The North Shore Rescue team safely plucked a young British woman from the slopes of Mount Seymour Monday evening, just days after suspending a search for another U.K. tourist in the North Shore mountains.
Team leader Tim Jones said while he's relieved they got the woman out safely, the latest rescue is part of a worrying trend of tourists getting into serious trouble in the mountains.
"We're seeing a pattern of people getting on a bus and thinking they can just get off and wander up a trail," said Jones.
In the latest incident, the young tourist stepped off a transit bus near Parkgate Community Centre. From there, "She just started wandering up the trail system of lower Seymour," said Jones. She eventually found herself stuck near the snow line with darkness setting in.
Luckily, the woman was warmly dressed and had a charged cellphone that she used to call for emergency assistance, said Jones.
The woman also had a flashlight, which she used to signal a hastily scrambled helicopter team that allowed searchers to pinpoint her location. "That was critical to finding her," said Jones. Following the rescue, the hiker, Luci Cadman, took to social media to thank her rescuers, saying, "These guys saved my life tonight, no doubt." She also vowed never to hike alone again.
Jones said that's advice more people need to pay attention to, along with golden rules like always letting someone know where you are going.
This weekend, North Shore Rescue suspended a search for missing British tourist Tom Billings who disappeared while hiking in the mountains in November. On Saturday, a team of 30 searchers, RCMP dog teams and helicopter crews searched two of three areas where searchers said Billings may be. A search of a third area - a boulder field covered in snow and small crevasses - was deemed too risky.
Jones said the most disturbing part of the search on the weekend was encountering two young men apparently intent on doing the same hike Billings was attempting when he went missing.
The pair was heading to Crown Mountain without an ice axe or crampons and only one pair of snowshoes between them, he said. When searchers spotted them, they made contact with the pair and told them to go no farther. But as soon as the helicopter left, the two men dropped their packs and started hiking up the steep slope, said Jones.
Searchers were so concerned they continued to monitor the pair, with Jones making contact via a megaphone and demanding they stay put, then retrace their steps in the morning.
Jones said he was so upset with the pair of hikers that he phoned their parents to let them know what had happened and suggested the duo take a mountaineering course that would help them understand the risks they were facing.
Searchers were set to go and find the pair the next morning if they didn't come out of the trailhead by 1 p.m., Jones added. The two hikers came out with half an hour to spare.
