Vancouver's tempting wilderness a deadly trap for the unprepared

There’s an amusing TV commercial for Subaru’s Outback that’s meant to poke fun at millennials and their unwillingness to brave a hiking trail once their smartphones lose reception.

As they retreat from a trailhead, a couple in Subaru’s crossover wagon, bikes stowed on the roof rack, drive by headed for an authentic wilderness adventure.

But the ad has an unintended message: Maybe those kids were right. They were ill prepared for a stroll in the bush, as visitors to Vancouver’s beguiling but treacherous North Shore mountains regularly discover.

North Shore Rescue (NSR), the volunteer search-and-rescue service, finds between 80 and 100 people a year who have ventured into the back country just metres from suburban neighbourhoods or skied out of bounds on the three local mountains that you can reach by public transit.

Though unprepared, local residents also get lost. The ones being plucked shivering from snowy drainage channels or clinging to rocky precipices after taking the wrong fork in a trail are visitors who underestimate the potential dangers of weather and terrain.

“I think that happened for sure with Tom Billings,” NSR team leader Mike Danks told Yahoo Canada News, referring to a British traveller who apparently disappeared during a day hike on a local trail in 2013. “I don’t think he understood how big the area he was getting into [was].”

It’s not surprising, really. Metro Vancouver, a city of some two million people, sits right on the edge of a picturesque mountain wilderness criss-crossed with hiking and snow-shoe trails. The proximity perhaps creates a false sense of security.

It’s so close to the big city. How can it possibly be unsafe?

“I agree 100 per cent on that,” Chris Kelly, president of the B.C. Search and Rescue Association said.

"Here you are right next to Vancouver, not only North Vancouver but Vancouver, and you think probably there’s thousands of people out there. But that’s not true because it’s very tough out there. It’s so close to Vancouver that people do get that misconception."

Local residents get lost too, Kelly noted, but most have seen regular media reports about missing hikers and skiers, so they’re more likely to take basic precautions, such as letting people know where they’re going and when they expect to be back. Overdue, they’re more quickly reported missing.

British tourist missing 18 months

Billings, who was visiting Vancouver as part of an eight-week North American tour, did neither of those things when he vanished in November 2013. He wasn’t reported missing for 10 days. The only clue searchers have had was a reported encounter with two hikers on a difficult trail in North Vancouver’s Lynn Headwaters Regional Park.

"The thing I don’t understand … is simply how in the First World, someone can disappear … when we’re all connected 24 hours a day," Billings’ father, Martin Billings, told CBC News last November.

It’s a common misapprehension. Cellphone coverage on Vancouver’s North Shore has improved over the years—and resulted in many successful rescues.

Kelly said it remains spotty and unreliable.

“Depending on technology is a mistake,” he said. “Even though we as SAR (search and rescue) volunteers train with GPS and that’s the way to go, if your batteries are dead you still have to know how to use your manual compass. That’s why we still train with our manual compass because that can’t fail.”

[ Related: New pictures of missing British tourist Tom Billings released ]

[ Related: Why Canada isn’t charging thrill-seekers for search and rescue missions ]

Then there’s Peter Tsu, a 67-year-old visitor from Taiwan, staying with with relatives in Port Coquitlam, a northeastern Vancouver suburb. Tsu had been taking regular walks on a logging road on nearby Burke Mountain. He was reported missing earlier this month while on one of his jaunts.

He spent a cold night on the mountain but stumbled out on his own in the morning as searchers were combing the area.

Volunteer search-and-rescue teams routinely get called out to find skiers and snowboarders who’ve ventured out of bounds on area mountains. The latest incident, at Whistler-Blackcomb resort about 90 minutes north of Vancouver, had a happy ending.

Snowboarder Julie Abrahamsen of Norway had been sharing a cabin with several other young tourists for the last month when last Wednesday she followed a group of other boarders out of bounds on Blackcomb glacier, then lost sight of them.

She spent three days and nights slogging through deep snow and across a freezing creek before a search helicopter spotted her Saturday afternoon. She hadn’t been reported missing until Friday because no one knew she’d gone up the mountain until a record of her pass being scanned was discovered.

“You should actually care about the mountain rules when you hiking or go for a trip … be prepared and be prepared to stay longer,” a contrite Abrahamsen told the Globe and Mail.

Experience isn’t always enough if not prepared

Experience isn’t always proof against trouble, Danks noted. Liang Jin, who’s been missing since Dec. 31 after texting his father that he was going hiking, is thought to have hiked North Shore trails before but never said precisely where he was going this time. It’s also not clear how well prepared the 21-year-old was in a region known for sudden changes of weather.

“The big challenge is if you get weather coming in, that can really turn you around with fog or low cloud,” said Danks. “It’s very disorienting. If people aren’t prepared, they don’t have a light source right there, it’s like you’re walking blind.”

There are programs, such as AdventureSmart, aimed at making those venturing into the back country more aware of the hazards and how to prepare for them.

But they don’t necessarily snag tourists visiting Vancouver who might think a hike into the North Shore Mountains requires little more than what you’d take on a stroll through Stanley Park.

Destination British Columbia, the provincial tourism authority, offers some tips on a page that spotlights hiking opportunities in the Vancouver area.

"While Vancouver’s wilderness is convenient, it is also rugged," it says. "Even trails at the edge of the city should be treated as serious backcountry. Proper planning, preparation, clothing and footwear appropriate to the conditions, and an adequate water and food supply are essential."

"The goal is to provide a brief, but practical, snapshot of the context of the experience, so that travellers can decide if it is right for them and how they might prepare themselves," DestinationBC corporate communications manager Clare Mason said via email. "We also try to provide links to local experts or other safety and regulatory authorities, for more detailed logistical information."

Danks said educating tourists and longer-term visitors such as foreign students about the nearby wilderness remains a challenge.

"We’re doing our best to educate the public and really trying to get the word out there that these are very remote areas that they’re going to be getting into.

"There is no cell-phone access in most of the places. The more that we can spread the word, the more lives that can be saved.”

The nearby wilderness is one of the things that lures people to Vancouver, but Kelly said that proximity should never been taken for granted.

“I think what people don’t realize who have never been lost before, is how easy it is to get lost.”

So if you’re heading onto a hiking trail with nothing but your cellphone and a windbreaker, do like those kids in the Subaru ad. Turn back.