The Stivers survived, though, because they were lucky even when they broke the rules. Two members of the party, like James Kim, left their vehicle to look for help, generally considered the greater of two evils. Fortunately, they bumped into a Bureau of Land Management official. James Kim wasn't so lucky. His wife and daughters stayed in the Saab. They survived. He did not.
After the flood of media attention and the tragic outcome, it was a natural response on the part of all observers, not just James Kim's loved ones, to wonder how his death could have been prevented. That natural reaction made experienced outdoorsmen and rescue professionals nervous.
Steve Rollins, for one, is worried about unnecessary and unhelpful changes in law and policy.
"There is a need to understand the problem before rushing into legislation," he said. "Sometimes people are compelled to do something just for the sake of doing it, and they don't take the time to consult and find out all the issues.
"If the search and rescue community felt there was a need for legislation, they would be jumping up and down about it."
Sure enough, there has been a flurry of investigations and calls for action. They've come from Sen. Feinstein, the governor of Oregon, and the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency responsible for the road where the Kims got stuck. The BLM's investigation is expected to be complete by the end of this month.
And just as Rollins feared, there have been specific legislative and policy proposals. In his Washington Post article, James Kim's bereaved father made several of them.
Spencer Kim said it was crucial that federal authorities maintain better oversight over logging roads, and that they need to make sure they are barred and properly signed. "It is crucial that measures be adopted," he wrote. He demanded that laws be changed so that credit card and cellphone records could be made immediately available to the next of kin in emergencies. He urged that the Federal Aviation Administration better enforce an existing rule that restricts media overflights during search-and-rescue operations.
Kim rightly notes that time was lost before credit card and cellphone records were released to searchers, and that it was the hotel and restaurant receipts and the last-known "ping" from the cellphone that, once known to rescuers, led to the rescue of Kati Kim and her daughters.
His proposal for federal roads, however, might be unworkable. Michael Campbell, who handles public affairs for BLM in Oregon and Washington state, noted the sheer volume of roads on BLM land, which accounts for about a quarter of all acreage in Oregon. "There are 24,000 roads, comprising about 14,000 miles. We deal with a wide variety of issues: vandalism, flooding, landslides," Campbell said. "There isn't always one solution to fix everything on such a large area of land."
What is truly troubling, however, is Kim's specific criticism of the work of those who tried to rescue his son. He faults local authorities for "confusion, communication breakdowns and failures of leadership."
"Steps should be taken," wrote Kim, "to ensure that authorities are adequately trained for search-and-rescue operations, have a clear sense of their available resources and fully understand the procedures necessary to conduct an effective, well-coordinated search-and-rescue operation."
Certainly local and state governments as well as the Bureau of Land Management should do their part to protect people who utilize their land. But how much responsibility should they have to shoulder when people choose to travel into remote, unpopulated and unknown terrain -- especially in harsh weather conditions?
The cost of search and rescue efforts can be physically and financially exhausting to remote rural areas. Despite a low population and a modest tax base, rural counties in the Rockies and the Pacific mountain ranges often must expend tens of thousands of dollars finding out-of-towners who have wandered off the grid. The cost of a search can run into six figures -- the unsuccessful hunt for two women in Alaska cost $127,000. Failure, meanwhile, brings with it the additional risk of litigation.
The effort to find the Kim family was one of the largest in the history of Josephine, Curry and Coos counties. Josephine County Undersheriff Brian Anderson addressed the issue himself just after James Kim's body was found: "We're a poor county," he told the Oregonian in December. "The availability of three helicopters is unheard of for us." Indeed, it was the financial resources of James Kim's family that afforded them assets (including several rented private helicopters) that they couldn't summon themselves. Putting a single chopper in the air can cost up to $5,000 an hour.
In a case such as the Kims', the price of search and rescue can be unintentionally increased due to notoriety and media coverage. "There is no question," Chris Brewster, president of the nonprofit United States Lifesaving Association, recently told the Washington Times, "that as attention to an incident increases, potential costs rise as well, because of the pressure brought to bear on agencies overseeing the rescue."
A few states have taken measures to help small jurisdictions pay for the kinds of exhaustive searches that are now expected. They have passed laws that allow governments to ask for reimbursement in some search and rescue situations. One of them is Oregon. Another is Colorado, which also sells the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Search and Rescue Card in order to offset the cost of search and rescue missions. One county in Utah sends bills to rescued mountain bikers, and ski areas in Idaho are allowed to ask lost skiers for reimbursement. In general, however, such measures are only invoked in extreme cases, like hoaxes.
James Kim was a hero for his efforts to save his family, and his father's proposal about credit card and cellphone information merits debate. But any criticisms, no matter their source, of the search and rescue professionals and volunteers of southwestern Oregon seem harsh. And it's also true that while Spencer Kim's recommendations might save someone like his son, the circumstances of each wilderness rescue case are very specific. His proposals might not save the next traveler. Technology, whether in the form of GPS, cellphones or even helicopters, can't save everyone. In the end it comes down to whether people are prepared for the wilderness, whether they respect it or even believe that such a thing still exists. There is no balm for human error in legislation, or in criticizing the people who worked doggedly for days to save James Kim's life.
About the writer
Sarah Keech is a freelance writer living in Portland, Oregon.
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