He wants no one else to get lost
GALICE, ORE. — John Rachor, a helicopter pilot, has spent much of his life hiking in, driving through or flying over the thick forests and rocky Siskiyou Mountains that rise from the Rogue River here.
It was Rachor, acting on a hunch, who found Kati Kim and her two young daughters in December, a week after the Kim family disappeared down a remote federal logging road while trying to make its way to the Oregon coast.
"The best thing I have ever seen in my life was Kati running around in the road waving her umbrella," Rachor recalled.
At the same time, Rachor remains haunted by the footsteps he spotted leading away from the site. They belonged to James Kim, Kati's husband and the girls' father, who died of exposure after setting out to find help for his stranded family.
Having played a role in the story, Rachor knew what he was talking about when he posted a custom-designed sign a few weeks ago at the beginning of Bear Camp Road near this tiny hamlet in southwestern Oregon:
DANGER
Remote Road System Ahead
DANGER
You Could Get Stranded and Die!!!
DANGER
But federal land officials made him remove the sign, saying it violated regulations for the wilderness area.
Rachor instead put the sign on private land nearby, though he worries the spot is much less visible.
"They need to do something radical," said Rachor, 58, who uses his small helicopter to shuttle between the eight Burger King franchises he and his wife, Susan, own in southern Oregon.
"There is just not adequate enough warning to people that this road, as beautiful as it is, can be very treacherous."
A U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman said a panel of federal, state and local officials was considering how strongly motorists should be warned about the winding and narrow mountain road -- both in summer, when it is most heavily used and considered safest to drive, and in winter, when snow and icy fog return to southwestern Oregon.
There are more than 600,000 miles of backcountry roads stitched across the country in the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management systems. Many are used not only by loggers and miners, but by hikers, hunters, campers, cross-country skiers, snowmobilers and families in search of the perfect Christmas tree.
But such access always carries risk, and plenty of drivers become lost, stranded, stuck or snowed in.
