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I find this comment to be very interesting. I teach survival skills to kids and my son is right now learning more information and practicing new techniques so he can act as a junior instructor/leader. All of this in a 4H program.
Some of his Christmas present this year will be his personal survival equipment for hunting and packing. We have already practiced with each and every item in the pack so that if he ever needs to use the equipment he will know how and know when. Having packed horses and mules for a couple of decades and outfitted my own camps for hunters the bear situation that some of you are suggesting I find to be highly questionable. Black Bears are the biggest chickens in the forest except when a sow has little cubs with her and that is not this time of the year. A bear can't see worth a hoot, but their hearing and sense of smell are fantastic. Mr Kim was not sneaking along through the forest and would have been detected by the bear before he even knew the bear was there. The bear would not have attacked him but would have run like his tail was on fire. I have taken bear with rifle, black powder, handguns, and archery gear so save the bear stories. Some folks in here have been watching too many Disney movies. After 10 years of SAR I came to the point that I could not handle it anymore. Too many of the searches turned into recovery operations. Before you begin to make judgments about my compassion you may need to figure out where my strong feelings come from. A few years ago My son got lost with some other adults. These adults were family members from Sacramento. They were lost for 13 hours. I about killed two horses and went through 4 different dogs before I found them. The only reason they didn't end up spending at least one long cold night alone in the wilderness is because my then 8 year old son insisted that they start doing things right. He knew I would be coming for him and he insisted that they get somewhere I could find them and stay put. They had wandered over 6 miles into the back side of Lassen National Park where there are no trails or roads. We got back to the truck at 2AM with only a sliver of a moon the big dipper and the north star. The mountains are my world and the world I've been teaching my son about all of his life. Mr Kim went through hell doing what he thought would save his family and most will always consider him to be a hero. What he thought was wrong and he will always be a dead hero. I would much rather that he had been rescued than recovered.

Thanks for your response. I know I jumped on your back pretty hard. I understand where you are coming from and I certainly appreciate your background and the sense of survival you have instilled in your son. I think for that you are smart and you also live in an area that requires that.

My point about James (and I am sure you get this) is he didn't have that training, yeah he made mistakes but that doesn't matter. What he did was a selfless act (in fact everyday they were lost he did selfless acts) and for that I think he should be remembered as a hero. Not some city slicker who made stupid mistakes and got himself killed and almost his entire family...etc.... That is why I jumped on you or anybody else that wanted to leave that impression about the man.

It is so easy to pick apart somebody (with hindsight) but to look at what he did as a whole and what he put himself through to save his family - man that is something to embrace, appreciate and to say you know that James Kim is a real hero. It really sucks he didn't make it but he really gave it his all.

I think a lot of people would like to have courage that James Kim had but in fact I think a lot of people would have been selfish and would have done things to preserve themselves at the expense of the others.

Just my two cents...and I take back my comment about how you might treat your son. I hope the wisdom you have instilled carries him for many years.

Lastly, the report I read was that they thought it was a brown bear which I think is a very different story than a black bear - is that correct? Especially near hibrenation? I am not that familar with bears but I can tell you about panthers and sharks and snakes.