Missing hiker went up Grouse Mountain in sweatpants, running shoes, and was ‘not prepared’: NSR

The West End resident who went missing after going hiking on Halloween ascended Grouse Mountain in a light fleece jacket, sweatpants and running shoes, North Shore Rescue (NSR) said Tuesday.

And the effort to find Carl Couture is now being treated as a recovery mission, said NSR team leader Mike Danks.

WATCH: The search for hiker Carl Couture

1:12 Search for hiker Carl Couture

Couture is believed to have gone up Grouse Mountain via the Grouse Grind or the BCMC trail before he was seen at the chalet at the top at around 12:30 p.m.

He was seen leaving the chalet around that time and heading toward the backcountry in the direction of the Hanes Valley Trail.

Couture didn’t have a light with him — and he wouldn’t have had nearly enough time to complete the trail in daylight, Danks said.

“For Carl, he had never been back in that area before and was not an experienced hiker,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "For Carl, he had never been back in that area before and was not an experienced hiker," he said.

“It’s certainly not a beginner hike.”

Danks said that NSR wants to “stay positive for as long as possible,” but Couture was “not prepared for the conditions.”

“We’ve had some pretty extreme weather come through, especially at higher elevations,” he said.

READ MORE: North Shore Rescue searching for Carl Couture, missing Vancouver man, in Grouse Mountain area

As much as 24 centimetres of snow has fallen on Grouse Mountain in the past week, according to its website.

Enough snow has fallen on the North Shore mountains recently that both Grouse and Cypress are seeing some of their earliest openings in the past three decades.

NSR will conduct some limited searches for Couture during the week, but they expect to do a big one on Sunday.

So far, they’ve found no sign of Couture.

“We will also look outside the box a little bit and look at areas that were previously covered in snow,” Danks said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We will also look outside the box a little bit and look at areas that were previously covered in snow," Danks said.

Unprepared hikers seem to go missing on the mountain every year, he added.

Danks pointed to the case of Liang Jin, a hiker whose body was found in the Hanes Valley in February 2015. He had last been heard from on Dec. 31, 2014, when he said he planned to go hiking.

“He was up there and a big weather storm came in and basically buried him,” Danks said.

“It wasn’t until that snow melted out that he was recovered.”