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Their ordeal started innocently on a mountain road the family thought would be a shortcut, but things quickly spiraled out of control, said Ryan Lee, 30, of Portland, who was one of the first people Kati Kim called after she was rescued.

At first it was only raining, she told Lee, but snow began falling as they got higher in the mountains. She said the road was pretty bad and at one point she and her husband had to get out and remove rocks from the road. They soon realized they weren't going to make it over the mountain and decided to turn around and drive back to a lower elevation to get out of the snow. Around the Bear Camp Viewpoint high in the mountains, the Kims sidetracked onto a spur road in an attempt to turn around and traveled about 2 miles, Hastings said.

Kim told Lee that once they were out of the snow, and in the rain, they parked, leaving the motor running so they could use the heater.

"They thought they could spend the night and somebody would find them in the morning," Lee said. "But then, when they woke up, it was snowing quite heavily. They were stuck."

By then they didn't have enough gas to get back to Grants Pass. The Kims ran the engine for three days to power the heater until the car ran out of gas, Hastings said. Before long, the car battery had also gone dead. Then they huddled together in the car to stay warm. They burned all their tires, even the spare, to stay warm.

The family survived in the Coast Range on snacks and a bit of water they had with them. In recent days, Kati Kim breastfed the children.

"That is what kept them healthy," said Cynthia Russell, a nurse at the hospital.

James Kim gathered wild berries, but the family stopped eating them for fear they were poisonous, his wife told rescuers.

"They had minor provisions, but they were definitely running out of things," said Lt. Gregg Hastings of the Oregon State Police. Lee said the two parents gave most of the food to the children and drank melted snow. The lack of food may have taken a toll on James Kim by the time he decided to go for help, Kati Kim told Lee.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/04/BAGR2MP9383.DTL