Christmas Rescue

Unfortunately, Killaine & I's Christmas tradition of doing a backcountry ski up Seymour was pre-empted by a rescue for two stranded backcountry skiers in the Mt. Seymour backcountry.

In a nutshell, a couple of backcountry skiers who seemed to be inexperienced with the Mt. Seymour terrain went off for a tour on Christmas Eve.  They ended up lower down on the east side of Mt. Seymour, between De Poncier Lake and Theta Lake.  They had run into very steep terrain and apparently had both been caught in an avalanche, yet were able to extract themselves.  They spent the night out and called (via cell phone) for a rescue Christmas morning.

We were paged at around 11am to respond to our SAR station at Bone Creek.  At that time, the weather was generally clear, although clouds were starting to form on Mt. Seymour.  Our team leader was able to locate the skiers from the helicopter.  Originally, the plan was to do a long line rescue, but the clouds closed in before it we were ready to do the rescue.

So, Plan B was quickly formed - knowing the location of the stranded skiers, a ski team was dispatched from the Mt. Seymour ski area.  They encountered very deep snow, and called for a backup snowshoe team to help flatten out the trail for the climb back out.  Curtis, John, Doug & I were this team.   We took the Mystery Peak chairlift up Mt. Seymour, met up with one of the ski area's snowmobiles, and were transferred to the alpine trail near Brockton Point.  

From there, we made good progress along the alpine trail and then down into De Poncier Lake.  In the meantime, the ski team had made contact with Behnad - another backcountry skier stranded in the deep snow.  The ski team advised us of their contact with Behnad, so when we reached him at De Poncier lake, Curtis took him back up to the alpine trail and back to the ski area.  In the meantime, Fiona & Keith had skied down to us and proceeded onwards to meet up with the first ski team.

The ski team shortly made contact with the original two backcountry skiers - they were in good condition, though a little tired from their ordeal.  They started skiing them out as when kept snowhoeing in - we met up with the team, then the whole 12 person group (10 rescuers & 2 subjects) went back out as a single group.

The group in the darkness at De Poncier Lake

Doug offers me some M&Ms.  Note how well-dressed he is in our new Arcteryx team jacket & pants!

During this period, it was looking increasingly likely that I, plus most of the other rescuers, were going to be missing Christmas dinner.  That was more than a little disappointing for most of us. Fortunately for myself, however, I was back out at the parking lot by about 7:30pm and managed to get over to Hugh's place (Killaine's brother) just as everyone was finishing up Christmas dinner - they saved some for me, so that was great!  Unfortunately for some of the other rescuers, Christmas dinner was fully missed, so that was a shame.

However, it was a beautiful night out in the mountains.  Coming down from the peak of Mt. Seymour, low cloud was over Vancouver, so there was this cool orange glow coming through the clouds - the sky was clear, and it looke very beautiful with the snow blanketed over everything.