know. There will be an update tomorrow morning at 10am.
The SF Gate story is great ...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/04/BAGR2MP9383.DTL
Mom, 2 kids survive -- frantic hunt for dad
S.F. woman, girls survive 9 days in wilderness; father left them to seek help
Peter Fimrite and Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Report
Monday, December 4, 2006
(12-04) 04:00 PST Grants Pass, Ore. -- They ran the heater in their station wagon until the car was out of gas, then burned all the tires in a desperate attempt to keep warm. When the food ran out, Kati Kim breastfed her two young daughters to keep them alive.
Hope was running low for the Kim family nine days after they became stranded in the snowy mountains of southwestern Oregon while making their way toward home in San Francisco. Then, at 1:45 p.m. Monday, Kim spotted a helicopter her family had hired to help in the search. She waved an umbrella on which she had taped reflective striping, and soon she and the girls were saved.
Now they are hoping that her husband, James Kim, is still alive. The 35-year-old Kim left the family to look for help Saturday morning dressed in a jacket, sweater and blue jeans and carrying snowshoes, and he never came back. Searchers spotted his tracks in the snow and were looking for him Monday night.
....
Kati Kim, 30, and her daughters, 4-year-old Penelope and 7-month-old Sabine, were found with the family car just off Bear Camp Road, a treacherous, little-used mountain route that runs across the Coast Range from Grants Pass along Interstate 5 to the coastal town of Gold Beach. The car had become stuck in snow.
The three were taken to Three Rivers Community Hospital in Grants Pass, where they were in good condition. Sabine was being kept overnight for observation, and her mother and sister were spending the night beside her.
"They are in remarkably good shape for spending nine days in the wilderness,'' said Undersheriff Brian Anderson of Josephine County, Ore.
Penelope told her rescuers that she "loved this place,'' the hospital said. Her first substantial meal since the night of Nov. 25 consisted of a hamburger and Cheetos chased down by hot chocolate. Kati Kim ate chicken and mashed potatoes and asked for a fast-food fish sandwich.
The family left San Francisco on Nov. 18 on a combined vacation and work trip for James Kim. They spent Thanksgiving in Seattle with relatives and then went to Portland, where they had brunch with a friend Nov. 25. Then they left for a stopover in Gold Beach on the southwest coast, visiting a chamber of commerce in a Portland suburb along the way to ask for a map for a scenic route.
The road they chose, Bear Camp Road out of Grants Pass, roughly parallels the Rogue River and has stunning views of the Coast Range. But it is narrow, steep in spots and lightly traveled even in the summer. It is normally closed in the winter.
The Kims didn't even reach the road until well after dark, having eaten dinner that night in the central Oregon town of Roseburg. It's about 55 miles down I-5 from Roseburg to Grants Pass and then another 55 miles over the Coast Range to Gold Beach.
Their ordeal started innocently on a mountain road the family thought would be a shortcut, but things quickly spiraled out of control, said Ryan Lee, 30, of Portland, who was one of the first people Kati Kim called after she was rescued.
....
At first it was only raining, she told Lee, but snow began falling as they got higher in the mountains. She said the road was pretty bad and at one point she and her husband had to get out and remove rocks from the road. They soon realized they weren't going to make it over the mountain and decided to turn around and drive back to a lower elevation to get out of the snow. Around the Bear Camp Viewpoint high in the mountains, the Kims sidetracked onto a spur road in an attempt to turn around and traveled about 2 miles, Hastings said.
Kim told Lee that once they were out of the snow, and in the rain, they parked, leaving the motor running so they could use the heater.
"They thought they could spend the night and somebody would find them in the morning," Lee said. "But then, when they woke up, it was snowing quite heavily. They were stuck."
By then they didn't have enough gas to get back to Grants Pass. The Kims ran the engine for three days to power the heater until the car ran out of gas, Hastings said. Before long, the car battery had also gone dead. Then they huddled together in the car to stay warm. They burned all their tires, even the spare, to stay warm.
The family survived in the Coast Range on snacks and a bit of water they had with them. In recent days, Kati Kim breastfed the children.
"That is what kept them healthy," said Cynthia Russell, a nurse at the hospital.
James Kim gathered wild berries, but the family stopped eating them for fear they were poisonous, his wife told rescuers.
"They had minor provisions, but they were definitely running out of things," said Lt. Gregg Hastings of the Oregon State Police. Lee said the two parents gave most of the food to the children and drank melted snow. The lack of food may have taken a toll on James Kim by the time he decided to go for help, Kati Kim told Lee.
James Kim left his family with their 2005 Saab station wagon at 7:45 a.m. Saturday and said he would return by 1 p.m. that day, authorities said. He walked about 2 miles along the same road they had driven and then went into a creek drainage, where two trackers were trying to follow his footprints.
"We're treating him like he's alive,'' Anderson said. He said tracking dogs and night-vision equipment would be used in the search.
"She said he was kind of weak when he left, but she thought he would be OK," Lee said.
....
Searchers had tracked the family to the Bear Camp area by tracing signals from a cell phone the Kims were carrying. The Kims were not able to make a call, but their attempt was enough to narrow the search area.
Kati Kim told rescuers that she had attached reflective tape to the umbrella to increase the chances that someone would see them from the air.
She said she had been flashing a mirror and waving the umbrella for two days when she was finally spotted.
"She said she thought she had been spotted a couple of times the day before, but nobody came back," Lee said. When she was finally seen, the helicopter returned and dropped food.
When they opened the packages, Lee said, "they were dancing around because it had chocolate and Gatorade in the packages."
Terri Stone, an innkeeper at the Tu Tu Tun Lodge in Gold Beach, where the Kims were to have stayed the night of Nov. 25, said the Bear Camp Road is shown on some Internet road-direction sites as the best way to get to the coast from Grants Pass, but she advises against it.
"It looks like the shortest distance, but it is very, very treacherous,'' she said.
[snip]
Note: Kati told them he was *carrying* snowshoes.
The stories refer in several places to Grants Pass as being where they turned off I-5, but I don't think that's right. I think they would've turned off at Merlin, farther north of GP, to have gotten on that Galice/Agness/Bear Camp Road.
I got the exact lat/long from another story and spotted it - looks like they were approx. (eyeballing it) 16 miles west off the interstate on that Forestry Service road. (About 14 miles as crow flies from the Glendale cell tower.)
Zooming in, there are two logging trails that were about 1200 feet east of their car - neither of which leads to anyplace James would need to go - but may have been confusing to him - I didn't look on an aerial to see how different they looked.
Sounded like the snow was higher up than where the car ended up - but then Kati said they got stuck in snow at that Viewpoint turnout after driving down it for 2 miles, trying to turn around.
Another story said it was also stuck in underbrush - so it may not have been just snow that made it difficult to maneuver out of there.
People who were questioning them looking for a "scenic route" should know that they got the map back in Portland at a CofC tourist stop - that was found in the car with them. Doesn't sound like they asked any people about it or that any people they talked to knew about their plans to drive it.
IOW, they weren't thinking about a "scenic route" when they left Roseburg after 9PM in the dark and rain. Evidently, in the daytime, the views are spectacular.
After all they'd been through, Penelope said "I loved this place." Ha! Kids!
Let's pray they can continue to celebrate the survival of the entire family - hopefully, today.
Best bet to visit the coast is to go west on 20 from I-5
Once you get to 101 you can drive north or south to your place you want to visit in half a day.
I am curious if the map showed it was a forrest service road.
And for those wondering about cell phone service we have many areas that are dead.
Who knows this area? What kind of road in Oregon would not have had another car drive on it for over a week?? I mean Oregon is not Alaska...
no updates this morning?
More prayers........
"He and his family were able to get the windows down before the power was lost...."
When I read that it struck me that everyone should have some form of small hammer and seatbelt cutter available. They are sold many places, we bought ours through Smoky Mountain Knife Works, but I have seen them other places.
Thanks for the news from your area.
One story last night had a small mention of the three Generations of a family that left Medford Ore for the coast and took the same or a similar route last March. They were stranded for 14 days and were only found when two of them walked out. I'm hoping Oregon Rancher can fill us in on the details of that incident.
I've been over that road and it's dangerous in the summer. Very high elevation, sheer drops, one lane, not maintained, no rails or marks. It took us at least two or three hours and we didn't see one other vehicle. In August there were potholes, plants growing out of the middle of the road, and trees touching the road. We had to get out and move branches.
I think the maps should say "Impassible in winter" or something like that.
OR is about 83% public land, so there are many areas with no people whatsoever.
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