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North Shore Rescue volunteers didn’t have a lot time for prepping the turkey after responding to four rescue calls on Saturday evening. Three of the four calls were for rescues taking place at the same time.
Rescue crews were first called out Saturday evening to help get an exhausted 55-year-old hiker off the BCMC trail on Grouse Mountain. District of the North Vancouver firefighters initially responded to the call about a hiker in distress who was experiencing leg cramps, and provided first aid. But the hiker was unable to walk, and firefighters decided “a stretcher carry was not in the cards,” said Stan Sovdat, North Shore Rescue search manager. A North Shore Rescue crew responded with Talon Helicopters and hoisted the hiker out to a waiting ambulance.
Vancouver Island night hoist
Shortly after 7 p.m., the rescue team was called out to assist Port Alberni Search and Rescue to do a night hoist of a hiker with a fractured arm on Mt. Arrowsmith. The woman was hoisted into the helicopter and taken to hospital in Nanaimo.
In December of 2022, North Shore Rescue became the only civilian rescue team granted permission to use Talon Helicopters’ hoist rescue system at night. Previously, night hoists had only been carried out by the military. Since then, the North Shore team has regularly responded to requests for help with night hoists from other rescue teams, including one as far away as Nelson.
On Saturday, after that helicopter crew was dispatched to Vancouver Island, the rescue team learned another hiker, a 71-year-old woman, was progressing very slowly up the BCMC trail. Every night, volunteers from the team do a sweep of the trail as darkness approaches, said Sovdat. In this case, the woman had recently had a hip replacement and had been on the trail for three hours. A ground team of two members was dispatched from the top of Grouse to give the hiker fluids and a headlamp and walked her out to the top.
Changing light conditions
Finally, a fourth call came in Saturday night for two hikers from Ukraine who had been caught in the dark near the Baden Powell Trail on Black Mountain in Cypress Provincial Park. The couple had done the hike before about a month ago, said Sovdat, and had watched the sun set from Eagle Bluffs. “They just didn’t expect it to get that dark” so quickly, he said. Three North Shore Rescue team members accessed the area from a Whyte Lake service road and hiked up to find the pair and bring them out safely just after 11 p.m.
Sovdat noted it’s important for hikers to be aware of changing light conditions in the fall.
“There have been some real tragedies with people misjudging the amount of daylight,” he said, particularly around the time of next month’s switch back to Pacific standard time.
Hikers should also be alert for the potential of quickly changing weather conditions in the mountains, he said, including the possibility of snow at higher elevations.
