VERNON – On Wednesday afternoon Vernon Search and Rescue dispatched a helicopter to search east of the north end of Mabel Lake for a pair of experienced cross-country skiers in their twenties. The duo hadn’t been heard from since Sunday and worried relatives had called police.
However, searchers found only tracks and had to ground the helicopter when darkness fell.
The two young skiers were out on a multi-day trip and had been dutifully using a spot beacon to send a message back to their families every afternoon. So when the relatives didn’t hear from the young men on Monday, Tuesday or early Wednesday, they called police fearing that something had gone wrong.
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But in reality the problem was not with the skiers but with the beacon itself.
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“They had been sending out messages with their beacon every night but the beacon had a malfunction and those messages were not being sent. They didn’t know that. They thought the messages were going through just fine like they always had,” says Leigh Pearson a spokesperson from Vernon Search and Rescue.
However, search crews would only learn about the malfunctioning beacon later. On Wednesday evening after darkness halted the air search, they decided not to go in on the ground overnight because they wouldn’t be able to properly assess the avalanche risk.
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As searchers were gearing up to go back out this morning they got good news. The skiers were at home and were safe.
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“The brother of one of the two had actually skied into the area last night even though we asked him not to because of the avalanche hazard,” says Pearson.
“In the darkness you just can’t see well enough to do a proper assessment.”
Pearson says the brother got to the skiers’ base camp last night.
“They packed up all their gear and headed out so they could get to a phone and let the RCMP and us know that they were safe rather than have us start searching again,” says Pearson. “They were very conscientious about making sure, once they realized what was happening, that people knew that they were safe and that we could stand down the search.”
One of the two skiers feared missing is from Lumby.
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