TWO climbers are home safe after a dramatic rescue from the back of Grouse Mountain.
The men, visiting from Kamloops, got into trouble Sunday night when they got trapped in the precipitous upper reaches of the Widowmaker climbing route on the north side of the mountain.
The pair had intended to make their way up the face and back down before nightfall, but on the final pitch, the weather turned on them, slowing them down with heavy rain and ultimately making the rock too slippery to climb. With darkness falling, they were forced to stop.
The men found a small cave where they took shelter.
Just before midnight, a Grouse staff member doing a sweep of the resort parking lot came across the climbers' truck. The vehicle's parking pass had expired at 11 p.m., and when the employee checked the kiosk at a nearby trailhead, she saw that the owners had signed out of the lot but had not signed back in. The men's itinerary and emergency contact information had been left inside.
North Shore Rescue launched a search, but could not get close to the area because of the hazardous nature of the terrain near the climbing route.
When daylight broke Monday and the weather cleared, the rescuers sent up a helicopter, and soon spotted the men slowly making their way down. The climbers had veered off the marked route and were rappelling into a steep gully to the west. The men gave the aircraft the thumbs up, but given the bad weather and the potentially deadly terrain, the rescuers weren't convinced the climbers were out of danger.
"It was a very problematic route," said Tim Jones, team leader with North Shore Rescue. "We felt they weren't OK."
The crew couldn't get the aircraft close enough to pull them off the mountain, however. As the clouds closed in again, the aircraft was forced away, and the rescuers lost track of them. Not long after, a dislodged boulder severed the men's climbing rope, forcing them again to stop.
Hours passed as the volunteers attempted to get back into the area. Finally, at about 4: 30 p.m. - on the last pass of the day - the helicopter spotted the climbers in the Hanes Valley, their rope now repaired. The aircraft swooped in, hauled the men onboard and flew them to a nearby rescue station. Both men were in good condition.
In the wake of the incident, police said the men had done the right thing by leaving their itinerary in the kiosk, as it sped up the rescue effort significantly. They encouraged others to do the same.
Jones added a note of caution, however. "This route usually takes more time than people understand," he said. "That's been the common thread about the Widowmaker . . . and you can't put (rescuers) in that area."
