Four hikers rescued in busy weekend for North Shore Rescue Z

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http://www.nsnews.com/news/four- ... e-rescue-1.1381078#

Another weekend of sunshine, another weekend of North Shore Rescue members dropping what they're doing to rescue lost and injured souls in the backcountry.

The volunteer team was called out twice last weekend, once on Saturday to rescue a badly injured hiker on Crown Mountain and again on Sunday to find three hikers who lost their way on a day trip and spent the night in the backcountry.

North Vancouver RCMP paged the team around 3:30 p.m. Saturday when they received a 9-1-1 call from a man who had fallen down the steep rocky slope near the summit of Crown Mountain.

"He couldn't remember the details of the fall because he hit his head and blacked out," said Doug Pope, North Shore Rescue spokesman. "He had an obvious shoulder injury. It looked like a broken collarbone. He had a gash on his head."

North Shore Rescue sent in a helicopter long-line team with a stretcher to package up the 55-year-old victim. The chopper set the man and his rescuers down at the Capilano searchand-rescue station where B.C. Ambulance Service paramedics were waiting.

The man was well-prepared and experienced for the difficult hike but did put himself at some risk by attempting to do it alone, Pope said.

NSR volunteers scrambled again early Sunday morning after a group of students failed to return from a hike in Hanes Valley. The three hikers, all in their early 20s, were aiming to take the 15-kilometre trail from Lynn Headwaters to Grouse Mountain but missed a key turn into the valley.

The last ping from their cellphone was off a tower near Capilano University around 8:30 p.m., Pope said. That was a clue the group had missed their turn into Hanes Valley and continued north along Lynn Creek.

After spending most of the day heading north, they found themselves near Lynn Lake as darkness was falling. The students, who weren't carrying a map, did have some luck in that they came across two campers who offered them shelter in their tent for the night.

North Shore Rescue dispatched three ground teams and a helicopter to search for them on Sunday morning, eventually finding them just south of Lynn Lake.

"We ended up air-lifting all five of them out," he said. "Everybody got out safe and sound but it was quite an involved search for them."


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