Off Roading Wrong turn in mountains goes to gravel road leads to stranded girls in car in snow!

[Tim1]

I guess it is just karma or gods good grace. Took the new truck to me, for a drive I thought I knew the way. Was up in the forest in Washington making a loop when the road turned to gravel,I thought I knew this section, but was wrong. 6 miles in seeing patches of snow, I thought we would see blacktop anytime, but came across a toyota matrix high centered in the snow with 2 girls in it. Their gps told them they were on the road to Portland. Been stuck there a day and half. Stayed with the car. Got them out and turned around and followed them back down to Stevenson, Wa. A wrong turn and a gps set a course for our day! Happy ending, sometimes these are not the case. Off roading by mistake. Tim

 

[jgillott]

That is amazing. What are the chances that you would end up there...

 

[Flying_gage]

Pretty cool. Funny how fate is! Thankfully they knew enough to stay with there vehicle!

 

[JR]

I wonder how long they would have stayed with their vehicle? 6 miles is a decent walk, but a day and a half is a long time to sit and wonder if anyone will be coming a long.
Tim, you must be at pretty good elevation to still have snow!

 

[AH64ID]

Were you both using the same GPS?

When I find routing that leads to places like that I use the form on garmin's website to report an error.

 

[JR]

I have been in the back country of West Virginia with even the most up to date version of GPS and it has not been accurate. It seems that steep mountainous areas throw your signal off for whatever reason. I got turned around by it the first time I went down there and have always made sure to have maps of the roads and the country every time since.

 

[Tim1]

I do not have gps and thought I knew the road! It was 6 miles of gravel, but another 22 miles of paved forest road to the hiway. Me in shorts and the wife in flipflops, oh well. I believe in what goes around, comes around! Also, I have been helped on the road also. Tim

 

[dresslered]

Yikes! Sitting in my hotel room just watched "Wrong Turn" the other night. Things could have been worse. :-laf

 

[Bob4x4]

Out 4 wheelin in the San Bernardino mountains yesterday. We were stopped enjoying the mountain air when 2 75 yo hikers walked up and asked for directions. They had been dropped off about 2 miles back to hike 60 miles of the Pacific crest Trail. They had come to a spot where the trail crossed a dirt road and lost the trail. They had been wandering for hours trying to figure out where they were. They were using a AAA road map. They wanted to continue on irregardless that they could not read a simple map. Drove them to spot I knew the trail intersected a dirt road and dropped them off.
They had no worries about the rest of their journey. Scary thought!

 

[31b]

A lot of folks think I'm over reacting when I suggest that they should, at minimum, have some type of cold weather gear, water and non-perishable food in their car, but the OPs experience reinforces my point. If he hadn't come along the girls could have had a big problem on their hands.



Regarding Bob 4x4's hikers... do they not think they need to learn how to land nav before they go out??!!



Mitch