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Car
Plymouth Fury
The Plymouth Fury is a car that was made by the Plymouth brand. It became famous in a movie called 'Christine' where it comes to life and causes trouble.
Car
Volkswagen Passat
The Volkswagen Passat is a car made by Volkswagen. It's a roomy and comfortable vehicle that many families like to use.
Car
Honda Ridgeline
The Honda Ridgeline is a pickup truck that is designed to be comfortable and practical for everyday use. It has a smooth ride and clever storage spaces, making it a good choice for people who need a truck but also want a comfortable vehicle.
Car
Saab 9-2X
The Saab 9-2X is a small car made by the brand Saab. It shares parts with another car called the Subaru Impreza, which makes it interesting for fans of both brands.
Brand
Subaru
Subaru is a car brand from Japan that makes cars known for being good in tough weather conditions, like snow. They are popular among people who enjoy outdoor activities.
Term
all-wheel drive
All-wheel drive means that all four wheels of the car get power from the engine, which helps the car grip the road better, especially in rain or snow.
Term
street tires
Street tires are the regular tires you use on cars for driving on roads. They are made to grip the pavement well and last a long time.
Term
suspension tuning
Suspension tuning is about making changes to how a car's suspension works to improve how it drives. It can help the car handle better on the road or track.
Term
ground clearance
Ground clearance is how high a car is off the ground. A higher ground clearance helps a car drive over bumps and rough roads more easily.
Part
open diffs
An open differential is a part of a car that lets the wheels turn at different speeds, which is useful when turning. However, it can make it hard for the car to grip the road in slippery situations.
Part
locking differentials
Locking differentials help both wheels on the same axle turn at the same speed, which is great for getting out of tough spots like mud or snow. They can be turned on or off depending on the situation.
Car
Audi Quattro
The Audi Quattro is a car famous for its all-wheel-drive system, which helps it grip the road better, especially in bad weather or off-road. It's a popular choice for driving in snowy or uneven conditions.
Car
Trooper
The Isuzu Trooper is a type of SUV that is built to handle tough roads and off-road conditions. It's known for being strong and reliable in rough environments.
Term
open differential
An open differential lets the wheels on the same axle turn at different speeds, which helps when turning. But if one wheel slips, it can spin while the other doesn't get power, making it hard to move.
Car
Toyota 4Runner
The Toyota 4Runner is a tough SUV that can handle off-road driving. It has features that help it grip the ground better when driving on rough terrain.
Company
Nokian Tires
Nokian Tires is a company that makes tires, especially known for their winter tires that work well in snowy conditions.
Term
Hakka Palitas
Hakka Palitas are special winter tires made by Nokian that help cars grip the road better in snow and ice. They can have tiny metal spikes that dig into the ice for better traction.
Term
studded tires
Studded tires are special tires that have little metal spikes sticking out of them. These spikes help cars grip the road better when it's icy or snowy, making it safer to drive in winter weather.
Term
Arctic tested rubber
Arctic tested rubber is rubber that works well in very cold weather. It helps tires stay flexible and grip the road better when it's really cold outside.
Term
snow claws
Snow claws are special parts of winter tires that help them grip the road better when it's snowy or icy. They make it easier to drive safely in winter weather.
Term
studs
Studs are little metal spikes that can be put on winter tires. They help the tires grip the ice better, making it safer to drive in icy conditions.
Term
4Motion
4Motion is a system used in Volkswagen cars that helps them drive better in tough conditions by sending power to all four wheels. This makes it easier to drive in snow or rain.
Term
4Matic
4Matic is a system that helps Mercedes-Benz cars drive better in bad weather by sending power to all four wheels instead of just two. This helps the car grip the road better in snow or rain.
Car
Volkswagen Golf R
The Volkswagen Golf R is a fast version of the regular Golf, designed for performance with a powerful engine and better handling.
LIVE
Hey, guys, welcome to Overcrest.
I'm Chris.
And I'm Jess.
Welcome to the podcast, Jesse.
Not Jake.
Much better looking, if I might say so myself.
Much taller.
Bias or not?
Much taller.
Much better looking.
And you've put together an episode for us.
Jake is down in Palm Beach, Florida on vacation with his family.
He keeps sending me pictures of sunshine,
because it is snowing here.
So you put something together for us.
I'm really curious.
She's, I can tell you guys, she's
sitting in her office, which is on the other side of where
she's sitting right now, working very studiously
on something.
And every time I walk over there,
she starts closing her windows and telling me to go away.
So I have no idea what's going on.
What can you tell us what's going on?
All right.
Hey, do you have ad reads figured out in this?
You do?
OK.
I didn't know if I needed to say anything with that or not.
All right, let's do this.
Ironically, so you asked me to help you with this,
because Jake wasn't around.
And I was like, oh, what should I do?
Should I do something ghosty?
Should I do something like cars that went crazy,
like something like that?
Christine, that is the best car gone crazy as Christine.
Have you read it?
No, I haven't.
It's a story about, gosh, I wish I knew what kind of car it was.
I can't remember.
So I think it's a Plymouth, like a Plymouth.
I got it would be too well-named to be the Plymouth Fury,
but it's about this car.
This dude who falls in love with this car.
And the people, it gets smashed and it gets mad
and it starts killing people.
What's cool is after it gets in the accident,
the movie scene, it starts to pop itself back to life.
They smashed the car and then they
reversed, filmed it so that the car comes back to life
and all the bumps and the chrome
and everything come out super epic,
super interesting scene.
Anyway, that's my favorite haunted car.
So then I was like, oh, maybe I talk about something I like.
And then I started thinking about,
there was this like true crime thing.
And I was like, eh.
And then I was like, there was this road
that I always think about when you're scouting.
And it just happens that this story happened
20 years ago, Thanksgiving weekend.
Okay.
Are you ready?
It's a particular road?
It's about a road.
Why do you think about this road
every time I'm out scouting for that?
You'll figure it out.
Okay, all right.
You'll figure it out.
Do you remember what we were doing
on our first Thanksgiving?
God, no.
We were living in Edina.
And you were-
By the way, hold on.
By the way, for people that are new to the podcast,
Jesse is my wife.
So when we talk about Thanksgiving 20 years ago,
we were hanging out because we were married.
Anyway, continue.
We were living in Edina
and you had like that green facade
that never started.
That thing always started.
What are you talking about?
That ABA Passat, did it not start?
It was Thanksgiving
and I was standing at the end of our driveway
with jumper cables because it wouldn't start.
So here's the-
Yes, but preface to that is me standing.
It wouldn't start because the battery was dead.
Was me standing at the end of the driveway
with jumper cables in my hand.
No one stops.
20-year-old Jesse walks out there
with her jumper cables in her hand and a skirt.
Boom, first guy pulls over
and you could tell he was really disappointed
when he came.
When you walked out?
He pulled in the driveway
and there's me standing there.
Yes, and he did give us a very reluctant jump start.
Yes, I do remember that.
All right, so imagine this.
Man's walking alone at night.
No flash night, no trail, only darkness,
hunger, exhaustion, and snow swallowing
everything he can see.
16 miles behind him is the car-
Sounds like a great place to bleed out.
Have you seen those memes?
No.
No?
Well, it's because you're a girl.
There are memes that are just,
it's usually a picture of a park bench
and it's just sitting there and then there's snow
and the snow is falling down
and it's just like, this would be a great place to bleed out
and it's like a very man thing.
Oh, okay.
That is not where this is going.
All right, where did I leave off?
16 miles behind him is the car where he left his family,
a wife trying to keep it together,
a four-year-old and a baby wrapped
in the last warm clothes they have.
He walks because staying means death
because no one else knows where they are
and because fathers do impossible things
when there are no other options left.
That's like wind-gusting, okay?
Wind-gusting, okay.
All right, by now his jeans-
Let me show you this.
Let me show you this quick.
Like, I guess women don't understand it all.
I pulled a picture.
It's like a park bench and snow and everything like that
and it's like, why do men keep saying
they want to bleed out here?
What does that mean?
We just want a good death, that's all.
I think that's what it comes down to.
All right, continue, I'm sorry.
Okay, all right.
So by now his jeans have frozen stiff,
sneakers soaked through with ice water,
hands that no longer bend, the hours blur,
he falls, he crawls, he goes in circles,
but he stands again because two little girls
are waiting in the dark behind him.
Eventually he reaches a ridgeline,
his body's failing, vision narrowing
and he doesn't know it yet
but he's one mile from shelter.
That's how it always happens.
These people die.
Everybody dies like a mile from,
you'll see this thing like they search for this guy
for like 10 days, finds out he's starved to death
like 16 feet from the trail
where everybody was walking by
and he didn't even know it.
He might not be dead though.
Oh, maybe not.
One mile from heat, one mile from help,
one mile from survival,
but the mountain gets the final say.
How is that for a downer of a start?
Yeah, not bad.
The guy's almost dead.
He's about to bleed out.
I think you know what I think it is?
I think it comes from like,
I think it comes from this picture right here.
Oh no, this is going to be like
the lowest resolution thing ever,
but I think this is where the concept started was this.
You know what that's from?
Is that from a-
It's Blade Runner.
Blade Runner.
It's Blade Runner where he's basically bleeding out
on the stairs of the place.
Anyway, continue.
Okay, this is the story of the choices
that led him here,
the road that tricked him,
and this is a road you 100% would have taken.
Okay, so this guy walks on this road
and is almost dead.
Got it.
Yes, this is the story of the Kim family
and Bear Camp Road,
a tragedy of a wrong turn.
Bear Camp Road, that sounds familiar.
It's in the state that I don't want to say wrong.
Oh no.
Seattle is, so.
What do you mean?
You just say Seattle wrong.
It's Washington.
Seattle's the state.
Oh no, it's not.
It's the next state, the next below it.
Oregon?
Oregon, Oregon, how do you say it?
Oh yes, this is a contentious point
between the Oregonians.
I just say Oregon.
Oregon.
Oregon, yeah.
Oregonians are very particular with how you say it.
So you're right to feel potential shame.
Feel nervous.
Like Jeff's going to come on here
and disona his friends.
All right, so let's start with a little background.
James and Katie Kim were a young,
warm, creative, adventurous couple.
They met through mutual friends
at like one of those parties where they're like,
hey, meet my friend.
No, meet my friend.
They fell in love recently.
Pre-Snap, pre-Tinder.
Yes.
When you actually met people in person, got it.
Yes, they lived in San Francisco,
two daughters, Penelope Four and Baby Sabine,
who's seven months old.
People said that you couldn't have a conversation
if James was in a room with his daughters,
because he would just get distracted by them
and just want everything to do with them.
Didn't care about anybody else.
He even brought her to work
when it was like totally against the rules.
But he's like, fuck it, I'm bringing my daughter to work.
I want to hang out with my kids.
What was his job, do we know?
He was a well-loved editor at CNET.
Early tech journalism royalty.
Think of that guy you like to watch on YouTube.
What?
He's...
Or Marky Brownlee.
Yes, he was here.
He was the early version of him.
Okay.
And Katie owned two retail shops in San Francisco.
So they're doing okay.
So he's got a real job
and she's got a tax write-off.
Is that what I'm gathering here?
Yes, but she's got two of them.
So she's probably good, right?
It's not a bakery in a small town.
This isn't a Marky movie.
Got it.
James was the son of Dr. Ty Kim
who will come back to more about him later.
He's a Korean immigrant who built a life
out of grit, devotion, and discipline.
James inherited his father's quiet, steady bravery.
So again, it's Thanksgiving 2006.
They drive to Seattle to visit family,
completely normal, completely safe.
But the drive home would be anything but.
James and Katie didn't set out on an adventure.
They were just doing what thousands of families do
every year, driving from San Francisco to Seattle
to spend Thanksgiving with relatives.
It was one of the first long trips they'd taken
as a family of four since Sabine's birth
and the Kims were excited to introduce her
to their extended family.
Can you imagine?
Like one of them is like, I don't want to do this.
I don't want to go there.
I don't want to eat Thanksgiving food.
Yeah, I don't want this poverty food,
this stupid turkey.
Although if they're like, their last name is Kim,
maybe they're having actual good food
or maybe they're having not.
Do you want to see what they look like?
Yeah, sure.
Maybe they're not having the typical staple
American food, which is the worst.
I speculate they were.
Having the American food?
Yeah, so this is James and Penelope and Sabine
and then that's Katie.
Okay.
So cute little family.
Yep.
So they spend a few days celebrating Seattle,
relaxed, cozy, full of good food
and grandparents holding babies.
Penelope playing with her cousins
is the kind of holiday visit
that reminds you what family is for.
Oh.
When it's time to head home,
they left later than planned, you know?
Feeding the baby, shoes are lost,
lung, drawn out goodbyes.
Yes.
Plastic bags being filled with stuff you don't want.
I wonder if there's, that's my life.
Absolutely, it's the Minnesota goodbye.
Yep.
Or it's just like nobody will leave.
I'm always like, time to go,
put shoes on out the door.
That way nobody has a chance
to give you a bunch of crap
you don't want on your way out the door.
So by the time they finally got out
into I-5 South, it was already evening.
The girls fell asleep within minutes,
bundled in blankets,
kind of peaceful backseat exhaustion
that makes parents whisper
so they don't wake them up.
They drive through Southwestern Washington
and into Oregon.
First it's calm, then light rain,
long stretches of freeways, quiet conversation,
headlights reflecting off wet pavement,
hopefully better headlights than we had last night.
Gosh.
They plan to stop for the night
somewhere around Gold Beach on the Oregon coast
to break the long trip into two days.
Do you know where that is?
No, I don't, I do not.
Okay.
I'm guessing it's Southwestern Oregon
up on the ocean.
I'll show you a map eventually.
Okay.
I find it, okay.
So I sense that somebody's obviously
this guy's lost, right?
We heard in the beginning of this.
I find it so difficult.
What year is this, by the way?
Those pictures look like, okay.
Look like early 2000s.
I find it difficult to believe anybody
can actually get lost in America.
Like absolutely flat out lost.
You'll find out what?
How was that?
Okay, because it just doesn't seem like a thing.
So when they reached Grant's Pass area,
it was already too late.
Rain was coming down harder.
The highway signs at night all blended together
and with two little girls sleeping in the back,
they made a very parent decision.
Let's not wake them.
Let's just keep going a little farther.
Somewhere in your Grant's Pass, they miss a turn.
Just imagine Katie saying something like,
something terrible has happened.
They missed a turn and they're tired
and who wants to backtrack 30 minutes
when there's gotta be a better way, right?
You don't wanna turn around.
Yeah, you never wanna turn around and go backwards.
You always wanna keep moving forwards.
And I think that can lead to an error for sure.
Cause I think that comes a lot
from not admitting mistakes.
You don't wanna have a mistake or be wrong.
Yeah, and why isn't there,
so they're, just imagine that this is their...
Hey, do me a favor, put whatever you're looking at
on your monitor on your left a little bit.
On my, it is all the way to my left.
I can't move it any farther.
Okay, all right.
I can move it over here.
No, that's okay.
I know this isn't the best angle for me, is it?
Oh, you look great.
Don't worry about it.
All right, so, like,
I'm gonna try to explain this for you.
They're up here, right?
And they're traveling down.
Yeah, I'm looking at Graspass right now.
And they've gotta go over to the coast.
So they gotta go this way.
I'm gonna pull up a map
and we're gonna look at where Graspass is.
And we're gonna peek at this a little bit.
You wanna see my map, it's better.
Oh, your map is better?
My map is for sure better.
All right, they're up here
and they're supposed to turn here.
Is that where Graspass is?
42.
Oh, Graspass is way down there.
Yeah, but this was the plan was to take this, okay?
And then go over the coast.
But they missed that exit.
And they end up down by Graspass.
Okay, first of all, that's a long way to go
to not realize you missed an exit.
Yes. We'll just say that.
Zone and out, rock and out.
Okay, I'm gonna stop sharing this.
All right, so they're supposed to take Seattle to I-5,
then cutting to Oregon 42,
then following the coast to Gold Beach.
And then they were gonna plan on staying
at the two-two-ton lodge for the night.
Okay. Sounds dumb.
At one point, Katie called to make a reservation
at the hotel and the hotel employee was like,
mm-mm, you're not gonna make it here.
And she's like, no, no, no, just like book me the room.
And she's like, no, seriously,
you should not drive this way.
Like the roads are bad, there's a storm coming,
just stay somewhere else.
And they're like, nope, we know better, we're going.
Can I ask a question?
I want to get to that hotel, yeah.
What kind of car are they driving?
I'll get there, too.
Okay, I'm kind of very curious.
What kind of car do you think they're driving?
Tech guy, early cousins.
Lives in San Francisco.
Lives in San Francisco.
Yeah, families in Seattle.
I'm gonna go with like a Passat.
I'm gonna go with Volkswagen Passat.
Clearly probably not for motion.
All right, so back to the mis-turn.
Because this is 2006, there's no ways, no navigation.
Maybe there is, but they don't have it.
Or maybe he was just like...
This is the era of an adventurer.
This is printed out, yeah.
Printed out, right?
Yeah.
All right, so he pulls out a paper map.
And they see a road that they think looks like a shortcut.
A short...
That road is Bear Camp Road.
It's just a skinny line slicing across the mountains.
And they think, yeah, that'll work.
They turn onto it and that brings us
to this town of Merlin, Oregon.
This is where they leave I-5
and annoyingly begin heading
into the Skis-2 mountains?
Is that how you say it?
I don't know.
Saskatoon?
Oh, Assisted, whoa.
The river is Siskiyou, Siskiyou.
Siskiyou, Siskiyou, yeah.
The Siskiyou National Forest.
Everybody's screaming right now.
They're like from Oregon.
And that's the moment,
the single normal moment where everything starts.
Oh, this road looks awesome.
I know.
So on the map, Bear Camp Road looks
like a clean connector.
Nothing warns them it's seasonal.
Nothing warns them it's unplowed.
Nothing warns them that the gates
should be closed this time of year.
Does that sound familiar?
Why?
I don't know.
Don't you go through gates?
Oh, yes.
For roads you probably shouldn't be on?
I do.
I have, yes, I've been stranded in the snow.
Yep.
In my car, trying to drive through.
Luckily, getting rescued by,
yeah, I can't even make a route with this road.
It is currently closed.
Mm-hmm.
But you can't drive it right now.
Doesn't look like.
So at first the road is paved.
Then it's cracked.
Then it's gravel.
Then it's dirt.
Well, Katie sleeps because she's not stressed out.
They know where they're going, right?
So she's just sleeping away.
James stops to move branches and rocks from the road.
Oh my God.
You are.
You've...
Is that too much?
Well, it's like, okay.
If you're already moving branches and rocks
out of the road, it's you've gone too far.
You just turn around.
And now it starts to snow.
Huberous.
There's a fork here in the road.
Bear Camp road splitting into BLM road 34-8-36
is the decision that seals their fate.
What is it?
BLM road what?
836.
And I'm gonna show you what this road looks like
in the summer.
So in the summer, or when it's not closed,
it looks like this.
So, you pull up here, it's snowing, right?
There's a little fork in the road.
There's stuff written on the road.
Right up here in the road,
it says dead end in white spray paint, okay?
Which you can't see because it's snowing.
Right.
This road to the left goes to the coast.
And you can't tell from this photo,
but there's a little sign right here.
See, there's a little sign right here.
See this little sign that says coast?
Yeah.
How are you gonna see that when it's snowing?
Coast.
I mean, it's not very good.
Well, it says Gold Beach, 54 miles.
And if you know that's on the coast, you're set.
You're okay.
But it also says Bear Camp.
So they don't know.
This isn't telling them which way to turn.
This is the fork, okay?
Okay.
So they're just like,
this road over here looks bigger.
It's wider.
This is a single lane road over here.
So they're like, that's the way to go.
So that is what they do.
So the gate was open,
even though the road behind it wasn't maintained.
I've heard it a few different ways.
Some people say that it was like vandals
who broke in, opened the gate and like tied it open
so that they could go back there and...
Here's the thing.
Whenever you go on, like,
I've driven through BLM road land before.
And a lot of this land is you can open, you can.
It's okay.
You can open the gate drive through,
but you have to close the gate behind you.
Yeah.
So you always go through the gate,
close the gate, secure the gate.
You do not leave the gate open for,
obviously I think it's for livestock reasons mainly.
Sure.
But you never just leave the gate open.
It seems irresponsible.
So the other thing that people say is that the state
or whoever maintains it was supposed to close it,
but that they were worried there was hunters out
and they didn't want to lock the hunters in.
Well, this is end of November.
So November is where these roads get closed down.
Right.
So was it maybe that it was a gray area of,
maybe they hadn't gotten out of closing it yet?
I think it's closes in like early November.
Okay.
But I think someone was supposed to go back and close it
and they just forgot.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay.
So the Kim's drive through.
This is where the story becomes a slow-motion nightmare.
They chose a direction that was the wrong direction.
The only clue would have been that white spray painted
text on the road that said dead end
and the tiny post sign.
From that fork, they traveled more than 23 miles
along deteriorating, a deteriorate.
Good grief.
Give it another try there.
Wow.
Come on now.
Just skip the word.
There you go.
So there's no plows.
There's no traffic.
There's no cell phone service because it's 2006.
So they had, I'm sure the tech guy,
he's got cell service.
He's got a cell phone,
but the service is probably super bad.
Well, there's probably still no service there today.
Yeah.
And the storm is there.
And the snow is coming down.
It's a mix of wet and snow.
And it's late.
They're tired.
His eyes are probably, he's all stiff from staring.
So imagine her too.
She's probably like, what are you doing?
Why'd you do that?
Oh yeah.
I'm sure there was stress.
Turn around.
No, I got this.
Why did you do that?
Why did you let me sleep?
Blah, blah, blah.
I'm sure there's hubris involved here.
Yeah.
Which is the danger.
So at one point they realized
they can't be going in the right direction.
The road narrows to a point
where the only way they can reposition themselves
is to go backwards.
So blackout darkness, freezing wind,
a narrow road carved into a mountain.
They're at like 4,500 elevation right now.
So they've been going-
What kind of car is it?
They've been driving up this mountain.
Like what are they doing?
Like, all right.
Surely you must realize that you've made a mistake.
There's a little bit of me like,
they're like, okay, I'm a tech bro,
an early 2000s tech bro driving a,
I don't know, a Volvo or a golf or something
into the wilderness.
The guy's obviously kind of an idiot.
Yeah.
Well, you think you've turned off,
you just keep going west, right?
As long as you're still going west,
you're going in the right direction.
Yeah, but you can't, when you're driving these roads,
you don't really know which direction you're heading
if it's dark or you don't have some sort of-
Because you're constantly turning
and switching back on these roads,
you don't have, there's a compass in this car behind me.
Yeah.
For that reason.
Well, I'm reading, you should pull up like the street view.
So you can see, it's just like this tiny,
you know, big trees.
There's no street view, I already tried.
So James grips the wheel, turns to look behind him
and inches this out backwards along the snowy shelf road
so that he could drive in reverse.
Cause he can't turn around, he's fucked.
He's just in the car, in the freaking mystery car.
Yeah. So every foot, higher slips a little,
every slip the car tails, every tilt your heart stops,
blah, blah, blah, not you, just me.
He got the door open so he can see the edge of the road
so they don't tumble off the side.
So just imagine him, he's like sitting there,
like looking down at the edge of the road.
It's at this point, the guy realized he screwed up
and he's probably really scared now.
Yes.
I'm sure he's absolutely terrified.
So the four year old wakes up and goes,
mommy, why are we driving backwards?
So every few minutes he's telling himself,
it's just around this bend, this has to be it.
They do it for an hour.
Backing up?
Backing up.
Now the fuel gauge is down to a quarter of a tank
and there's no way they're making it back
to the main road tonight.
But they push on, eventually they reach a curve
where the road banks the wrong way
beneath the huge snow drift.
They try creeping forward and gravity decides for them,
the sob sinks into the drift.
The sob, of course it was a sob, I should have known.
The front end digs in, the undercarriage sits down
on dense snow, the tire spin,
the car slides sideways and locks into place.
That is the moment the mountain shuts its door.
They are trapped.
This is where they will spend seven nights
trying to stay warm,
trying to keep the children alive
and waiting for help that isn't coming.
This is the Kim family camp.
Oh my God, seven nights in a sob.
So, I mean, if you could pick any car
to be stranded for seven nights in,
what would you choose?
A sob, nine, two, X arrow.
Is that what this thing is?
Yes.
That's a Subaru.
Saberu.
Yeah, the Saber, the famous Saberu.
Totally the car he's in, with kids.
Yeah, not only are you from Seattle driving a Subaru,
which is very predictable,
but you are a tech bro driving a sob,
which is edgy and fun, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What would I be in?
It's all wheel drive.
It's all wheel drive.
Those are, that's an all wheel drive vehicle,
like, come on, dude, just turn it around on the road.
Why couldn't you just turn around?
It was, the road was so narrow, it's a logging road.
And there were like, it was a logging road
that just splintered off
into all these tiny little other logging roads.
So just turn in one and back up and turn around.
Yeah.
It's not plowed, it's not maintained.
They're up in the mountains now.
So it is even the snow that's coming down,
that's the issue.
There's already fucking snow there.
Yeah, I understand.
All right.
I just, I, come on, dude, turn the car around.
All right, according to ChatGBT,
this is why it didn't stand a chance.
You can tell me.
The car?
Yes.
Okay.
It has street tires with zero bite,
low ground clearance and instant plow,
suspension tuned for pavement.
Do you tune your suspension?
That's how you refer to it?
Okay.
ChatGBT is retarded, but continue.
Yeah.
Open diffs.
Yeah.
And a logging road snow deep wet and uneven.
Yeah.
I mean, if you're in an Audi Quattro with locking
differentials, you're probably getting out of here.
Yeah.
I probably want to be in the trooper.
Well, here's the thing.
The trooper is not as capable as you would think,
but it would do better than that thing.
Yeah.
I don't have locking differentials.
You know what a locking differential is?
That's when you do the thing on the trooper
to make it four-wheel drive, right?
No, that just engages the hubs
so that the, I have four-wheel drive.
Locking differentials means
you know how like, you do a one-wheel,
you know, like a one-wheel wonder,
a one-wheel peel.
That's because you have an open diff.
It takes whatever wheel has the least amount of resistance
and sends the power there.
So if you're in the snow, that's not going to work
because the wheel in the snow has the least amount
of resistance and it'll just spin.
If you have a locking diff, it locks it.
So both wheels turn at the same time
and you get twice as much traction.
All right.
But I can't, other than like a new Toyota four-runner
or something like that,
and I'm sure there's a few other things.
I don't think anything really has like a straight up
locking differential anymore.
It's a very off-road thing.
All the old, like early 80s,
I'm sorry, late 80s, early 90s,
and some thereafter, Audi's had it.
All right, all-wheel drive does not mean invincible.
Sometimes it doesn't even mean functional.
And this is the perfect time
to talk about Nokia tires.
Yes.
If they would have had some damn Nokia tires on there.
Whoa, look at that.
Did you, did you make that?
Some family in their sub.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
Look at it with their Nokia in, their Nokia in,
Hakka Palitas.
Yes, this would have been them if had they not,
had they escaped?
Yes.
Because they were, the car was lifted with studded tires.
Yes, because the Hakka Palita line
has Arctic tested rubber that stays off
at negative 40 degrees.
Why do the wheels also?
Snow claws that slushed edges
engineered for traction on unplugged roads.
First of all, we all know Nokia makes
the best winter tires of all time.
However, I'm wondering why the wheels
in your image have studs?
Because I put them on it.
Oh, the wheels?
That's a fashion thing.
Okay, okay, anyway, continue.
Yeah.
And then compounds designed specifically
for ice cover, mountain terrain.
Like super high tread compound,
crappy all seasons.
No seasons as they would be called.
I'm still doing that.
Sorry.
All wheel drive gets you started.
Tires keep you alive.
Don't trust all seasons in the winter.
Don't trust hope.
Trust the tire built for survival.
Trust Nokia and Hakka Palita.
Now throw in Jake with everything I didn't mention.
Yes.
No, I'm not doing that.
That was great.
We love Nokia and they make a great tire.
We just had them.
It's on the, are you excited?
It snowed out today.
Yeah.
We've got the winter tires.
They're on the, it'll be interesting
comparing the 4Matic to the 4Motion,
which we previously had last winter with the Golf R.
But I guess a 380 horsepower, 350 horsepower,
whatever it was, Golf R with a manual six speed
4Motion studded tires is probably better
than a Mercedes wagon with 4Matic.
The Mercedes is heavier though.
Right?
I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing.
We'll find out.
We'll report back.
It has more room if we decide to get stranded.
If we do get stranded on Bear Pass Road.
I could get all the way out in the car
unlike the Golf R where only Jake could lay out the way out.
That's true.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
All right.
So.
I did sleep in the back of the,
when Larson and I were scouting in Idaho,
I mean, we were on a road very similar to this.
And I mean, it was probably six PM
and we realized that it was just like,
hey, it's too late.
We weren't stranded or anything,
so I was like, hey, it's too late.
We're never going to make it back to town
and find out what we'll tell.
Cause the way the scouting stuff goes is very often,
you don't know where you're going to be.
So you can't plan ahead.
You can't book a hotel ahead of time.
You have to just show up in a town
and hope that there's a place.
And if there's not, you just go to the next town.
But I knew there's no way we were going to get
to any town at all.
I have a photo of this somewhere.
I probably won't be able to find it,
but we ended up just staying in this little pull off
in the middle of the woods.
And like, all this will be great.
It's going to be chilly.
It ended up being so fricking cold.
It got down to like 36 degrees or something like that.
I was in the back of the wagon.
Larson had a tent and froze to death.
I can't imagine seven nights.
All right.
So first night in the car.
But it was beautiful.
I bet it was.
So truly stuck in the snow.
They climbed back in the car,
turned off the engine to save fuel.
The cabin fogs with their breath,
wind whips past the windows hard enough
to rattle the glass.
They bundle up the kids,
wrap them in coats and left over clothes.
Tell them it's an adventure, like camping.
But sometime around 2 a.m.
when the girls are finally asleep,
James and Katie share a look,
a quiet, terrified look that says we are in trouble.
We have to be strong.
No one is expecting them.
No one is missing them yet.
No one is coming tonight.
They don't sleep.
They just shiver and wait for sunrise.
Poor kid.
So day two, the snow gets deeper.
Now their tracks are gone and the road vanishes.
They run the engine in short bursts,
trying to keep warm.
And to make things even worse,
bears start to circle the car.
I don't know what kind of bears.
Whatever bears are there.
I'm sure they're just black bear, brown bear.
Yeah.
So day three, their gas is gone.
They burn anything they can find that's dry,
which isn't much.
Their food supply,
mostly consisting of baby food and road trip snacks.
Like baby food, like jars of baby food.
Here's the road I was stranded on in the Mercedes.
Let me, I guess maybe stranded is not the right word,
but this is a very,
this is probably Idaho somewhere.
It's gotta be,
but this is kind of the road that I'm thinking of
when I think of the road that you're talking about.
That's what I meant.
Exactly like this.
I could turn around on this road.
Yeah, but see, I think what you're missing is
there was a cliff on the side of it.
There's a cliff here.
Where's the cliff?
There's trees right there.
Yeah, but there's-
They were on the edge of the mountain.
Like, or we're talking a sheer cliff?
Yeah.
Okay, fine.
They should have turned around a long time ago.
I'm just trying to understand
how these people honestly seem a little darker.
It's dark and they're in the middle of this BLM road.
Imagine there's no lights except for their headlights.
Right?
No, I'm sure.
So they don't even see that there's a cliff
on the side of the road.
They just see the freaking road.
Right.
All right, so Katie starts melting snow
in the baby bottles during the day.
Look at this, hold on, look, I'm sorry.
Look at this sign, this is like the best sign in the world.
I should go, I should just have stolen it.
Look at that, winding road next 99 miles, 99.
You should have taken that road sign.
I should have taken that sign.
All right, continue.
These people are eating baby food.
Yeah, and she's melting snow
and she's nursing both kids.
So they don't have to feed the kids
the rest of their food,
which is probably like peanut M&Ms
and like a granola bar.
Maybe like-
I never have a lot of food.
I usually don't have extra food,
but I usually have a couple gallons of water.
They seem like they're healthy people.
They probably got like, I don't know.
Well, yeah, they probably live in granola bars.
They drive a Sabaru, they're from San Francisco.
So she's nursing the kids, keeping them fed
and the bears are still in the area.
All right, day four through six.
Storm after storm after storm.
Well, what did they, well,
what did they do?
Yeah, what's the boredom situation?
I have no idea.
They're probably just keeping the kids entertained
and trying to keep warm, right?
So they finally decide they're gonna burn
one of the spare tire.
So they think, we'll burn this tire.
It'll get us some warmth.
Maybe the smoke will, someone will see the smoke
and maybe someone knows we're missing now, right?
So-
Do we know how deep the snow is?
Like as the car covered in snow,
oh, you can't even see it anymore.
Like, what's the situation?
I think it's pretty covered in snow.
Do we know how deep the snow is?
Can this guy walk or not walk?
I mean, he walks.
I mean, we know he walks, but-
I don't know how much snow there is.
I think that the thing is, is knowing
and understanding when someone is going to come for you
and when they are not going to come for you.
Yeah, they don't think anybody's coming for them.
Well, they obviously did if they sat there for four days.
But they don't know where they're,
nobody knew where they were going.
I understand that, but no one's coming, dude.
You sat there for once you got stuck,
once you were stuck.
So if the, and I'm not a survivalist guy, okay?
I'm not like Bear Grylls or anything like that.
But once you're stuck, you make the decision,
is anybody going to come this way?
Yes or no?
If the answer is no, you leave right away.
Yeah, well, I think they still think
maybe someone's coming.
They still know that they're on,
they don't know they're on this road.
They don't know they're not on their way to the post.
Okay, cause you need to move right away.
Cause the longer you wait, the weaker you get.
Right.
And the higher chances that you're just gonna bleed out
in one of those spots, like along the way.
By night six, they've burned all of their tires.
Their tires are all, it's just rims,
like everything, tires are gone.
Katie tells Jams, if the kids don't survive,
that he needs to slit her wrist
with his pocket knife, he agrees.
So this night he stays up all night long.
He's up all night studying his map
and he thinks there's a town four miles away
that he's gonna make it to.
They have a map this whole time
and they still don't know where they are.
But they don't know where they are.
So he thinks that he's to be able to make it
to this town because he doesn't have any other options.
Like he's, this is what he's gotta do.
The guy didn't have any options on day one.
Yeah.
Day one, tech pro.
So he was very wrong.
The town was more likely 15 miles away as the curl flies.
Over mountains and streams, an actual 30 mile hike.
Day seven, he starts his walk.
It's a long walk.
A long walk.
So off of the mountain when nobody's.
Does he go forward or backward?
I think he goes forward.
Well, I'll get there.
So off of the mountain when no one's heard from Jams
and Katie after Thanksgiving,
most people are just assuming they took an extra day.
They don't have good cell phone service.
They're just, he loves his family.
Can you imagine the time?
Blow it off.
Imagine the time, right?
When, if someone disappeared for a day,
it was fine or two days, it was fine
because you didn't talk to everybody every single day.
Right.
You know, I'm with like texting memes, DMing,
all the time, all the time.
And if some, you don't hear from somebody
for a few days, you send a text and it's just,
yo man, what's going on?
Are you all right?
Back then there was, it was no,
you would go weeks without talking to people.
Yeah.
You just didn't call them.
You just had to pick up the phone and call.
That's weird.
So at the same time, one of Jams coworkers
is like, he should be back by now.
And Jams father is like, why aren't they back?
He's like, something's off.
Jams was reliable.
Katie was responsible.
They had two small daughters.
They weren't careless and they always checked in.
So both of these people report them missing.
Dr. Kim later said,
James would never have put his family at risk.
Something is very wrong.
They started calling the authorities and the search began.
The first search efforts were huge, but unfocused.
Southern Oregon is vast.
The family's route wasn't clear.
The weather was brutal.
This one, I can't talk.
The snow was piling deep and no one knew
they turned onto Bear Camp Road.
No one knew.
Wow.
We're inventing words.
No one knew they had chosen a road, BLM road.
What is a BLM road?
Bureau of land management.
So it's government-owned, but not maintained.
So if you want, you can drive out to a BLM road
and drive off the road and just camp.
You know, it's kind of a free-for-all out there.
Okay.
So the initial search zone was over 1,600 square miles.
Dr. Kim kept pushing people.
He wasn't emotional outwardly.
He was intense, persistent, and laser-focused.
He kept telling the authorities, they didn't vanish.
You must look closer, narrow the search.
That pressure mattered, and it kept the search active.
It prevented officials from scaling it down too early.
Usually they're like, okay,
they wouldn't have made it this long.
It's just a recovery effort.
Let me show you a map of BLM land.
This is gonna shock you.
This is the, this is it.
I'm ready to be shocked.
There it is.
Oh, man.
It is a lot of land.
Why wouldn't it be in the Midwest?
Why is it all over there?
Because it's farmland.
This is all, if you look at Nevada,
you're not growing anything out there.
This is just land that's owned by the government.
I'm sure if there was a program
to give away land in some of these places,
nobody would want it.
However, I'm always confused
why there's so much government land in like Idaho,
Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Seattle,
not Seattle, Washington.
Why is there so much,
it doesn't make any sense to me
why the government owns so much land?
But there's a lot of BLM land out there.
Okay.
So James' dad eventually even hired
his own helicopter pilots
when he didn't think they were doing enough
to search for them.
Would you hire a helicopter pilot for me?
Hell yeah.
I'm calling up RJ and being like, dude, come on.
All right.
So Kim, being smart,
also connected with a team of cell network engineers
from Singular and other providers,
and they were day and night trying to extract meaning
from a single faint ping
off a cell tower near Glendale, Arizona, Oregon.
Not Arizona.
I was like, wow, that's a hell of a cell phone tower.
Yeah.
Like I guess they're,
when they were like driving through it,
like ping for like just a second.
So these engineers were like deep dive in.
They were like, we're going to do this.
We're going to be like ready to release and find it.
Yeah.
Anyway, so they pulled tower sector angles,
signal strength decay, terrain, occlusion patterns,
weather-based interference,
and probable handset movement
to narrow it down to the bare camp region.
And last was a life-saving breakthrough.
One engineer later said,
we worked for him, his strength kept us at it.
They're talking about Dr. Kim.
Cause he was like really putting on the pressure.
Like we got to find my kid.
Yeah.
All right.
So back to the family.
On the seventh morning, James looks at his family.
What is this?
I'm sorry.
What is this happening?
The guy, they're like-
What are they searching?
Using the cell phone stuff.
Yeah.
What day are we on?
I think this is like day three.
Okay.
Like it's early.
They're on it.
So-
Why didn't they see the tire fire?
Cause they're looking at 1600 miles radius.
Yeah.
That's pretty crazy.
So on the seventh morning,
James looks at his family,
a barely crying baby anymore,
a four year old asking for breakfast
and a wife trying to hold herself together.
He knows if he stays,
none of them will survive.
No one is coming for them
and the tires have all been burned.
He kisses them all,
puts on his stoked sneakers and a thin jacket
and promises Katie that if he doesn't find anything
that he will turn around and come back.
But this is a promise he never intends to keep.
And with that, he walks.
Katie watches him disappear into the trees.
16 miles through waist deep drifts,
or waist, waist deep snow.
Yeah. Okay.
I see creaks, wrong forks, ravines,
frostbitten hands, snow blindness,
exhaustion, silence that feels like a physical weight.
His tracks show purpose and determination.
That night he doesn't make it back to the car.
He sleeps along the river
to wake and begin again in the morning.
Katie gets the girls bundled up
and attempts to go after him on the second day.
She doesn't make it far
before she starts to get confused
and begins hallucinating.
She takes the girls back to the car.
We don't know his exact starting
and stopping on that first day,
but he starts by walking down that same logging road
that they drove in on for 11 miles
through snow, exhaustion and brutal cold.
Just think about us walking around in New York,
freezing our butts off when it's like 40 degrees
and this guy's in all wet clothes
walking through this.
It wasn't that cold.
This guy's cold.
Yeah.
When he gets close to the fork,
he makes what he hopes is a shortcut.
No, no.
Forking the road.
And he leaves the road and drops into a steep ravine
heading towards Big Windy Creek.
Okay.
Here's the thing.
Which flows into the Rogue River.
He's dehydrated.
He's starving.
He's tired.
You do not make,
this is not the epic decision making situation
that you've put it yourself into at this point.
You're very delirious.
I can't imagine that you're making
very good decisions.
He hasn't been eating.
He hasn't been sleeping.
I know.
This is what I said earlier.
You leave right away or you don't leave at all.
Because there's no world in which on six or seven days
of starving and being dehydrated,
that you're gonna make any good decisions
out on the road plus you're weak.
It was some very bad decision making done here
by Mr. Kim.
Yeah.
So he reaches the ravine and it's nearly impassable
but he pushes through it.
He begins to shed clothes at some point.
Maybe as breadcrumbs,
maybe he was in his final push
and paradoxical undressing.
You know what that is, right?
No.
That's where when you start to like get,
yeah, you start to shed your clothes,
you start to feel like you're super hot
and you just start taking your clothes off.
That's what I do whenever you're in the bedroom with me.
Turn the thermostat down in the bedroom, I guess.
Some of that paradoxical undressing.
So they eventually find him 16.2 miles from the car
and less than one mile from reaching a lodge
that would have saved him.
But the cold steals him before he reaches it.
They find him days later facedown near a creek.
He walked until he couldn't go any farther,
breaking his promise to Katie, but not to himself.
He died saving his family
and because he tried, they lived.
Oh, because they found him.
And this is a great spot for our next ad for,
wait for it.
If only they had had on hex is my guess.
If only they had had on ex off road.
Oh my gosh.
Jesse.
Because paper maps can lie.
Google maps doesn't always show seasonal closures.
Signals get buried, trail had shift.
Logging roads don't follow human logic,
but on ex shows which roads are open,
which ones are seasonal, which are unmaintained,
which are private, which have obstacles,
which are impassable in the winter.
And even better, it works with no cell service.
And they have all the BLM borders and maps
and everything like that.
It overlays terrain, slope, elevation, road type,
trail difficulty, everything that Kim's needed
to make the right choices that night.
As they use on ex, this tragedy likely never happens.
And if you explore wilderness roads,
don't trust the dotted lines on paper maps,
trust the tool designed to save your life.
On ex off road, know before you go.
Ooh, I like it.
I like it.
So this guy died.
Yep.
And they found him.
That's not exactly the order.
Well, yeah, he died and then they found him.
So meanwhile, the search is still underway,
but they aren't finding anything.
Most helicopter pilots can't even see
the searchers on the ground
because of the weather and the terrain,
but one helicopter pilot does spot something.
Footprints in the snow.
He follows the prints until they disappear under a tree.
When he loses them, he back tracks following them
the opposite way, right to the family
where Katie is sitting, Katie is standing below,
waving an umbrella.
Can you imagine, can you imagine the emotion
after a week and then imagine finding out
that your husband died?
Yeah.
Didn't make it, but you did.
So the pilot doesn't have the fuel
to actually rescue the family at this point.
And he can't really,
he doesn't have the tools to like,
he can't drop down a rope or something.
So he lowers the helicopter down low enough
to make eye contact with her,
to be like, hey, I see you, you see me.
I'm coming back for you.
Yeah.
Can you imagine the destitution when that thing leaves?
Well, at least it didn't just like hover around
and then peace out, you know, like,
he made sure that he didn't.
He let her know,
but still the absolute hopelessness as it flew away.
Yeah.
And meanwhile, she's like, he made it.
He got us to safety.
Right?
Yeah.
So the family gets rescued.
In the end, he did save his family.
It was his footprints that saved them.
They saw the footprints.
So she gets to the hospital.
They're like, get her stable or whatever.
And she asks, where's Jim?
Where's James?
Nobody had told her that he was dead.
Nobody knew that he wasn't there with them.
So a few more days go by
and they finally find James.
And nobody can believe how far he made it
in just a pair of tennis shoes.
Well, I'm sure it is.
They were just blocks of ice,
but it didn't matter.
He just kept going.
Yeah.
So that is the story of one wrong turned,
turned into a terrible series of events.
Well, happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
We hope, well, we hope you had a good...
Ha ha ha.
Man, we hope you had a good Thanksgiving.
This will come out on Friday.
Unless you're a member of the Drivers Club.
Wait for that.
Wait, wait, wait.
Wait, oh no.
What do we got?
Don't.
More AI slop.
Wait, if they were members of the Drivers Club,
then they would have looked like this.
Ta-da.
What have you got?
That's the Kim family driving away.
Oh no.
The same to this episode.
Drivers Club saves lives?
Is that what you're trying to say?
Yeah, exactly.
I think Jeff would be mortified
at that branding.
Let's not tell him about any of that.
No, let's not tell him, but to really wrap it up,
here is us having Thanksgiving.
Is that Jake with the turkey head?
That's Jake with the turkey head.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
Jesse, thanks for standing in for Jake.
That was great.
I appreciate you.
Stay warm.
Stay smart.
Stay warm.
But still take the car,
but don't go into a remote logging road
in the winter without gnocchi and tires and onyx.
That's a really good point.
I have all those things except for the winter tires.
Actually, the last two times I've scouted out
in the mountains, I've had gnocchi and tires and onyx.
I've been all set.
You can take my car scouting if you want to.
I don't think so.
On that note, we will see you guys.
No, no, we're not done.
What?
What would you have done different?
Man.
Would you have left me and the kids in the car?
It's very difficult.
I would have been twisting that bear
with my little pocket knife.
Has anybody interviewed this woman
to hear more about what happened?
Oh, I'm sure you have.
You know, like, I would like to hear more
about what actually happened,
why the decisions were made.
Was she deferential to her own instincts?
Were her own instincts saying one thing?
Were they not saying nothing?
Was it her fault?
Was she begging him to stay when he wanted to go?
Yeah.
These are the things that you don't really know.
And it's the instinct I'm thinking
is to stay with your children.
But I don't know.
It's difficult because the technology situation
is so much different now.
I can hop on my phone with a satellite
thanks to Elon or whoever runs satellites up there
and send a text message from anywhere.
I can send a text message in an emergency from that spot.
And be like, hey, I'm stranded.
Here's my GPS coordinates.
Come get me.
You couldn't do that now.
Back then, you couldn't do any of that.
But it's, I can't even say.
I feel bad now that the guy's gone
that I was like, this guy's an idiot.
But I don't know.
I think it probably would have been better
to just go, oh my God, I'm stuck.
And then maybe you wait 24 hours
and then you just kind of gotta go, man.
Or like, maybe you just turn around
and take that extra half an hour.
Yeah, maybe.
You get on the right road.
Yeah.
Well, again, it's probably hubris and ignorance.
Tech bro meets mountain and snow, I guess.
It's probably that's just the outcome
that I wouldn't say is expected, but not good.
Yeah.
What about you?
What would you have done differently?
I would have yelled at you more,
but like turn around.
No, you're pretty good with the directions.
Your only annoyance in the car is,
hey, there's a parking spot right there.
Yes, Jesse.
I see the parking spot as well
because I am in the same vehicle as you
and I also have two eyes.
That's the only stuff that you do.
Or if I goose it a little bit, you go, why did you, why?
Why are you doing that?
I don't need to say why.
I just fricking like it.
You're not super annoying.
Yeah, I don't know.
So you wanna end this talking about
how much you love Thanksgiving food?
No, I'm good.
I've already talked about Thanksgiving food enough.
I don't need to do it.
It's all garbage food.
Everybody knows how I feel.
Do you think they left that car there?
Someone go recover the car and take it to the house?
They probably recovered it in the spring.
Thanks, man.
Yeah, well, you can't,
from an environmental standpoint,
you can't leave that out there.
You gotta come, especially in a place like Oregon,
they're not leaving a car out in the Sisiakua Forest
or whatever it's called.
They're not gonna do that.
They're gonna come pick it up.
All right, well, thanks for having me.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for subbing in.
You're welcome.
Do you need to do an ad for the driver's book?
We did, we talked about it.
If you're not a member of the driver's club,
you're a debt beat, it's five bucks.
Sign up, we appreciate it.
How's that, is that good?
Perfect.
OvercastProductions.com forward slash driver's club.
We will see you all next week.
Say something.
Bye.
About this episode
A gripping tale unfolds as Chris and Jess recount the tragic story of the Kim family, who took a wrong turn on Bear Camp Road during a Thanksgiving trip. The episode dives into the harrowing choices made by James Kim, who ultimately ventured out into the wilderness to seek help for his family. As they face the brutal elements, the narrative explores themes of survival, hubris, and the consequences of poor decisions. With a mix of humor and somber reflection, the hosts discuss the impact of technology and navigation on modern adventures, making for a compelling listen.
Original notes
Kris and Jes explore the tragic story of the Kim family, who took a wrong turn on Bear Camp Road during their Thanksgiving journey, leading to a harrowing survival situation in the snow. The hosts discuss the family's background, the decisions that led to their predicament, and the search and rescue efforts that followed. The conversation highlights the importance of navigation, preparation for winter driving, and the emotional toll of such crises on families.
Overcrest
Kris Clewell / Overcrest
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51:43