It’s one down, two to go for North Shore Rescue.
The volunteer team saved the life of an out-of-bounds snowboarder who was stuck in a creek drainage overnight Monday but a desperate search continues for two snowshoers who haven’t been heard from since Christmas Day.
West Vancouver police contacted NSR around 5 a.m. Dec. 26 after Cypress Mountain employees spotted a car left abandoned in their parking lot.
Officers tracked down the vehicle’s owner and confirmed he was planning to be out snowshoeing on the mountain with a friend that day, but neither had returned.
North Shore Rescue immediately began a search but high winds and tremendous snowfall made for very poor conditions.
“There were widespread natural avalanches occurring,” said Mike Danks, North Shore Rescue team leader.
After more than two nights in the cold, the outlook could be bleak for the men, Danks said.
“To be honest, it’s going to be touch and go for these guys. I really hope they’re doing OK,” he said. “What these guys do have going for them is that they’re together. Hopefully they’ve found a safe spot and they’ve hunkered down, but at this point, all of our searches have turned up no sign of them whatsoever.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the team had 25 members and a helicopter fitted with an infrared camera out searching Black Mountain, Hollyburn Mountain and Mount Strachan but, because the subjects never told anyone where they were going, it has forced searchers to spread out.
To help narrow down the search, North Shore Rescue is asking anyone who was hiking the trails around Cypress Mountain on Dec. 25 to contact the team to let them know if they saw Roy Tin Hou Lee, 43, and 64-year-old Chun Sek Lam, both of Vancouver.
As North Shore Rescue was about to suspend their search for the night, they got another call from West Vancouver police, this time alerting them to an out-of-bounds snowboarder who wound up down Montizambert Creek.
Much like the rescue call for two out-of-bounds skiers who ducked the rope at Cypress two weeks earlier, it was too dangerous to send rescue volunteers in and so the 20-year-old tourist from London made himself a bed of tree branches and curled up to stay out of the wind.
“He stayed fairly warm but he was in quite a bit of jeopardy,” said Const. Jeff Palmer, West Vancouver police spokesman. “If he’d gone just a very short distance farther downhill, he was at risk of going over the waterfall where people have died before.”
Rescuers returned at first light with a helicopter and longlined the man back to the Cypress Mountain parking lot where a crowd of reporters was waiting.
“He seemed to be expressing real genuine remorse. As well, he was feeling very lonely and ashamed that he put himself in that situation, and that it had been a really stupid decision,” said Palmer.
Speaking up about his experience to ward off other would-be out-of-bounds adventurers was the best possible outcome, Danks said.
Danks said his team members would be meeting on Wednesday night to review which areas had been cleared off for the missing snowshoers and to plan whatever next steps the team might take in the search.
“I believe we’ll continue for another day,” he said.
Together, the Boxing Day calls have been the 129th and 130th of the year for North Shore Rescue; 2015 was their busiest year ever, with 139 calls.
