When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Similarly, when you find yourself lost or stuck in the North Shore backcountry, don’t try to bushwhack your way out downhill.
That’s the lesson from two North Shore Rescue operations last weekend that saw hikers put themselves in peril while trying to make their way out of precarious situation on their own.
The team was called out on Saturday after a German tourist made her way to the Grouse chalet after becoming lost and separated from her boyfriend on the way back from Goat Mountain. North Shore Rescues scoured are on foot and by air but it wasn’t until RCMP officers check the couple’s hostel they found out he made it out on his own, said Doug Pope, NSR search manager.
Based on his last known whereabouts, Pope suspects the man came down the Drifter Creek drainage, a very steep route of cliffs and waterfalls.
“He was deathly allergic to bees and he had been thrashing around in the bush a long time. . . He had fallen off a 20-foot cliff into a pool and managed to come out relatively uninjured and make his way back out to the base. He was beaten and bruised but not seriously injured,” Pope said. “Not having any map, compass or any idea where he was, stumbling through some of the most difficult terrain on the North Shore, he was lucky.”
On Sunday evening, NSR volunteers scrambled a helicopter to search for a hiker who spent nine hours inching his way down a “heinous” slope between the Lions.
After hiking through heavy snow on the way up, he decided to try to find another way down. He called a friend, asking him to examine a trail map to help find another route out.
“He decided to just freeform it down the east side of Lions to try to get down to (Capilano) lake and out through the watershed,” Pope said. “It was a poor decision going that way. He would have been a lot better off trying to make it the way he came in or calling for help from the ridge.”
After spotting him only 150 metres from the Capilano watershed road, a ground crew helped the man back out.
Beyond making sure you have appropriate gear and a planned safe route to and from your destination, Pope said hikers should never attempt to find a new way out solo.
“Going downhill when you’re lost in the North Shore Mountains is generally a bad idea
because most of our drainages end up with waterfalls, cliffs and worse terrain,” he said.
Cellphones also tend to stop working once they’re down a gully, Pope added.
