GRANTS PASS (AP) - The helicopter pilot who spotted three members of the stranded Kim family in the Rogue River Canyon of Southern Oregon put up an urgent warning for drivers, but a federal agency says it is in a federal right of way and must come down.

“You could get stranded and die!!!” read the bright red sign, warning drivers headed for the mountain passage connecting Grants Pass and the Oregon Coast.

“I've had the idea for several months,” John Rachor, a Medford restaurant owner, told the Grants Pass Daily Courier. “I thought the (Bureau of Land Management) was going to be able to do something.”

Rachor, flying his own helicopter, spotted Kati Kim and her two young daughters on Dec. 4, and they were rescued.

Kati's husband, online editor James Kim of San Francisco, was found dead two days later. He had left the family to seek help.

The sign got an endorsement from local officials such as Sheriff Gil Gilbertson and Sara Rubrecht, Josephine County emergency services director.

“I love that man,” Rubrecht told the Grants Pass paper. “He just got tired of waiting.”

Over the years, numerous people have gotten lost along Bear Camp Road and its offshoots, mainly federal logging roads.

Rubrecht said two parties recently got stuck in snow. One pair of young women planned to continue traveling west into the mountains after a logging contractor pulled them out, but she pleaded with them not to.

Jim Roper, an engineer for the Bureau of Land Management, said the government is adding signs and making them bolder.

One will say that the logging road the Kims went down is a dead end. The road is now blocked by a locked gate.

“We're doing a lot,” Roper said. “We're just not there yet.”

Rachor said he'll look for a spot on private property for his sign.

Before it was determined the sign was in the federal right of way, Roper had said a sign on private property would be no problem.

“We didn't authorize it but if it's on private land, I'm not going to worry about it,” Roper said. “Everybody's got good intentions.”