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发表于 2009-12-15 10:28:16
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LeeL
Last one
Monday December 14 2009
Pretty as a picture - but so deadly
10 tips that could save a life in the backcountry
James Weldon
North Shore News
Sunday, December 13, 2009
CREDIT: NEWS photo Cindy Goodman
AS Vancouver's famous and beautiful backdrop, the North Shore mountains attract thousands of visitors every year. Many, both from the Lower Mainland and from abroad, don't understand their dangers. As a result, dozens are needlessly injured - or worse.
ON May 25, 2005, David Koch rented a car in Seattle and drove to North Vancouver.
The following day, the 36-year-old Wisconsin businessman parked his vehicle at the base of Grouse Mountain and headed up the Skyride. He left the atrium 10 minutes later and set off for a day hike, wearing a T-shirt, jogging pants and sandals.
The man had only gone about half a kilometre east, having apparently wandered off the marked path, when something went wrong.
Koch, possibly suffering a heart attack, lost his footing and tumbled 15 metres to the base of a ravine. He lay there undiscovered and apparently unable to move for the remainder of the day and through the night while visitors passed just a few hundred metres away, unaware of his plight.
The following morning, Grouse Mountain staff found Koch's rental car. Realizing it had been left overnight, they called the RCMP. Investigators quickly established that it was Koch's, a discovery that touched off a massive search. For 10 days, dozens of police, search-and-rescue personnel and other volunteers scoured the mountain for the missing man, at times passing right through the ravine in which he lay.
On June 5, authorities gave up hope and called the search off. An independent volunteer finally stumbled on Koch half submerged in a creek at the base of the gully on June 7. That was 12 days after the victim had set out from the top of the gondola. The coroner's report claimed he had died on the fifth day. No one is sure how long he had been conscious.
Koch's story is one of dozens of tragic and near-tragic mishaps that play out on the North Shore mountain's every year. Like many of those incidents, Koch's was probably avoidable.
Every time misadventure in our backwoods is reported in the news, those responsible for extracting the victim -- our emergency and rescue services -- warn the public anew of the dangers they face when they set off into the forest unprepared. They reiterate that with a few simple precautions, the worst can be avoided. But despite their efforts, hundreds of visitors to the area remain unaware. Here, we list 10 of their most frequently repeated tips, and attempt to illustrate the very real, and at times tragic, consequences of neglecting them.
Our hope is that this story will help raise awareness -- and perhaps save someone's life.
1. ALWAYS EXPECT SNOW -- EVEN IN THE SUMMER
As the weather warms and winter recedes from the Lower Mainland's low-lying areas, snow continues to cling to the high peaks and shaded slopes of the North Shore mountains. Even as residents flock to the beaches, higher elevations remain treacherously slick with snow and ice. Many of the day hikers who venture into the woods on balmy days don't realize this until it's too late.
That mistake nearly proved deadly for a hiker on Mount Seymour in June last year. The 31-year-old was on a sunny day hike up the peak when he ran into snow. He was equipped with hiking boots, but lacked the ice axe and crampons needed for winter conditions. He continued on regardless, and somewhere near the summit he lost his footing. The man tumbled 25 metres before -- luckily -- a tree broke his fall. The impact also snapped his femur. He had to be airlifted out and rushed to hospital for surgery.
The same accident had taken place on the same mountain the year before, when a 17-year-old hiker lost control on a snow slope and slid into a deep tree well. He remained trapped there until rescuers could haul him out. That incident took place on Canada Day, the height of summer.
"(They think) when it's sunny in downtown Vancouver, it's got to be the same in the mountains," said Tim Jones, team leader with North Shore Rescue. "They're out there in shorts and T-shirts and runners and they get themselves on greasy slopes. . . . They wind up (sliding) into a tree."
If you run into snow when you're not prepared, the advice is simple: Turn back.
2. TELL SOMEONE WHERE YOU'RE GOING
On Oct. 30, 2001, a 33-year-old hiker from East Vancouver set out on his own for an overnight trek up Grouse Mountain. The 33-year-old reached an area near the second tower of the mountain's main gondola when he apparently lost his footing and fell into a gully. When the man didn't return home, he was reported missing to the Vancouver police, but it wasn't until Nov. 14 that the force issued a release saying they believed he may have been hiking somewhere on the North Shore when he disappeared.
The revelation triggered a search for the man, but without any clear information on his intended route, rescue crews started looking in the wrong place. On Nov. 18, they were scouring Mount Seymour when they received word that his body had been found on Grouse. A worker on the gondola had spotted him from the car, which had just been put back into service. Investigators concluded the victim died of hypothermia.
Such a lack of information is a common problem for rescuers, and can mean the difference between life and death.
"Typically, people who hike alone don't tell anyone where they've gone," said Jones. "If you're going to hike alone, always let someone know where you're going and what time you're coming back. That way if something does go wrong, we know where to start from."
Hikers should at the very least leave a note in their vehicle detailing their plan.
3. BRING A PHONE
A cellphone likely saved the life of a skier in March this year when he went out of bounds on Grouse Mountain and broke his leg. The man had been skiing down the disused Skyline Trail just before dusk when he veered into a gully and collided with a tree. Trapped in the snow with darkness falling, he pulled out his phone and called 9-1-1. Rescuers launched a helicopter, and by following the man's description of the sound, they were able to zone in on his location -- considerably farther west than they had initially thought.
The team was forced to drag him almost 1,000 feet up a 30-degree slope before they could load him into an ambulance. Without the phone, they would have had no idea he was there. It's a common refrain.
"A cellphone is essential," said Jones. "But with that, people need to make sure they take a charged battery."
They also need to make sure their first and only call is to rescuers, he added. "People tend to phone everybody in the world before they phone 9-1-1," said Jones. "They create a network of about 20 people who . . . keep phoning back. The circle of friends ties up that cellphone and they eat the battery. If you're lost, save your battery, call 9-1-1 and get search and rescue on the line."
4. SET OUT EARLY
On the afternoon of Nov. 27 2004, a 53-year-old Port Coquitlam man and a 48-year-old woman from Vancouver set out on Grouse Mountain's BCMC trail for a day hike. At about 4 p.m., with the light failing rapidly, they became disoriented. They believed, mistakenly, they were on the Grouse Grind. Unable to see the trail, they stopped altogether and called 9-1-1. When rescuers eventually reached the pair, they found them standing at the top of a three-storey cliff they didn't know was there.
Their story is typical, particularly as summer ends and the days grow rapidly shorter.
"It's specific to hikers in the fall and snowshoers in the winter," said Jones. "They don't know where the window of daylight is. They get stuck on a trail system, or . . . they take a false trail and they get stuck in drainages. It's a classic pattern."
Time and again, visitors set out into the forest unaware of how early darkness will fall -- particularly under the tree canopy or in the shadow of mountains. Adventurers, on any expedition, should set out with many more hours of daylight ahead of them than they think they will need.
5. BRING A LIGHT
Sometimes, beginning the day early is not enough. When excursions go wrong, hikers can find themselves wandering in the woods for many hours longer than they had anticipated. If darkness catches them with no flashlight, they are rendered immediately helpless -- sometimes with tragic results.
In September of this year, a fit and experienced hiker from North Vancouver set out early in the morning for a day trip up West Vancouver's Hollyburn Mountain. The healthy 70-year-old apparently made it to the peak, and then chose to continue on to the Howe Sound Crest Trail. It appears he somehow got delayed, and was caught out by sunset. With no light source to guide him, the man stepped off the top of a waterfall above Lions Bay. A search team found his body five days later.
"The lack of light leads to a lot of bad things," said Jones. "One is they get stuck. The other is they tend to panic because they're stuck in darkness, and what they'll do is -- and we've had it happen -- they'll fall off a cliff."
6. CARRY PLENTY OF WATER
On July 11, 2008, a 50-year-old librarian from New Westminster travelled to North Vancouver for a day hike up the Hanes Valley Trail in Lynn Headwaters Regional Park. Some distance into the trek, she made a wrong turn, heading north toward Crown Mountain instead of south toward Grouse. Her route led her into snowy ground and across a series of extremely steep and difficult stone faces where she became trapped and disoriented as the sun went down. After a cold night huddled on the steep slope, she managed to reach the North Vancouver RCMP on her cell. English wasn't her first language, and because dehydration had made her delirious, the woman had difficulty communicating with rescuers. They still didn't know where she was when her phone died.
By the time emergency crews calculated her approximate position using cell tower triangulation, and had ultimately made their way through the rugged terrain to the cliff band where she had become trapped, the victim had been lost for a full 24 hours. Without water, she had become severely dehydrated. Rescuers believe she would have been unconscious by the next day, at which point she might never have been found.
"Dehydration (affects) your performance, your ability to move in terrain," said Jones. "In the summer, it can cause heat exhaustion and in the winter it can compound hypothermia because the blood thickens."
7. SNOWSHOES AREN'T FOR CLIMBING
In March 2002, a 53-years-old snowshoer fell 200 metres down the face of Goat Mountain to the rocks above Kennedy Lake. He was killed on impact. The man had been snowshoeing with companions on the popular peak, which stands just two kilometres from the top of the Grouse Mountain Skyride. He had lost his footing on the same steep and icy spot that had left another snowshoer with severe injuries the month before, and where, last week, a 24-year-old snowshoer lost his life.
The pattern is the result of a common misperception around the protection afforded by cleated snowshoes, said Jones.
"The general public has been led to believe that snowshoes with this (misnamed) crampon will . . . deal with icy conditions," he said. "They were never intended for traversing on steep slopes or ascending or descending."
Anyone who wants to snowshoe outside of marked terrain parks or groomed trails on local mountains, especially under current icy conditions, should have ice axes, full crampons, helmets and ropes -- as well as the training to use them, said Jones.
8. NEVER, NEVER WALK DOWN A GULLY
To many hikers and skiers who become lost in the forest, it seems obvious that heading downhill will ultimately lead them to safety. Gullies, after all, lead to the ocean, and at sea level is civilization. On the North Shore mountains, that decision can very easily cost you your life.
On a Sunday afternoon in March 2000, two teenaged snowboarders from West Vancouver got into trouble when they boarded out of bounds on Cypress Bowl into the steep and treacherous Strachan Creek drainage. Realizing the slope was too dangerous to ride down, they took off their boards and continued down the gully on foot. At a certain point, they turned back, heading once again uphill, but then for reasons that are unclear, they changed their minds again, and set off downward once more.
Rescuers later followed their prints as they moved in and out of the creek, until the point that the fast-flowing water appears to have swept them both off their feet, carrying them down the crevass to their deaths.
"Going into gullies is very, very bad," said Jones. "It's one of the main causes of death in all seasons. . . . The gullies lead to waterfalls; the gullies lead to box canyons; and the gullies invariably increase the chance of hypothermia."
As counterintuitive as it may be, rescuers recommend that those who are lost head up to ridges. Ridgelines tend to slope more gently, they improve the odds of rescue, and -- because cold air sinks -- they are actually tend to be warmer.
9. BRING WARM, WATERPROOF CLOTHING
The idea of bringing warm, waterproof clothing on any excursion to the woods may seem self-evident, and yet rescues involving people who have failed to do so are commonplace.
In April 2005, a pair of foreign exchange students wearing light clothing and carrying no supplies, embarked on a hike up the Hanes Valley Loop in Lynn Headwaters Regional Park. The teens ran into snow in Crown Pass and became trapped there as darkness fell. They spent a brutal night out in the open, huddled together in sub-zero temperatures. In the morning, the male hiker set off to find help, leaving his female companion to wait where she was.
Through blind luck, the teen found his way down one of the few unmarked trails through a ravine into the Capilano Watershed, where he found a member of the watershed patrol, who called in a rescue team. It wasn't until 3 p.m. that they reached the other hiker by helicopter. By the time they found her, she was severely hypothermic. Rescuers believe she would have been dead in another two hours.
Anyone heading on an excursion into the forest, no matter how modest, should take several layers with them, the outermost of which should be waterproof, said Jones.
10. DON'T DUCK UNDER THE ROPE
In February 2007, a 43-year-old truck driver from Vancouver barely escaped with his life when he ventured off one of Cypress Bowl's eastern groomed trails into an out-of-bounds area called Australian Gully. By good luck, the resort's ski patrol spotted the man's tracks leading into the zone, which is riddled with rocks and massive drop-offs. When the patrollers circled around to the bottom and found no tracks leading out of the gorge, they raised the alarm. It was another 7* hours before North Shore Rescue found the missing boarder huddled on a ridge south of the gully. If the patrollers hadn't seen the tracks, it would have been many more hours before they even knew he was gone -- long enough for him to have died from the cold.
"We have a high number of snowboarders and skiers who have (gone out of bounds), descended into gullies and fallen off waterfalls and died," said Jones. "That's the typical pattern."
For more information visit the North Shore Rescue website at www.northshorerescue.com. |
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