Two hikers who were visiting B.C. had to be rescued from a West Vancouver mountain trail early Saturday morning.
North Shore Rescue says volunteers were called to the Eagle Ridge Bluffs around 10 p.m. Friday night after a man and a woman in their 20s got lost going up the mountain without enough supplies.
Search manager Simon Jackson said the initial plan was to head from the Nelson Creek trailhead to Cypress Bowl, but the hikers called 911 after the sun set.
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“They basically got stuck at nightfall and weren’t comfortable continuing on with the hike, so we had to go in and access them on the trail,” he said.
West Vancouver police took the 911 call and patched it through to North Shore Rescue, who dispatched a search crew to the trail.
After locating the hikers and warming them up, the rescue workers escorted the pair out of the field to Cypress Mountain Resort, arriving about five hours later.
Jackson said the pair were not experienced hikers. They didn’t have any food and had run out of water, he added.
“They had a headlight, but they didn’t feel like they could continue with the light they had,” he said. “They didn’t have any equipment with them to spend the night either.”
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The pair were visiting from London, Ont., although the woman is based in the U.S.
Both hikers said they were expecting a four-hour round trip, but soon realized while walking the trail that it was going to be much longer and they weren’t prepared.
“It was getting foggy and pretty cold, dark, and we ran out of water,” the man, 20-year-old Yuhan Li, said. “It was pretty frustrating.
“I must thank them for maybe saving our lives. We weren’t feeling good on the mountain.”
Jackson said the hikers made the right decision by calling for help when they knew they couldn’t go on.
“The worst thing would have been to carry on and lose the trail completely, and that could have gotten them into some dangerous terrain and made it more difficult for us to find them,” he said.
With the days getting longer and more people starting to hit the trails, Jackson also took the opportunity to remind hikers to plan ahead and stock up on the right equipment.
“A key factor in the planning is leaving enough time to do a hike like that before nightfall,” he said. “A hike like that is going to take several hours, so you want to make sure you’re prepared to complete that hike in time, or you’re prepared to complete it in the dark or stay overnight.”
North Shore Rescue has a list of 10 essential items needed for any long hike on their website.
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