A 24-year-old Vancouver Island man had a close call last week when he ducked under a boundary rope on Mount Seymour for a quick bathroom break and wound up stranded on a 40-storey cliff.
The man and a companion had just started a run on the northwest side of the mountain at about 3 p.m. on Jan. 26 when they took a detour into an out-of-bounds area.
The two snowboarders intended to stop for just a minute before making their way back to the groomed area, but while the victim's companion made it quickly back to the run by retracing his route, the victim chose to ride around the contour of the hill, assuming he could rejoin the run a short way down the slope.
His way was blocked by impassable terrain, however, which forced him farther down the mountainside.
The man soon found himself trapped in a treacherous area called Suicide Gully. He was unable to ride out and, to make things worse, had lost cell reception.
The victim's companion, unable to find his friend or make contact with him by phone, went to find a Seymour ski patroller to raise the alarm.
At about 4 p.m., the call was passed on to North Shore Rescue.
While this was going on, the stranded boarder was attempting to get himself out on his own.
He climbed up the mountainside on foot, but eventually found himself on the side of a 120-metre cliff.
The man was trapped, but the move had at least put him back in cell range, meaning he could describe his location to rescuers.
With the light fading, the volunteer team scrambled a helicopter.
A short time later, they spotted the victim on a narrow strip of snow over a long dropoff.
They lowered a member to the spot by long line, strapped the victim into a harness and flew him to safety.
The aircraft touched down with about two minutes of daylight remaining, according to rescuers.
The man was soaked and suffering from mild hypothermia, but was otherwise OK. He could easily have fared much worse, however, said North Shore Rescue team leader Tim Jones.
If the helicopter had not found him before nightfall, he said, it could have been as much as eight hours before a team reached the area by foot.
"We would have had a major problem getting to him before severe hypothermia set in," said Jones. "That's usually when they fall; they make some bad choices because their mental faculties are affected, they fall and they die."
The incident comes just seven days after four snowboarders were rescued from a similar predicament near Cypress Bowl.
"This was almost a replication of what happened last week," said Jones.
