I’ve been going to Silver Falls since I was a kid – the “wilderness” is quite a stretch. It’s a gorgeous state park, with miles of beautiful hiking trails. But all the trails are improved (paved or compact gravel), and heavily travelled.

The likely scenario is that the kids ran off from their parents and probably got turned around. Blake comes across them on the trail, and walks them back on the trail to the lodge. Good on him, it’s the right thing to do. But it’s not like he’s was out bushwacking through the remote wilderness and came across these two boys who were stranded in the cold and about to be eaten by bears. It’s almost a certainty that they either would have followed the trail back out to the lodge or been “found” by the next decent human being walkng down the trail.

I’m not dimishing Steve’s display of good neighborliness, just the media’s overblown hyperbole.