With sunshine in the forecast, North Shore Rescue’s members were bracing for a busy Family Day long weekend. They just didn’t expect all the distress calls to come in on one day.
The team was called out eight times Monday, likely a North Shore Rescue record.
“This has been a whole new level,” said team leader Mike Danks in exasperated disbelief.
Deployments ranged from searches for overdue hikers who made it out on their own to an overnight stay in the avalanche country with a mountaineer who suffered a fractured ankle.
The woman in her 40s and a male companion were training to climb North America’s highest mountain peak, Alaska’s Denali, when she slipped on ice on the north side of Crown Mountain fracturing her ankle and finger and gashing her face.
It took rescuers until 4 a.m. on Tuesday to reach the two on foot via Hanes Valley. Crews kept them warm overnight and offered a splint for the broken bones but they had to wait until 7 a.m. for a helicopter rescue team to arrive.
“There have been huge avalanches that have ripped through those (gullies) and taken it almost right down to the surface. As you can imagine, this is a really dangerous spot when the sun comes out and starts to warm up,” Danks said.
The all-out fiasco started at 10 a.m. Monday with an injured snowshoer on the Howe Sound Crest Trail. Before he could be long-lined out, crews had to call in a second helicopter to deal with another hiker who slid “at least” 45 metres from Tim Jones Peak on Mount Seymour into a tree, Danks said.
“He had fractured ribs and he was going in and out of consciousness,” Danks said.
Still, the man was lucky. Had the man not hit the tree, he would have slid into a natural moat where a woman died in a fall more than a decade ago, Danks said.
Refreshingly, almost all of the rescue subjects were experienced and well-equipped for the hikes they chose, Danks said. It was simply a case of people slipping on ice that led to their injuries.
Danks said he was proud of his team, all of whom sacrificed time with their own families to rescue others on Family Day.
“Our team members all got a good workout. It was a good way to blow off the dust because it has been a little slow lately,” he said. “I think people are exhausted but at the same time it’s a real achievement for us when we have successful outcomes like that and when we’re able to actually handle that type of call volume. I think it speaks to the organization and the people at the heart of it that make it all happen.”
Thanks are also owed to the bystanders who aided the rescue subjects while help was on the way, Danks added.
“Kudos to each and every one of those who took the time to help,” he said.
North Shore Rescue volunteers weren’t the only ones with a packed schedule. District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services members were called out three times to assist injured hikers on Quarry Rock and in Lynn Canyon. The Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue Unit was tasked with pulling someone from the water near Whytecliff Park.
