Gate on fatal trip was never locked

The gate that James Kim drove through before getting lost and dying of exposure deep in the Rogue River Canyon was never locked and was not broken open by vandals, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said.

The federal land agency with jurisdiction over the road that Kim and his family drove down had said last week that the road had been blocked by a locked metal gate since Nov. 1, but that someone broke the lock and left the gate open.

“The gate was not locked as we previously reported,” Jody Weil, director of public affairs for BLM’s Oregon office in Portland. “We can find no evidence it was ever locked.”