Longline helicopter rescue season is back in the North Shore backcountry.
North Shore Rescue members airlifted three badly lost hikers off the edge of Grouse Mountain May 1. Two men and a woman, all West Vancouver residents, set out from Lynn Headwaters Regional Park, intending to follow the Baden Powell trail to the Grouse parking lot, but somewhere along the way, they got off trail and wound up two kilometres up Mosquito Creek in a dangerous canyon, according to Doug Pope, NSR search manager.
"I instructed the group to stay put where they were. They were very cold and not wanting to stay and wanted to get out themselves," he said. "Unfortunately, they didn't listen and started to climb out on their own. When our crews located them, they were perched precariously on a cliff face above the creek."
Volunteers used a helicopter longline rig to airlift them back to the Capilano Gate rescue station.
