Metro Vancouver rescue teams are being kept on their toes as the first official weekend of summer rolls in.
North Shore Rescue was in the middle of helicopter training just before 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon when police told them of a lost hiker on Mount Seymour.
Team leader Mike Danks said the woman in her 20s was near the Goldie Lake area but became disoriented and lost the trail in the snow.
“We’re really stressing to people to wear proper footwear for snow still. That’s an issue. Having an aid to navigation or going with somebody that knows the local trails is very helpful as well because again when you’re in conditions like this, it’s very easy to lose the trail,” he said.
Danks said the call out mirrored another call Friday, in which another pair of hikers lost the trail in the same area due to conditions.
The team also has its hands full with its annual Rescue Fest fundraiser Saturday, an important calendar date for an organization that must raise 65 per cent of its own funding.
Meanwhile, Coquitlam Search and Rescue were also called out to Burke Mountain just after 2 p.m., to reports of a woman who had fainted and couldn’t walk.
Search Manager Bob Hetherington says the group of women weren’t too far from a hydro road and believes she was dehydrated.
“The possible causes of it is she could’ve eaten something last night or this morning and had a little bit of food poisoning. Or she could’ve depleted quite quickly because it was so hot. Even though they weren’t in the sun, they were under the trees, it was still quite a high temperature where they were on the mountain.”
The call was also the Coquitlam team’s second of the weekend, with the team called to Burnaby Friday night as well.
With the weekend heat wave, hikers are being reminded to drink lots of fluids and to pace themselves on the trails.
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