Two amateur rescuers hoping to find missing hiker Liang Jin had to be rescued themselves after ending up in peril in the backcountry Thursday afternoon.
North Shore Rescue volunteers were doing some work on the team's rescue caches when they got a call from Jin's family's interpreter, who told them some of Jin's friends had headed off into the Hanes Valley on their own, totally unprepared.
"I get it that they're genuinely upset and concerned and they want to do everything they can to help but this really works against us," said North Shore Rescue team leader Mike Danks.
North Shore Rescue volunteers found one of Jin's friends sitting alone on one of the team's helipads, soaking wet and hypothermic.
"He would not have made it out - not a hope in hell," Danks said.
The other friend continued on his own up the valley through an avalanche zone and into an especially risky "moat" area at the base of a 250-metre cliff ledge.
"If he had fallen in that area, we wouldn't find him until spring," Danks said.
When they were safely evacuated back to the North Shore Rescue base, the pair were "read the Riot Act," Danks said "Instead of having one missing individual that we're trying to locate, we would have had two additional people that most likely would not have survived the night." No sooner than they were back, the team was called out again for a couple who'd gone off trail while hiking in the area of Capilano University. Luckily, they were found easily and escorted out. The search for Jin remains suspended until someone can provide new information about his whereabouts. The strongest lead the team had to go on by the end of the week is that a couple in their 60s may have happened by him on the Howe Sound Crest Trail around 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 31.
