GPS leads another vehicle into Oregon snow

CLACKAMAS COUNTY, Ore. – Angelique Stokes never planned to spend the night in her Nissan Xterra – stuck in the snow. But there she was Sunday, guided by her GPS.

"I can't say it's all Garmin's fault," Stokes says now, after she and her husband hiked out to safety.

Deputies from Linn and Marion counties helped rescue the couple after their GPS unit led them as far as Summit Lake before their 2005 Xterra became stuck in the snow.

Jack and Angelique Stokes, ages 55 and 54 respectively, of Coos Bay were headed from Mill City to to see their son in Hood River.

"I punched it in to Garmin, it said make a right hand turn and we so 'OK, we'll go with it,'" Stokes said.

The global positioning system told them to take Brietenbush Road in Detroit, Ore., and then forest service roads to Highway 26. Their four-wheel drive eventually high-centered in the snow, stuck near the Wasco County line in Clackamas County. So the Stokes decided to spend the night.

"There was no real panic that set in," Stokes said. "We have the Garmin, so we had some idea of how far we would have to walk out. ...The next day we got up bright and early and started over the mountain." That's when her phone started vibrating.

The couple then called their son, providing him with an exact location thanks to their Garmin. He helped rescuers reach them via 9-1-1.

Deputies found them just before 1 a.m. It's at least the second time that winter travelers have became stuck in the snow in this same area while following a GPS device. There have been other GPS strandings throughout Oregon as well.

There's the Lebanon couple stranded with their young daughter, the couple from Reno wedged in a foot of snow, the travelers misled by a cell phone GPS on their way to "Terwilliger Hot Springs." Now, Angelique says she has learned that, in Oregon, driving the back roads should be about trusting your gut – not her Garmin.

"You have to use sense and sensibility," she said. "When you saw the snow, that should have been a clue turn around and go back."

Meanwhile, she counts her blessings: "I was glad we were one of the good stories, instead of one of the bad ones." (See "As James Kim is found dead, man rescued from similar situation.")