I just read a story regarding the Kim tragedy. The writer’s point was along the lines of “even with all our gadgets, we cannot counter nature’s wrath”.
Specifically, the writer stated flatly that NO available technology could have been used to enable the searchers to locate Kim.
I like a challange, and have seen some nasty blizzards wherein nothing moves.
But - NO technology? That seems a bit of a stretch.
Obviously, if Kim had detonated a nuclear bomb, the militaries of several countries could have found him quickly.
Rather than go through all the possible-in-theory scenarios, here’s the question:
Small aricraft (some) now have recovery parachutes. These are, essentially, mortars - hence, some form of mortars are available to civilians.
Would a single mortar round (producing as much of a heat signature as possible) enable an active search (IOW: people are actively looking for signals) to locate the site from which it was fired?
I thought that those articles meant that there was no technology the searches could have used to find a person in those conditions, not that there was nothing the victim could have used to signal his presence. Obviously if he’d been sitting there with a pack of flares, a searchlight, radio beacon, etc. he’d be easier to detect.
Snow is an amazing insulator and it’d be easy to wind up under a considerable amount of it; instruments that are looking for “hot” objects (i.e. body heat) might well miss him in those circumstances.
One of the pro climbers, who are searching on Mt. Hood, gave a brief demonstration of the Recco Locator. The devices are built into cold weather garmets and can be detected under 30 ft. of snow. It’s not known if any of the lost trio was wearing Recco equit clothing.
A C-130 aircraft has been surveying the mountain for the past couple of days. It was reported that their instruments can detect body heat to a depth of about six feet in snow.
It was just reported that they have found the body of one of the climbers, he is not yet identified.
I’m not here to second guess the Kim family, but when didn’t they gather the probably abundance of sticks and branches from the surrounding forest, and light a big fire, to keep warm and be seen?
Early on, at least, they had gasoline. Forests have plenty of fallen branches. Mr. Kim himself was able to get out of the car. They actually burned the tires on their car.
Is it likely that the wood would have been damp? What other limitations would there be?
Must be tired. That should read: "WHY didn’t they gather the PROBABLE abundance of sticks and branches from the surrounding forest, and light a big fire, to keep warm and be seen?
I had not heard of the Recco equipment, but, again, from aviation: the ELT. These are radio transmitters required to be in just about anything that flies in US airspace, and are triggered by a ‘G’ meter, or a switch (for manual activation). Everyone in aviation knows what these sound like and the frequencies on which they transmit. With the advent of GPS, there are units which also transmit lat/lon (don’t know about altitude).
While few outside aviation know of these, and it is illegal to play with them, I think I’d have one along if I were to venture back into the Rockies in January.
As to the lack of a signal flare:
(sigh…) we are talking about urbanites - and from the Silicon Valley, which is not conducive to learning about basic survival techniques. To many folks, the idea of an “emergency kit” is a cell phone and a credit card. The fact that they did not stay together tells you they missed the class on “how to be be found in a blizzard in the wilderness”.
First rule"
stay put
Second rule:
stay together
The part about signal fires usually comes after those two.
I don’t understand how once gets lost in the woods when your car breaks down. Even if you choose to abandon the car, don’t you just walk back down the road?
I think you underestimate the vastness of the wilderness where they were lost.
There has been an update on the open gate. The gate is either locked open, or closed. No one cut the lock. Forest service personnel made the decision to not close the gate because, for whatever reason, they believed that there may have been vehicles in the area. This was done several weeks before the Kim’s disappearance.
The local news has reminded us of two similar incidents. One happen 11 years ago, in the same area, on the same road, where the Kim’s were stranded. It was a man alone in a pickup/camper. He stayed w/ his truck and kept a diary. The last entry was on his 59th day, he apparently died shortly after and his body was discovered in the spring.
The second incident received national attention. In '92 a youmg couple w/ a small baby were stranded in N.W. Nevada. They stayed w/ the car for a few days until it seemed hopeless, the husband found a small cave and left his wife and baby while he went for help. He walked quite a distance until he was discovered by a snowplow driver. There was a massive search effort for these people, much like the Kim’s.
Staying where you are is probably good advice in most situations, but it wasn’t in these two cases.
In clear weather, sure. In really nasty winter conditions your visibility is gone and unless the road has a pretty thick set of trees along both sides and no forks (or even big clearings, which can appear to be part of the road) it’s very easy to have no idea which way is which. If you accidentally wind up off the road you could get really lost really fast.
Couple this with having to slog through deep snow without proper clothing, food or water while carrying two small children and it’d be a scary situation.
I was snowshoeing with a friend and we were a short distance along the PCT, probably a few hundred yards away from a major highway (the PCT crosses I-80) and right next to a ski resort. The trail twisted around and we found ourselves not knowing which way to go. Snow was falling so fast that our tracks were obliterated within minutes and we couldn’t hear traffic noise from the highway. Even though we had hiked along this path less than 30 minutes earlier, finding our way back was (for a short while) challenging. I think that was when I started carrying a compass.
For those who weren’t boy scouts and/or have forgotten:
The general rule for getting out of the woods is:
Go downhill until you find running water.
Follow the water. People usually live near natural water supplies.
In a blizzard, in mountains, you are lucky if you can see 10 feet. the snow obscures all natural lines - you don’t even know which way is downhill. Setting out on foot in those conditions is rarely a good idea.
Forget about finding the road. Or even the car. Your anual trips to the ski resort do not qualify you to take on the mountain.
Anyway, I take it there is a general consensus that there are technologies which would have facilitated rescue, had they been used.
I’d still like to hear from anyone with military experience as to the ability to pinpoint the origin of a mortar round - would it have been possible, given that the round would not be seen due to snow, so only the heat signature would enable location?
They were over 20 miles from a main road, from what I read. But they were on a road. I’m still confused about why no one saw the smoke from the tires burning. I would have thought that would have been pretty obvious from the air if anyone had been searching anywhere in the area yet. It’s a tragic story.
So, let’s say they sent one of the party to gather sticks and branches (which he probably had to dig through the snow to recover.) He makes about ten exhausting trips through the deep snow to gather enough for a fire. Let’s futher assume he’s smart enough to dig down to the ground to place the sticks on it.
Now, comes the problem of lighting it. They might have had a few bits of paper on them (considering they left notes). They were probably wearing synthetic clothing, which doesn’t burn well, so they probably couldn’t pull fibers from it for tinder. So, the paper may have been all they have that would burn, and with wet wood, you’re not going to get a good fire started with only a few wads of paper, unless you really, really know what you’re doing and you’re very lucky.
But what do they start the fire with? Considering they’re mountain climbers, they’re probably not smokers, and so didn’t have a cigarette lighter. Rubbing two sticks together will work . . . eventually . . . but not with wet wood. They might have been able to make some sort of magnifying mirror, but the sunlight was probably pretty weak. Perhaps one of them got the idea of trying to use the cell phone battery to spark it, which may be why the cell phone stopped working. (An iffy proposition at best, unless you knew what you were doing.)
Due to all of this, I think it was probably impossible for them to get a fire going.
Smoke from a signal fire is difficult, if not impossible to see in relatively good weather, let alone bad weather. Then there’s the bugaboo – is there anyone there to see it? Much of the search efforts for the Kim family were centered tens of miles away along the coast. It was only by chance that a local pilot heard about the search efforts, and only after hearing about a particular road, took off to search on his own using his own knowledge of the area that lost people way too often take a particular road. It was the same road the Kim family were finally found.
While techno-gadgets can be a blessing, they can also be a curse.
Between Truckee and Lake Tahoe (the body of water, not the town) there are two highways and a major road that define a small triangle of land north of Burton
Creek State Park. There is no way to get more than two miles from a major road, and it is all high ground in the middle. If you walk downhill in any direction you will come to a road within an hour at most, and probably only 20-30 minutes.
In years past, casual hikers would get lost in there, get real scared, and eventually find their way to a road, having learned something. Essentially, NOBODY ever got lost and stayed lost in there.
Now they whip out their cell phone and call out search and rescue, who for liability reasons MUST respond.
My point is that whatever gadget you come up with, you must make certain that there is some means to limit it’s use to true emergencies, otherwise it will increase the burden on SAR.
Actually Mr. Kim did find a steam and was following it.
However, that is no longer the general advice–I don’t remeber right. something about it being colder at the bottom of valleys and maybe about getting wet.
Bingo. What’s worse is that there are people whose sum total emergency preparation is that cellphone. No clue how to handle a problem or prevent them to begin with, they just figure that they can pull out their magic wand, dial 911 and it’ll all be made better. There’s a moral responsibility to know how to handle yourself before you head out; SAR should be the last resort, not the first.
As far as signal fires, the area where the Kim’s got lost is in the coast range where it’s not unusual for the weather to be overcast for weeks at a time in winter.
Regarding emergency beacons, there was much ado about hikers, climbers and wilderness skiers being required to carry such a device. The main reason being the extreme cost each year of SAR activity. It being much faster and cheaper to find someone who has an emergency transmitter. I thought that they had made it a requirement for Mt. Hood and other areas, but I’ve heard no mention of this in the current search.
The Kim’s and others who have gotten lost often don’t realize how quickly the weather can turn very treacherous. That’s especially true of visitors who may be from warmer climes. The weather was clear when the Kim’s decided to take the shortcut and the map was obviously deceiving. They likely figured they would make the coast in 3-4 hours, unfortunately it was a mistake that a local might not have made.
I put in a couple of million miles w/ my truck and I’ve been caught several times in blizzard conditions, however I had plenty of fuel and supplies to wait it out. Not the same as being stranded in a car.
The Kims set their car tires on fire, so setting a fire was clearly possible. I’m guessing they used gasoline to start it. You have to assume these people had common sense, so maybe the wood was just too wet.
I just heard a report that alleges that several people spotted the Kims’ car (or tracks) well before Mr. Kim set out on foot. The new allegations are that local law enforcement somehow dropped the ball–several times. I’m sure this story will continue to develop…
Well when all you hillbillies come to NYC and are on the street asking me for directions, we’ll see how “prepared” you are. Have a nice time in The Bronx. Lissa, do they not make cars with lighters anymore?
Having grown up in the Northeast, it’s pretty rare that I would ever find myself in a circumstance where I wouldn’t end up at a road of some kind if I continued hiking in any direction.
It seems to me that the best course of action in any event is to stay with the freakin car. You can’t have driven it that far from the road. It’s got to provide better protection than any snow cave or lean to you might try to make. If the car can get to where you are, so can a rescue vehicle. And finally, you don’t want to be the heroic jerk they find frozen to death 15 miles from where they found your car last week.
Well, I’m not Lissa but for some time now lighters on some cars have become optional equipment (you have to buy the “Smokers package” or something like that). My car doesn’t have one; it has a 12V outlet where a lighter could go but it is officially called a “power port” and its main purpose on my car is to keep my iPod powered. So, unless they were smokers it is entirely possible that they didn’t have a car lighter. (They must have had some kind of ignition source though, since they managed to burn a tire somehow.)
