A woman has died after sliding nearly 200 metres down an icy slope on a North Vancouver mountain Saturday morning.
North Shore Rescue received a call 8:24 a.m. Saturday about a hiker who had disappeared over an edge on Mount Seymour.
Search manager Stan Sovdat said the 28-year-old woman and her friend camped near Pump Peak, a sub-peak in Mount Seymour Provincial Park, on Friday. On Saturday morning, the woman left her tent and dropped her cell phone. As the cell phone started to slide down the slope, the woman tried to grab it but ended up slipping down on frozen snow.
“Steep, hard snow is deadly,” Sovdat said. “[The] acceleration is very similar to jumping out of an airplane.”
The volunteer search and rescue team first sent out a helicopter to look for the lost hiker, but the heavy fog made it difficult to see and so they quickly began a ground search.
Rescue crews saw snow slide marks near the camp site and followed the markings down the slope to find the woman.
“A good friend was basically holding her hand when she passed away, so really, really tough,” he said about the call. “It was a very difficult call for our members because someone passed away under our care, which is unusual.”
Sovdat said up on the mountain, the upper layer of snow during the afternoon is starting to melt, turning to slush, and then it freezes again at night, making it solid and icy.
“The snow conditions typically during the day start to melt on sun-exposed slopes and get soft and nice to walk in,” he said. “But at night, they freeze and become extremely dangerous.”
North Vancouver RCMP made a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) Saturday just after 4 p.m. saying a lost hiker had been found dead on Mount Seymour and wished condolences to friends and family.
Last weekend, North Shore Rescue responded to multiple calls of skiers slipping from icy slopes and facing injuries near Cypress Mountain Resort.
The search manager urged hikers travelling in steep, hard snow to use crampons, ice axe and mico-spikes to avoid similar falls.
"There are so many messages that are appropriate when heading into the wilderness, a mountain environment. It takes work and study to gather the knowledge and experience required to be safe in these environments," Sovdat said. "At the most basic is what you bring with you, [and] understanding that things change so rapidly and can become very unforgiving."
Abby Luciano is the Indigenous and civic affairs reporter for the North Shore News. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
https://bsky.app/profile/abbyluciano.bsky.social
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