* Two Concurrent Searches and a Rescue leave one Subject Missing *


From Martin Colwell
Lions Bay Search & Rescue
sarinfo@istar.ca

1st July 1997
Mount Seymour,Vancouver, B.C.

Saturday 28th June 1997.

The North Shore Rescue team responded to reports of two separate missing
male subjects on Mount Seymour (4758 ft/1450 meters) late Saturday night.
Both of the subjects, one a local hiker and the other a Belgian visitor,
were males in their mid sixties. A night search of the major trails, using
a loud hailer and a trail Sound Sweep, failed to find any trace of either
subject. By dawn of the 29th the search was rapidly stepped up to a large
-scale mutual-aid search.

Sunday 29th June 1997.
Mutual aid SAR teams from Lions Bay, Coquitlam, Whistler, Ridge Meadows,
Central Fraser Valley, Surrey, Chilliwack and Hope were rapidly brought
to the search base at the ski area parking lot on Mount Seymour. By 9am
search teams were deployed to search all the major trails and drainages
of Mount Seymour, a mountain notorious for bad weather, misleading
terrain and a long history of difficult, and occasionally unsuccesful,
searches.

As the skies clouded over helicopter transport and searching of the
remote drainages was postponed and searchers were re-deployed to the
major cliffs, lakes and catchment basins of the complicated subalpine
terrain of Mount Seymour. 

At 0930 hrs search teams travelling west to Dog Mountain made voice
contact with the missing Belgian, Georges Jean-Serge De Bloe, one of the
two lost subjects. He was found sheltering from the rain in the outhouse
of one of the many old cabins that dot the lower forested reaches of Mount
Seymour. Apparently he had wandered off the hiking trail to avoid the snow
before becoming lost and stumbing across a locked cabin and its outhouse.
Thanks to this shelter from the rain he was in good condition after 24
hours on the mountain and was able to walk back to the search Operations
Base at the parking lot.

While Georges was bring helped back to the Operations Base the search
expanded for the 65 year old local resident, Karl Walter. By mid afternoon
a full-scale search was underway and the SAR Resource Kit, food truck and
a second Mobile Command vehicle were brought in to provide additional
logistic support. Approximately 60 searchers from almost every Lower
Mainland team were deployed during the day, for a total of approximately
35 field assignments. All the mountain trails, many natural routes,
ski runs, the three main summits of Mount Seymour, Suicide Bluffs and
the DePencier Bluffs, (well known catchment areas) as well as a number of
areas around the ski run at the Point Last Seen, were examined. Two
helicopters transported searchers to their assignments and searched as
much of the gullies, catchment basins, streams, lakes and riverbeds as
could be flown below the cloudline.

During the late afternoon Lions Bay SAR received a call at the Operations
Base that a hiker had taken a 200ft/70m slide down steep snowslopes onto
broken rocks near the rocky summit of the 5855ft/1785m Brunswick Mountain,
about 20 kilometers west of the Mount Seymour incident. She had apparently
suffered fairly serious injuries and required immediate attention. A group
of rescuers were rapidly assembled from the searchers on scene and flown
directly to Lions Bay, to begin the ascent of the cloud-covered Mount
Brunswick. Later the same evening Coquitlam SAR were briefly called away
to search for six-year old who had been reported missing in Coquitlam.
Luckily the child was quickly found and the Coquitlam team soon returned
to the Mount Seymour Operations Base. Meanwhile the Whistler and Squamish
teams were contending with a disoriented hiker, wandering in the forest
beside the Squamish River, and so were also delayed in reaching the Mount
Seymour Operations Base.

By late evening the Mount Seymour search for Karl Walter had uncovered no
clues and plans were developed for an even larger search operation to
be initiated the following morning.


Monday 30th June 1997
After an evening of pre-planning assignments were prepared to search all
of the major gullies and drainages on the west and east sides of Mount
Seymour, down to the Seymour River on the west and Indian Arm, at sea
level, on the east. Clear skies permitted helicopter deployments to the
top of these drainages, as well as ariel searching of the gully systems
and cliff bands. Once these major assignments were implemented area
searching and selected gridsearching of areas between the main trails was
undertaken. Clifftops were re-examined, drainage basins sign-cut and
cabins checked. Many of the trails and likely routes were re-searched two
or three times and a number of 'straight-line' routes back to the parking
lot were also searched.

Approximately 75 searchers were registered and many teams carried out two
or three assignments per day. Radio communication was split between the
east and west side of Mount Seymour, with two search managers controlling
one frequency each, under the command of the Incident Commander. Two
helicopters shared the operational tasks, one moving personnel into
position on the mountain while the other performed ariel searching of all
the search areas and drainages. After midday the cloud ceiling descended
and ariel searching and further secondary deployments on the upper
mountain had to be postponed. Later in the afternoon the cloud ceiling
raised sufficiently to re-instate the upper mountain assignments. By late
evening, after more than two full days of searching and the completion of
approximately 80 assignments, no significant clues as to the whereabouts
of Karl Walter had been discovered.

The late evening was spent re-examining our search coverage to date. No
significant gaps in coverage were found and many of the high probability
areas, trails and routes had been searched up to three or four times. It
was decided to appoint an entirely new management team, one with good
local knowledge but no previous involvement with the current incident, to
obtain a fresh perspective on the search effort.

Tueday July 41st 1997
Heavy rain and cloud again descended on Mount Seymour and by early morning
visibility was restricted in the cloud to approximately 100m. No ariel
searching was possible. The wife and son of Karl Walter were brought to
the site to directly confirm the Point Last Seen. Grid-searching, using
'dense coniferous forest under winter conditions' POD tables, were used
to obtain a 75% POD of the area that had been previously area-searched by
three earlier teams.

Approximately 30 searchers took part in this days search but again no new
clues were uncovered. The new search management team reviewed the previous
days operations but were unable to identify any new search areas that
might have been overlooked. By evening it was decided that all the
searching that could be done had been done, frequently many times, and
that there was no further reason to continue the search effort in the
field. The R.C.M. Police reviewed the operation and decided that the
ground search for Karl Walter had been adequately performed and that field
operations would now be concluded. The immediate family were informed of
this decision and the incident now remains a missing person police file.

The search was a very intensive and strenuous operation, made urgent by
the knowledge that at least two other persons have previously become lost
on Mount Seymour and either never been found, or found deceased many weeks
later.


Prepared by Martin Colwell
Lions Bay Search & Rescue

PEP Task# 981192

                -----------------------------------