The decisions the Kim family made when they attempted to cross the Southern Oregon Coast Range were ill-advised, but they weren’t Darwin Award foolish either. That’s what makes the tragedy of Jamess kim’s deatth resonate.
Growing up on the East Coast (or even in urban areas of the West, as seems the case with the Kims) it’s hard to comprehend how wild the West can still be. In the east the forces of nature are quieter, people more dominant–the mountains are lower, the waves smaller, almost every inch of land is mapped and tamed. If you see a road on a map, you can pretty much assume it will take you where you want to go with your major obstacle being hideous traffic.
When we who aren’t intimately familiar with wildness conceptualize it, either as a place of beauty and/or a romantic place of adventure. We don’t think of it as a harsh, unforgiving landscape far beyond human scale. WE’re no more important out there than any other animals, and less well equipped to survive than most.
I don’t know exactly what makes it so, but the western corner of Southern Oregon is one of the most wild places I’ve ever experienced. It’s pretty but not picture-postcard beautiful There aren’t many people,and the people you catch a glimpse of don’t necessarily look like folks you want to know. There aren’t many roads, and roads there are twist and turn and dead end. The forest is thick and the terrain steep. You can get lost there, easily.
The first summer we spent in Oregon, we finished a hike up Mt. Thielsen late in the afternoon. Looking for a way to avoid retracing our steps, we found what seemed to be a direct route back to Route 58 east of Eugene. I asked my husband why the route was marked in dots. He had no idea. Fresh from New York, we knew nothing about logging roads. The road started out innocently enough, paved and gently slped for the first few miles. Soon, however, it deteriorated to one lane of rubble, with a cliff on one side and a thousand foot drop off on the other. Fortunately it was Sunday, so no logging trucks hurtled their way by in the other direction. We did not see another car or a single evidence of human habitation. Every few miles we reached a Y where we had to choose whether to angle right or left. we chose by our guts, chugging along in our rear wheel drive Volvo, before the days of GPS systems and cell phones, listening to a tape of Cat Stevens singing “Miles from Nowhere”. Hearing lyrics like “I know my body has been a good friend, but I won’t need it when I reach the end.” didn’t make me feel any better. While our two daughters sat straight up and terrified in the back seat, our eight year old son kept calmly playing his Game Boy. The sun dipped lower in the sky, as did the arrow on our gas tank.
Fortunately it was summer. And fortunately we must have picked our tight and left turns correctly, because eventually we came out onto a paved road. The paved road went past a campsite where several years later, a couple would be found murdered. When I saw the paved road I was ready to kiss the ground.
Now we had a great story. A few less missteps, and a little better luck, and Kati and James Kim would have had a great story too.
Apparently, someone had vandalized the gate that should have barred the logging road the Kims, no doubt by that time scared and confused, mistakenly went down. But you have to count on things like that happening, out in the wilderness. You have to count on the possibility of snow. You have to realize that maps don’t necessarily tell you everything.
I’m still fascinated by the Lost Coast in NOrthern California, not because it looks more beautiful that anyplace else in California,but simply because it’s Lost. Every time we pass the dirt and gravel roads leading out into that wilderness I am tempted to go down there. and come back with a great story. In the summer. With food, drink, and cell phones.
