Better Signage on Oregon Forest Roads.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

Where do you get the Forest Service maps?.......

I've always bought mine at BiMart in the sporting goods section. But you can get them at the ranger station.


I wouldn't be surprised if you can order them online from the Forest Service, although I've never looked to see if it is possible.


Probably any sporting goods store would have them.


Besides driving, I've used them for back packing. Good maps.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

I've always bought mine at BiMart in the sporting goods section. But you can get them at the ranger station.


I wouldn't be surprised if you can order them online from the Forest Service, although I've never looked to see if it is possible.


Probably any sporting goods store would have them.


Besides driving, I've used them for back packing. Good maps.

Thanks. It sounds good. I think I'll try getting the Oregon Coast map, and see how it looks.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by 509

Is this in the same area where they fellow from San Francisco died??

No, he tried to get to the coast on Bear Creek Road, which is a perfectly good route in the summer. He got stuck in the snow and didn't know what to do. He also just packed city street clothes for a drive over the Siskiyous. He tried to hike out, got hypothermic, and died.

If it had been me, I would have built a signal fire you could see from orbit, and just waited for rescue.

[Hawk J]

In the winter time, it's a very good idea to bring with you,


plenty of water
food
warm sleeping bag
blankets
charged satellite phone, extra battery

warm thermal clothing
hat that covers your ears & face
gloves

long johns
comfortable warm water proof boots
warm socks
match's, lighter

Zippo hand warmer
Zippo lighter fluid
compass
chains
spare tire & jack
battery pack to start vehicle


etc
etc

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

No, he tried to get to the coast on Bear Creek Road, which is a perfectly good route in the summer. He got stuck in the snow and didn't know what to do. He also just packed city street clothes for a drive over the Siskiyous. He tried to hike out, got hypothermic, and died.

If it had been me, I would have built a signal fire you could see from orbit, and just waited for rescue.

They did exactly that. First they built a bonfire. When that didn't attract attention, they burned the car tires to make more smoke. Short of starting an out of control wildfire, it's pretty hard to make a fire big enough to be seen for more then a few miles. I have seen several videos of jeeps catching fire in the backcountry, in areas with no cell reception. After using up their fire extinguishers there was nothing for the owners to do, except watch their vehicles burn up. No fire fighters ever showed up. I also remember that story of that young girl up in Washington who was in a plane with her grandparents. Her grandfather flew the plane into the side of a mountain in low visibility. The plane caught fire and started a vegetation fire. The girl managed to escape the plane with injuries, the grandparents didn't. The girl watched the fire burn for several hours, before she realized that no rescuers were coming. So she started to hike out. It took her four days to get to a highway. After she was rescued, it took the Sheriff's Department there another two more days, using tracking dogs to find the wreckage. When they arrived the forest fire was still burning, and nobody had noticed it for six days.

In short, a signal fire sounds like a good idea, and it's probably worth a shot. But there is no guarantee that anyone will ever notice it, especially if you are not close to civilization.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Hawk J

In the winter time, it's a very good idea to bring with you,


plenty of water
food
warm sleeping bag
blankets
charged satellite phone, extra battery

warm thermal clothing
hat that covers your ears & face
gloves

long johns
comfortable warm water proof boots
warm socks
match's, lighter

Zippo hand warmer
Zippo lighter fluid
compass
chains
spare tire & jack
battery pack to start vehicle


etc
etc

I fail at survival preparedness. LOL. I always have plenty of water, and a compass in my car, but that is about it. Most of that stuff is on my Too Get list, except for the satellite phone. Even in the summer, a lot of the roads I drive on, could easily take until the next day before anyone would likely find me. The stuff on that list could make the wait a lot easier.

[Terryj]

It would be nice if the mapping programs used would indicate if the roads were maintained during the winter months. Most FS roads with two digit numbers are main roads normally paved such as FS28 any spur roads off of the main roads are normally 4 digit number and will start with the number of the main road such as FS2820. Most of the forest service roads are not maintained during the winter months, so travel on these road are at your own risk.

In Oregon there is a lot of BLM land also, so pick up map from BLM also for the area your going to be driving in. FS maps are very good, however they only show the major FS roads and the major spur roads, so if your traveling one one of these roads make sure your road is on the FS map. Some spur road are logging access road and will not show up on the FS maps.

[PNW-type-gal]

Also the Forest Service closed a lot of roads (what 2-3 years ago?) ostensibly because of lack of maintenance funds. Many of them now have gates across them. Unless the map is very up-to-date (and, like I said earlier, the Forest Service doesn't move quickly) those closures won't show.

As Terry said, when you have a FS map and you try to "ground truth" it, you generally find that there are at least 2x the roads and trails listed and that some idiot has been using the FS signs as target practice.

And, yet again, we had idiots (apparently my word for the day) trusting GPS and taking unmaintained or closed roads to avoid the shut down of the Siskiyou Pass during the most recent storm.
https://mailtribune.com/news/top-sto...nother-to-come

in case that is blocked by paywall:

It took until 3 a.m. Wednesday for crews to attend to 13 stranded motorists who had diverted from southbound I-5 onto Colestin Road — a steep county road to the Siskiyou Pass that is not maintained after dark.

Other motorists, including at least one semitrailer, attempted to travel to California by taking Dead Indian Memorial Road — another remote, steep and narrow road that is roughly 1,000 feet higher in elevation than Siskiyou Pass.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Terryj

It would be nice if the mapping programs used would indicate if the roads were maintained during the winter months. Most FS roads with two digit numbers are main roads normally paved such as FS28 any spur roads off of the main roads are normally 4 digit number and will start with the number of the main road such as FS2820. Most of the forest service roads are not maintained during the winter months, so travel on these road are at your own risk.

In Oregon there is a lot of BLM land also, so pick up map from BLM also for the area your going to be driving in. FS maps are very good, however they only show the major FS roads and the major spur roads, so if your traveling one one of these roads make sure your road is on the FS map. Some spur road are logging access road and will not show up on the FS maps.

Thanks for the explanation of forest roads. One thing that I have noticed is that the two digit forest roads are not necessarily any better then the four digit roads. Two digits just seems to mean that it is a through road. For example I tried to drive on a NF-41 road, which started out as gravel, then in about 1/2 mile became a narrow dirt trail with vegetation close on each side. I quickly backed out of it to avoid scratching the paint on my car. That particular road does lead through a wilderness area where there is no logging, so I guess the condition of the road is not surprising. But still it's a two digit dirt trail, whereas other four digit roads in the area are paved.

I agree it would be nice if the maps showed which roads are maintained in the winter. Hell, I'd like to see good maps that show the condition of the road year round, paved, gravel, dirt. So you don't have to try driving it to find out.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

Also the Forest Service closed a lot of roads (what 2-3 years ago?) ostensibly because of lack of maintenance funds. Many of them now have gates across them. Unless the map is very up-to-date (and, like I said earlier, the Forest Service doesn't move quickly) those closures won't show.

As Terry said, when you have a FS map and you try to "ground truth" it, you generally find that there are at least 2x the roads and trails listed and that some idiot has been using the FS signs as target practice.

And, yet again, we had idiots (apparently my word for the day) trusting GPS and taking unmaintained or closed roads to avoid the shut down of the Siskiyou Pass during the most recent storm.
https://mailtribune.com/news/top-sto...nother-to-come

in case that is blocked by paywall:

I always get a kick out of watching drivers following their GPS to avoid traffic or closed roads. I saw a lot of that during the solar eclipse traffic jam in 2017. Every dirt road on both sides of highway 97 was jammed with cars, that was moving no faster then the highway. At one point it looked like some of them may have found a shortcut to avoid the traffic, so I tried following them. All it did was take me on a long slow detour miles out of the way, on bad roads that eventually lead back to the highway and the traffic jam.

I'm not sure that the gates are to keep drivers out of unmaintained roads. Most of the unmaintained roads around here are easily accessible. I usually find out that a road is unmaintained when I find it blocked by boulders or downed trees. The gates seem to just keep people out of areas that are closed to the public. From what I have heard, gates are often put up in areas were people have caused problems such as dumping trash and such. Also a lot of the BLM/FS roads are closed in areas with heavy logging traffic. For example most of the bridges over the Smith River are gated. But there is a lot of logging going on on the other side of the river. So it's seems like the log trucks are getting through.

One interesting road near me, (I believe it's a BLM road) runs about five miles from the highway down to a remote part of the river. It's definitely a maintained road. The first two miles are kind of a rough gravel, but the next two miles are a very nice paved two lane road with a painted centerline. The last mile is a single lane paved road. Just be for you get to the river, the road is gated. On Google Maps it looks like the road forks off in two directions just past the gate. One fork goes one direction to some private land that looks like some type of farm, the other fork just parallels the river for about a half a mile to a confluence and then ends. It's too bad it's gated. It's look like some prime riverfront land.