Ill-equipped hikers ignoring closure play ‘Russian roulette

Someone is going to die on the Grouse Grind unless ill-equipped and inexperienced hikers stop violating a closure in effect due to treacherous trail conditions, a North Shore Rescue official warned Thursday.

“We’re very concerned,” search-and-rescue manager Tim Jones said. “It’s basically like a Russian roulette and we don’t want to see someone die up there. In our estimation, it’s only a matter of time before that happens.”

Since Saturday, five people have been rescued from the Grouse Grind in three separate incidents — all around the three-quarter mark on the trail, where conditions become extremely icy at a steep open area.

“Three situations in a week,” Jones confirmed. “It’s not sitting well with us. We want to be proactive.”

Those rescued were all wearing running shoes and included three young male German visitors on Wednesday, a young male from North Vancouver last Sunday, and a 16-year-old male from North Vancouver last Saturday.

None was injured, although some were cold and traumatized.

“When I interviewed them [the Germans], their eyes were still bulging out,” Jones said. “They were very sketched out over this thing and very appreciative of the rescue.”

The Saturday incident was the worst, the teenager slid 10 metres before being stopped by a tree. “If he’d kept going, he would have accelerated and would have gone down the gully and would have died — become a fatality. As a matter of fact, he should have been a fatality.” The youth hugged the tree until rescue crews arrived.

Jones said that while Metro Vancouver is doing a good job of posting closed signs, 30 to 50 people are going up the Grouse Grind every hour.

“It’s a mountain environment once you get above the two-thirds mark. People need to treat it as such. It’s not a hiking trail. We advocate ice axes, mountaineering boots, and crampons.”

Snowshoes are inadequate for the conditions, he said, noting people who encounter trouble on the trail should not hike down because they’ll only make matters worse.

In the recent incidents, either the individuals in trouble or passing hikers notified officials by cellphone; all were day-time rescues accomplished with crampons, ice axes, and ropes.

Jones said rescue costs “vary from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars for a task like this,” adding the money comes from donations and provincial funding. He declined to comment on whether individuals who violate closed areas such as the Grouse Grind should have to pay for their rescues.

Metro Vancouver spokesman Bill Morrell said Grouse Mountain owns the top of the trail and leases the parking lot at the bottom of the trail from the region, while the bulk of the trail falls within regional watershed lands.

The region, which always closes the trail in winter due to dangerous conditions, spends about $100,000 per year on maintenance. The region lacks the ability to issue tickets under its water district legislation, meaning it would have to resort to formal trespass charges if it wanted to legally pursue hikers who ignore the trail closures, Morrell said.

“It’s a challenge,” he said. “Is it reasonable for taxpayers to be asked to underwrite considerable legal costs to save people from themselves?”

Metro Vancouver describes the Grouse Grind as “an extremely steep and mountainous trail that begins at the 300-metre-elevation mark and climbs to 1,100 metres over a distance of approximately 2.9 kilometres.”

lpynn@vancouversun.com