Sunday, December 10, 2006
Bear Camp Road tragedy
In September, Amy and I spent a week in southern Oregon, hitting Crater Lake and Sequoia national parks. The road to Crescent City was under construction and not that great, so when it came time to drive back, we decided to cut across from Gold Beach to Grants Pass. Driving up 101 to Bandon, then heading east on the main road looked like 150 miles or so; the back road was less than half as much.
We took the same route as James Kim, who died trying to seek help for his family. A windy, harrowing USFS logging road that I figured would be at most 2 lanes. But the road is washed out in places and is really one-lane-plus for much of the middle interval over the Coastal Range. We drove the other direction in late summer and as it became apparent the 40-60 miles was going to take 4 hours, the realization we might not finish the trip in daylight was disconcerting. After dark, there was no way I would drive at all; I figured I'd just turn off the car and wait out the night, not wanting to slip over the side into the ravines alongside the washed-out shoulder, hoping no one would slam into us in the pitch-black quiet. The area adjoins national wilderness area and locals later told us "you might want to be armed up there."
The map was a bit misleading. The signs weren't warning enough, and I've driven a lot of mountain and forest service back roads.
I wrote a letter to the Medford Mail-Bulletin and a reporter called last week and interviewed me for 20 minutes. He used only three of my criticisms; it was liking talking to a younger "me" when I was a young reporter in Grand Junction. He did include my main point that, in an area that pushes tourism, community leaders should discuss the addition of new signs that discourage tourists from using the backcountry shortcuts, period.
On that trip we also took a class V rapids raft trip that was exhilarating and did get to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
We took the same route as James Kim, who died trying to seek help for his family. A windy, harrowing USFS logging road that I figured would be at most 2 lanes. But the road is washed out in places and is really one-lane-plus for much of the middle interval over the Coastal Range. We drove the other direction in late summer and as it became apparent the 40-60 miles was going to take 4 hours, the realization we might not finish the trip in daylight was disconcerting. After dark, there was no way I would drive at all; I figured I'd just turn off the car and wait out the night, not wanting to slip over the side into the ravines alongside the washed-out shoulder, hoping no one would slam into us in the pitch-black quiet. The area adjoins national wilderness area and locals later told us "you might want to be armed up there."
The map was a bit misleading. The signs weren't warning enough, and I've driven a lot of mountain and forest service back roads.
I wrote a letter to the Medford Mail-Bulletin and a reporter called last week and interviewed me for 20 minutes. He used only three of my criticisms; it was liking talking to a younger "me" when I was a young reporter in Grand Junction. He did include my main point that, in an area that pushes tourism, community leaders should discuss the addition of new signs that discourage tourists from using the backcountry shortcuts, period.
On that trip we also took a class V rapids raft trip that was exhilarating and did get to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
