Last weekend began like a modern Christmas fairy tale for Starry Bush-Rhoads and John Rhoads and Jeramie Griffin and Megan Garrison: Two traveling couples using GPS navigation units took two SUVs on two shortcuts up two snowy backcountry Oregon roads.
Then the couples got stuck and wound up cold and hungry — staying that way until searchers, also using navigation units, tracked them down, finding them safe, grateful and skeptical of cheery-voiced GPS directions.
The Rhoadses were trapped for three days; Griffin and Garrison, with a toddler in tow, were stuck for 12 hours.
Search and rescue experts say such incidents are becoming more common and urge motorists to pack common sense when planning a winter drive and bring along something basic: a map.
Jim Wiens says his nephew, Griffin, set off from Lebanon with his wife and 11-month-old daughter around 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve, bound for Garrison’s family home in Maupin.
Before he left, he programmed a new Garmin GPS, a Christmas gift from his mother, to find the quickest route from Lebanon to central Oregon, some four hours away.
But Christmas morning, Wiens got a phone call from relatives saying the young couple never arrived in Maupin.
To figure out which road his nephew took, Wiens called a friend with a similar GPS unit. After typing in the Maupin address, the navigation system suggested a route through the forest that would have cut 40 miles off their trip.
“It was the old Santiam Highway, up in the Cascades,” said Wiens. “This is a summer road, not a winter road, and he didn’t know that.”
Wiens did what sheriff’s deputies might recommend: packing two vehicles with water, blankets, food and shovels. “We went well-prepared.”
More than once, Wiens almost turned back. But when he saw footprints along Forest Road 46 shortly after 4 p.m., about 17 miles from U.S. 26, he plowed through.
“My nephew came walking up the road. He gave me the biggest hug. They were at wits’ end. He broke down in my arms,” Wiens said.
Expecting a 3-hour, 40-minute highway drive, the couple wasn’t carrying food or water or warm clothes. Both adults tried to hike out for help and to get cell-phone service. The couple even recorded their final goodbyes on home video, he said.
“They were in rough shape when we found them,” Wiens said. “But they got home safe. We got the best Christmas present ever.”
Right around the time Wiens was celebrating, the Rhoadses were driving in their Toyota Sequoia four-wheel drive, heading home to Nevada after an Oregon vacation.
They had spent Christmas Eve in Redmond and set off to Bend and onto Oregon 31 — a straight shot to Reno. Veteran users of GPS navigation, they were surprised when the unit’s voice interrupted their drive.
“We knew the route we wanted to take,” said Bush-Rhoads, back home safely in Reno. “But after we were on 31 for about 25 miles, it said, ‘Turn right on County Road 24.’”
When they missed the turn, the GPS voice advised them to hang a U-turn.
“We didn’t know that it was a road that should have been closed. The only sign on the road, a little itty-bitty sign, said Not Winter Maintained.” But the road appeared passable in both directions.
The Rhoadses took the road and wound up in a wildlife refuge wilderness area in Lake County.
After the truck repeatedly got stuck in the snow, they spent first Friday night and then Saturday night in the truck.
A self-described “overpacker,” Bush-Rhoads had filled the vehicle with cold cuts, cheeses, crackers, carrots, fruit, nutrition bars and water.
“I do a lot of outdoor activities so we were prepared. But we knew it was a life and death situation.”
Rhoads, a consultant, suggested they try 9-1-1 again. This time, the call went through. But it took four calls before a Klamath County operator got their coordinates from triangulating the call from cell towers.
Rescuers arrived about 5:30 p.m. and winched them out of the snow.
Bush-Rhoads, a realtor, has two regrets: “We should have given someone our full itinerary, and we should have carried chains,” she said. “A GPS has its great pluses, but just like a dishwasher, it has its limitations.”
The Oregon State Police agrees, advising motorists to stay on well-known roads, especially when traveling in remote areas of the state.
“Know where you are going and know the conditions at that time,” said Lt. Gregg Hastings, spokesman for the state police. If you plan to drive on U.S. Forest Service roads, contact that agency first to make sure the area is safe for driving, he said.
Georges Kleinbaum, the state’s search and rescue coordinator, said the state regularly fields reports from motorists who followed their vehicles’ GPS into the wilderness. Kleinbaum said that typically, people who are lost or stranded contact authorities who are able to help them.
“Few make big news because they are easily resolved,” he said.
Kleinbaum said motorists shouldn’t rely solely on GPS. “Part of it is common sense. We hear stories about people being told to take a particular road and when they get there, it’s half-covered with rockfall and broken trees. That should be a warning sign that this is not a regularly maintained road. Motorists should follow their instincts.”
If the GPS directs you to a “tiny dirt road in the middle of nowhere,” think twice.
And, Kleinbaum suggests, don’t forget a map.
