*** Two Snowboarders Rescued during High Risk Search. ***

From :sarinfo@mindlink.bc.ca
Martin Colwell
February 18th, 1996: - Vancouver, BC.
Mount Strachan, BC

Two snowboarders were reported missing after a days 'boarding on Friday 17th
February 1996 at Cypress Bowl, near Vancouver, B.C.. The North Shore Rescue
team responded immediately and searched through the night for the male and
female teenagers. A major snowfall  hampered the search effort and serious
avalanche conditions put the searchers at significant risk, with many minor
sluffs reported.

By 10pm a mutual aid call brought Lions Bay SAR to the scene, deploying
additional teams on the east and west sides of Black Mountain and Mount
Strachan. Attempts were made to sign-cut for the teenagers, along with
whistle-blasts and area containment. The mountain gullies were considered
too dangerous for team assignments from the top.

A search team was despatched to approach Australia and Baker gullies from
the bottom, to reduce the risk of exposure to the avalanches. By 0230 hours
on Saturday morning voice contact was made with the subjects. The
steepeness of the terrain in the Australia gulley required fixed ropes and
a risky crossing of a creek between steep snow-covered rock walls. After
more than an hours additional effort the search team finally reached the
subjects, who were suffering from first and second degree frostbite.

A backup team was deployed to help prepare the exit route with more rope,
flagging and to provide additional first aid skills. The two teams
gradually moved the subjects back across the gulley and onto steep but
safer ground. By 0700 hours the subjects were brought down to a snow
-covered access road and transportation to Lions Gate Hospital.

The teenagers were lucky to have avoided the worst of the avalanche
conditions and also escaped the treacherous lower reaches of the Mount
Strachan gully systems, which has claimed two lives in recent years.


Martin Colwell
Lions Bay SAR

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