Abby Luciano
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
North Shore News
An under-prepared hiker was rescued out of steep terrain in a hail storm after getting lost on a North Vancouver trail over the weekend.
North Shore Rescue volunteers received a call around 1:30 p.m. Sunday concerning a 29-year-old hiker trying to ascend the Big Cedar and Kennedy Falls trail. The 10-kilometre rugged hike goes into the North Shore backcountry along the east side of Mount Fromme, to the west of Lynn Creek.
Search manager Don Jardine says the team learned the women started the trek before 11 a.m. and by noon she was off trail, mistakenly following the creek thinking it was the trail. After a while, the woman began to not recognize where she was and called police for help with only 10 per cent battery on her phone.
Jardine said police told her to stay put, but the hiker was afraid she was going to be stuck overnight if she stayed where she was, and continued up the drainage farther away from the trail.
North Vancouver RCMP were able to get approximate co-ordinates from the woman’s call, and North Shore Rescue ground search teams began moving into the area. By this point, it was low cloud and the area was hit by heavy hail, making a helicopter search impossible.
“It was quite cold, and she was out without any proper gear, sitting in those conditions waiting for us,” Jardine said.
Eighteen rescue crew members quickly got to work hunting for the missing hiker. One volunteer was able to pinpoint the location of the hiker’s phone at a spot that was more than 200 metres above the trail. Volunteers then were able to make voice contact with the hiker across the drainage but were unable to cross the creek as the area was too steep.
That’s when a drone was brought in for a grid search to find the hiker’s exact location while a second ground team, equipped with ropes and harnesses, began climbing up the south side of the drainage to look for her.
Crews were able to locate the hiker at 5 p.m. and bring her back down to the trail where she was given dry clothing, water, drinks and food. By 7:30 p.m. the hiker was back at her car and on her way home.
“She was out for about four hours in the rain,” Jardine said. “We’re just all happy that she’s safe and sound and we found her reasonably quickly and got her out.”
After Sunday’s rescue, Jardine said it’s very important to tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to be back when you head out on a hike. It’s also vital hikers come prepared with essentials such as appropriate clothing for the weather and a charged cellphone, he said, adding that the hiker rescued over the weekend was not dressed for the weather.
“It was sort of a knitted jacket sweater … it wasn’t appropriate for hiking on the North Shore,” he said. “And of course, something like that when it rains, it just soaks the water up and it keeps you wet and cold.”
Staying in the same spot and waiting for rescue crews is also crucial.
“Simply put, if you move, you’re increasing the area that we have to search to be able to find you – especially if we have a general idea of where you are,” reads a North Shore Rescue debrief social media post. “You increase your likelihood of entering difficult/dangerous terrain. It is likely we would have located this individual at least an hour or so earlier than we did had she stayed put in her original location.”
North Shore Rescue thanked police and Metro Vancouver personnel for their assistance, and shared what essentials hikers can bring on their website.
