Man missing for 10 days found on Grouse Mountain

"He said he saw rescuers looking for him and could hear them, but that they couldn’t hear him."

It sounds like a simple whistle would have had him rescued within a few days.

Yup, a whistle, mirror, and a smoky fire would have helped. I count the sighting mirror on my compass rather than carry a separate signal mirror.

I have to debate the official's comment on a cell phone, but that may have been the reporter lumping it together. A cell phone is great, IF you have reception. Not having the other essentials and not telling anyone where you are going are major no-no's.

I see people going out with zero gear on day hikes all the time– no water or food, no flashlight, certainly not a map or compass, and wearing stuff like cotton sweats and flip-flops.

What did you guys think about the comment on running shoes? That seemed a little Old School to me.

I'm glad he's okay. Ten days is a long time!

dale … its in metro vancouver … which means literally a few minutes away from the yuppie houses in north vancouver and the ski lodge there …

theres usually reception around grouse …

like i said in the bear thread … i dont think most people realize how close the wilderness is to metro vancouver … heres a pic of the area around grouse … you can see the city right next to the mountan

if it doesnt make you jealous that we vancouver bums can walk out of our back door and do several 1000m+ peaks after work .. and stop by the yuppie sbucks afterwards … i dont know what will ;)

THAT Grouse Mountain? I've been there, eh? And a local call too— lost with no roaming charges :)

I think it would freak me out more being that close in and lost for 10 days.

Seattle isn't quite as dramatic with the falloff from urban to wilderness, but close with the suburban to wilderness shift. Run Google Maps on "North Bend, WA" and go to the satellite version. You go from 1 acre McMansion housing directly to the national forest and vertical geography. Excellent areas for bear/home owner conflicts.

My top solo survival scenarios are falling and getting injured or losing my gear. I've said before that I want SAR to find me warm and dry with my broken ankle propped up and and a hot beverage in my hand. "Ready to carry me down, fellas? Anybody have some pain killers? Watch that foot, fool!"

I count the sighting mirror on my compass rather than carry a separate signal mirror.

Signal mirror? I've always heard that in the Coastal Pacific Northwest the sun never shines:-) (offered with a smile but am actually wondering about that)

"He said he saw rescuers looking for him and could hear them, but that they couldn’t hear him."

It was also said that he was halucinating after the third day. He may have been imagining that as he was reported to be pretty much out of it when at the hospital. Sometimes it is difficult to make a judgement on what happend based on the limited information in the article.

He may have had some sort of brain injury too. That is one of the things you always check for when someone has a fall.

We lost a hiker here a couple years ago. He was killed in a fall a ways off the trail he was supposed to be on and it didn't make a lot of sense on how why he got there and why he fell. He was the victim of a street mugging and life-threatening beating prior to that and may have had some sort of episode from a brain injury while on the hike. I could see this happening with someone who is older or out of shape and the physical stress of the hike causing a brain trauma. All conjecture and no science on my part, but it does make me wonder.

Wow. This exact route, Lynn Valley to Grouse mountain, was the very first hike I did in my life. There are steep and cliffy sections but you would have to screw up to get far off trail or fall off a cliff.

Also, the Hanes valley itself is not that remote by backpacking standards. There should be several parties on a normal weekend through it.

Also, I wore running shoes.

Too bad Adbusters didn't walk down the street and organize a "Occupy Grouse Mountain", they could have found him in 4 days.

Ten days is pretty gnarly.

Hey, this dude has a red sharpie, but no whistle or cell phone? Ha ha ha!!

I love the running shoe point also–not so cool being UL when you're frozen after taking dunk in the creek, eh spanky? (Yes, I know this is heresy, please don't take the bait if you're a carp :) ) This guy isn't a ul'er, he's a day hiker that leaves his cell phone behind and doesn't own a whistle. He hikes in running shoes because he wears them all week, etc… Lucky dude, at the end.

the thing is i dont think the guy was totally unprepared … he had extra munchies and tarp for what is basically a day hike

the biggest thing missing was a cell phone … maybe a whistle and a sure fire way of starting a fire (cue BPLers saying "NO FIRE OUTDOORS")

honestly, surviving 10 days when you expect to do a dayhike is very far outside the realm of reasonable expectations that you really wont be planning for that long …

can you imagine BPLers taking 1.5 lbs of food per day for a day hike in case they went poofy for that long ;)

"the biggest thing missing was a cell phone … maybe a whistle and a sure fire way of starting a fire"

I think there's an app for that.

–B.G.–

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/humbled-bc-hiker-surprised-frost-bite-stopped-him-in-near-death-experience–132656318.html

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. – Somewhere between Days Three and Nine, a wet, cold and stranded Michael St. Laurent became certain he had already saved himself.
The experienced hiker had thawed out his ice-block feet and calves, shimmied down steep mountain terrain to Vancouver and personally arranged for search and rescue to send him a lift.
He peeled out of his single-tarp shelter and packed up the makeshift camp in pitch darkness.
"And I'm waiting for this helicopter to stop by and then after a while I clue in: 'Hey, I've been hallucinating again,'" he recalled Wednesday, three days after a bone fide chopper really did retrieve the North Vancouver man in perilous condition.
"There's no distinction between what a dream is and what reality is."
The 45-year-old's dire predicament was solved by random chance last Saturday when a jogger and her boyfriend stumbled across the man in a rarely-visited area of the mountain north of Vancouver.
The pair gave him dry clothes, first aid and tomato with beef soup, caring for him until the fly-in could take place at first light the next morning.
Sitting in a hospital wheelchair, St. Laurent half-chuckled, half-scoffed as he described how he wound up suffering the near-death experience.
He had only planned to spend a day or so wandering through autumn sunshine around the backside of the popular Grouse Mountain on Oct. 13.
In his backpack he carried water, food for two days, a flashlight with batteries, a change of socks and a single tarp.
He had made the same trek twice before and didn't bother telling anyone where he was headed.
He didn't get as far as he'd hoped by dusk, so set up his tarp with warm weather in the forecast.
But it was a much chillier night that brought cold rain instead. In the morning he massaged his muscles and decided to move forward.
But sore feet turned into puffy feet and as he climbed off-trail in search of firewood to warm up his limbs, they just seized.
"I sprained my left knee, my right hip and my legs decided to quit on me at that point," he said, putting him on all fours.
"I am familiar from textbook perspectives with symptoms of frostbite, but up until I actually got stuck with my feet being immobile, I didn't know it was frostbite. I thought I was just a little bit cold and I could move on."
Day Three morphed into Day Four and that's when he started getting worried. Wood was wet and he had no matches or dry tinder to send out smoke signals.
By about his fifth day without food, he spotted a search party in the distance.
"I could see them, I could hear them, I yelled down to them," he said. "But they didn't hear me, they didn't see me. And the helicopter flew right over me. That was the first time I lost motivation."
A missing person's report was filed after people had found the man's car parked in the lot at the base of the mountain. Teams had gone out looking, but their efforts were fruitless.
He was hypothermic, losing energy and in agonizing pain. His hallucinations kept flowing just like life.
"When I was dreaming, I thought I was going to work, downtown, out with my friends," he said. "And something that my friends were begging me to do, dancing. Of all things, with my feet being like that."
Around his seventh or eighth day, St. Laurent scrawled his name, date of birth and medical conditions on his arm with a felt-tip pen. He figured it would help identify him if anyone found his body.
"I've got lots of plans, I still have things I want to do," he thought to himself at the time, feeling a deep cold settle into his liver and intestines.
"Frostbite in Vancouver in the middle of October? Common!" he said.
When his salvation arrived on Oct. 22, his hazy mind thought he'd been lost in the backcountry for three weeks.
"It was a great moment of relief," he said, noting the kindness of his rescuers.
He said the ordeal has left him humbled. Next time he sets out — and definitely, there will be future hikes — he'll tell someone where he's going first.
And he said he'd bring flares, and a GPS phone, and other survival gear.
"In retrospect, yes I should have left word," he said, adding that as his exposure to the elements dragged on, he thought he was at the end of his rope.
"If the search and rescue people hadn't found me, it would have been a while before people with snowshoes would have been going in."