MEDFORD, Ore. - The snow-covered back-country road that trapped the Kim family of San Francisco was meant for tourists - but not at this time of year.

Authorities say the cyber-savy family may have plucked the route from Grants Pass to Gold Beach from an online mapping service, unaware of the elements.

Despite its impassable snowdrifts and single-lane, Bear Camp Road is offered as the preferred route on some Web sites and on-board-directions software available on some new cars. And most of those have no business in those mountains in the winter.

Yahoo and MapQuest offer Highways 199 and 101 as the preferred route. A Google map search, however, suggests the Bear Camp route, a series of federal forest roads used mostly in summer.

Oregon Department of Transportation maps offer the more common directions, de-emphasizing Bear Camp Road.