Internet Mapping Services Not Reliable

Filed in archive Outdoor Survival on December 12, 2006

After reporting on the tragic death of James Kim - who was found dead after his family was lost in the Oregon mountains - SFGate.com's Tom Stienstra speculated that the Kim family was using a paper map that had possibly been printed out from the Internet.

It remains unclear exactly how the Kims decided to take the one-lane Bear Camp Road west from Grants Pass toward the coast. But about 50 miles short of their destination of Gold Beach, James Kim turned from Bear Camp onto a side road and drove another 15 miles before the car got stuck.

The article points out the dangers inherent in using maps that don't follow strict guidelines, such as government-produced maps, which usually mark certain high country roads as dangerous or seasonal. In response, SFGate has received numerous comments from readers regarding maps and planning.

But even hard-copy maps from supposed reliable sources can be misleading, as Al Margary pointed out in a comment:

"... if you had the "Official Oregon Map" published in the 1990s, it shows the road to Bear Camp Summit -- the road the Kims got lost on -- as a heavy black line with no notation about the elevation or it being closed in winter. That could start the chain of disastrous mistakes. Yet if you had the AAA map from 2003, that map shows the route as a faint, thin line, and notes that the summit is 4,500 feet elevation, and that the road is closed in winter west of that point."

The most cautionary comments centered on the fact that any family from the city, with typical limited outdoor skills training and experience, who depend on directions and maps from the Internet, or even some hard-copy maps, could end up in a similar predicament.

"The route on which his family was found, Bear Camp Road, is normally impassable in winter -- that's locally known. Google Maps, Live Local and Ask.com nevertheless recommend that route."

Read the full reporting of the story as it progressed at SFGate.com.