Two out-of-bounds skiers are lucky to be alive after spending a night in a treacherous, avalanche-prone gully outside Cypress Mountain ski resort.
North Shore Rescue volunteers were called to rescue the two men in their early 40s on Sunday afternoon, after they placed a 911 call.
“They had gone out of bounds around 11:30 a.m. on purpose. They ducked ropes … and they went down into the gully and they got into a point of no return. It was just so steep. And then they got caught in an avalanche,” said Doug Pope, search manager.
The team joined Cypress Mountain ski patrol staff in hunting for the men and eventually spotted their tracks heading outside the resort boundaries. Contacting them via text message, Pope was able to coach the men into getting their GPS co-ordinates from their smartphones, allowing rescuers to zero in on them in Tony Baker Gully, northeast of the ski resort. Almost every year, there’s a least one rescue in that spot and several people have died there, including the man the gully is named after.
Finding them was only part of the challenge though. With a week of heavy snow in the mountains and warming temperatures, avalanche risk was high. Sending a team in on foot could have triggered another slide that risked being fatal for the skiers and rescue crews.
“We were seeing the conditions from the top and in the air and what we could see was that it was very dangerous, and that whole gully was prone to go,” Pope said. “In this case, we made the hard decision that it wasn’t safe for us to send our members in there and we told them to stay put – that they were going to have to overnight.”
Cypress grooming staff stayed on the lookout for them throughout the night in case they tried to make their way out on their own. They team marshalled at its Capilano Gate search and rescue station at 6 a.m. Talon Helicopters were called in at first light, with a helicopter rescue team and avalanche technicians. Weather conditions were still marginal and there was only a small and distant gap in the cloud deck, allowing the rescuers to get near the lost skiers with their long-line harness.
The men had mild to moderate hypothermia but were in relatively good condition considering what they’d been through, Pope said. NSR handed the men over to B.C. Ambulance Service paramedics.
“I’m sure it was a long night for them,” Pope said. “They’re very lucky. To be in an avalanche and survive, they beat the odds yesterday and they were really lucky we were able to get a helicopter in there because they may not have survived a second night.”
It’s the first out-of-bounds rescue of the winter season for the team. Pope said he hopes the message gets out among mountain adventure seekers that there’s a stark danger beyond ski resorts’ rope lines.
“It’s not safe to go out of bounds on the North Shore Mountains. There are steep gullies and waterfalls. They’re all very steep and avalanche prone,” he said. “People who go out of bounds in those gullies are putting their lives at risk, for sure, and they’re putting our rescuers’ lives at risk trying to get them out.”
Cypress Mountain ski patrol did revoke the men’s season passes.
