Text from the NSR page. Thanks to NSR, LBSAR, WSAR, Talon Helicopters and all agencies involved!

LONG WEEKEND TASKS DEBRIEF

As is often the case, the May long weekend was a busy one for NSR, and indeed for SAR teams across the Province.

The common theme locally - hikers unprepared (in both equipment and skill) for encountering snow when hiking in the mountains. A reminder: even in 'low' snow years like this year (locally, at least), and even when the weather a sea level is sunny and warm, there remains a significant amount of snow at elevation, and recreationalists need to be mindful of this.

Task #1

Saturday evening, NSR's helicopter rescue team was called on Mutual Aid with Lions Bay SAR for a group of four hikers on the Brunswick trail who were unprepared for the snow and technical terrain they had encountered and were stuck in hazardous terrain.

LBSAR members had responded with Talon Helicopters, but due to low cloud cover, had to hover-exit lower down and make their way on foot to the stranded subjects. Once on scene, with the clouds moving in and out, they requested a hoist assist from NSR.

This was the latest in a long series of rescues that LBSAR has had in their jurisdiction over the last few weeks. Here, the two teams worked very well together to effect the successful helicopter rescue of the individuals.

See Lions Bay SAR's post (photo attached to this post also courtesy of LBSAR) here:

• Lions Bay SAR Facebook post
• Reddit discussion thread

Tasks #2 and 3

On Sunday afternoon, NSR responded for two simultaneous ankle injuries, the first on the Dog Mountain trail on Seymour, and then 11 minutes later north of St. Mark's Summit on Cypress.

With our partners at Talon Helicopters, a hoist helicopter team first rescued the Dog Mountain subject, then the St. Mark's.

Task #4

Late Sunday evening, NSR was tasked on Mutual Aid by Whistler SAR for 4 ill equipped, stuck/stranded hikers at Garibaldi Lake.

The individuals were unprepared and ill equipped for the cold snowy conditions they found themselves in, and given their conditions, a helicopter rescue was deemed prudent and proper for their safety.

No, this is not deja vu - the circumstances and location were essentially identical to the WSAR-NSR helicopter rescue at Garibaldi Lake two weeks prior.

• NSR Facebook post
• Reddit discussion thread

Task #5

On Monday afternoon, NSR was tasked for a hiker with a dislocated shoulder injury on Pump Peak in the Seymour backcountry.

By pure coincidence, one of our Advanced Medical Providers was recreating nearby and made his way to the subject. He was then able to reduce the dislocation and start hiking out. They met up with yet another NSR member who happened to be recreating in the area, and they all made their way out safety to the parking lot.

Can't beat a bug-free, spring hike with Cousteau, high in the mountains. It's incredible seeing Cousteau set such a blistering pace, literally tow me up snowy inclines, and effortlessly conquer every obstacle along the way - at a sprightly eight years of age.

Reaching the trail head is certainly a task for a proper high clearance vehicle with AT tires. As others have discovered, there a fair number of territorial grouse looking to pick a fight with anything or anyone. Despite an ominous looking dark sky throughout most of the day, only a few drops of precipitation fell during the descent. Still quite a bit of snow in the last kilometre, and it will probably be there for another month at least. Though the snow was incredibly soft and not overly challenging, hauling the snowshoes was still definitely worthwhile. Will need to make a summer trip to see the lake thawed.

Can't reinforce how important it is to approach any trip into the backcountry with an adequate level of preparation. I don't like being judgmental, but there were a few parties encountered along the trail with visibly inadequate clothing for the elevation - and bags far too small for the ten essentials.

Hey y'all

What is the best route from top of Grouse to join the Grouse Mountain Highway. I've not gone this way before and will be trail running it.

Strava seems to take a bit of a nonsensical route but I wanted to double check.

What's the most accessible and runnable option?

I love Minnekhada Park in NE Coquitlam. It's a great place for a hike and the views from High Knoll are pretty sweet. But going on the long weekend really makes me wish Metro Vancouver would expand the Quarry road parking lot and generally make some infrastructure improvements to address the fact that this hidden gem is getting popular. And popularity plus a lack of parking makes some people do stupid things.

From the Lions Bay SAR post:

Lion’s Bay Search and Rescue was dispatched for four hikers stuck on the Mount Brunswick Trail in steep, snowy, and slippery conditions.

A team was dropped in by helicopter and hiked to the subjects. Due to the time of day, temperature, and cloud line, the decision was made to request assistance from North Shore Rescue for a hoist extraction. All subjects were hoisted out and taken down to Lions Bay.

This incident serves as another reminder that Mount Brunswick is still under winter conditions and is not suitable for travel in running shoes. Proper footwear and winter mountain gear is needed for this route.

For all hikers, having the proper gear for your trip is essential. This should include food and water, proper footwear, headlamp and batteries, cellphone and charger, and warm layers regardless of elevation. Hikers are also encouraged to research the current conditions as part of their trip planning process, as well as the time needed to complete the hike before dark.

Check out AdventureSmart for trip planning resources.

Thank you to North Shore Rescue for their assistance with this call.

There is snow on the ground starting just a few hundred meters from the parking lot all the way to the base of the peak.

Microspikes and pokes recommended.

Snow is slushy, not icy.

Hey, everyone. Since the original day-use pass scanner is no more, I’ve been working on my own version. Funny enough, I saw someone else posted one recently, so I guess great minds think alike haha.

It’s called Pass Ping, and it’s on a subdomain of my bigger side project which I’ll make a post about once it’s finished (feel free to try it now though!).

https://ping.mtnprofile.com

My goal was to make it easily scannable, so the departure board style design made a lot of sense. The big features:

• Status badges: Updated live without reloading the page. I’m currently polling every couple minutes. I may make it faster, I’m just trying to figure out where the line is between polling often enough to make it useful and pissing off Parks to the point that they make more of an effort to block people. I’ve created a fairly robust polling service, but you never know what they’ll do so no guarantees this will work 100% of the time.
• Email and SMS notifications: The asterisk is because sending SMS messages costs money. I’m happy to put a little money into this if need be, but I don’t want it to get out of hand. Please use email and push notifications if you can. If SMS costs get out of hand, I'll have to re-evaluate and maybe introduce limits.
• Push notifications: Via the web push functionality built into browsers. On desktop browsers, you can enable this from the browser. On mobile browsers, you need to install it as a home screen web app to enable the push notification functionality. Here's the instructions for iOS: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/iphone/iphea86e5236/ios . For Chrome mobile, you tap the three dot menu, and then tap Add to Home screen. I can't verify that works on Android as I don't have an Android device.
• Audio alerts: Added this for those that don't want to log in. If you enable them, and leave the page open, a little warbly sound will play when a status you've subscribed to changes from NONE to something else. I'm not sure how reliable these will be as I know some browsers put background tabs to sleep to save resources. Logging in and using email, SMS, and push notifications will be the most reliable.

Notifications are per status. If you’re logged in, you’ll have the ability to enable email notifications, and also SMS notifications if you’re one of the 200 who have the feature added to their account. Once you’ve verified your phone number, you won’t need to enter it again in the future, you’ll just switch the toggle.

It’s free and will always remain free. I built both of these sites because I like the idea of building something that will be useful even if I’m the only one using it.

I would love any feedback you have, especially if you find anything confusing or hard to use. I’m very open to changes that will make it more useful.

UPDATE: Buntzen Lake is now available as well.

Just a heads up for buntzen lake :)