Two greenhorn hikers are lucky to be alive after being plucked from the rugged mountains by North Shore Rescue Tuesday night.
West Vancouver police alerted the team around 8:35 p.m. after two 20-year-olds called to report an injury on the Howe Sound Crest Trail, which leads to the Lions.
With minimal cell reception and less than half an hour of daylight left, search manager Doug Pope scrambled a helicopter and coached the subjects to find their GPS co-ordinates on their phone.
The men had strayed about three kilometres east of the trail and descended 1,200 metres and several hours into the treacherous Sisters Creek drainage.
“They were really lost and a long way from anywhere,” Pope said.
One of the men attempted to climb up the creek ledge, causing the boulder to roll onto his hand, crushing it. It was only then they called for help.
“They were going to go from bad to worse if they had to overnight in there,” Pope said.
When rescuers arrived with just minutes of daylight remaining, they found there was nowhere safe to land so the Talon pilot hovered over the creek bed while rescuers loaded the subjects in.
Luckily, one of the rescue members on volunteer duty that night is a Lions Gate Hospital ER doctor who was able to bandage the injured man’s “degloved” finger.
“Basically the skin and flesh are torn off the finger and are kind of hanging there. It was quite a serious injury,” Pope said. “The situation was pretty dire. They dodged a bullet with this one. He could have gone into shock. They could have died back there.”
