Rescue crews had to deal with everything Golden Ears Provincial Park could throw at them during a miserable mountain rescue over the weekend.
Ridge Meadows Search and Rescue said on Facebook that crews were called out at about 6 p.m. Saturday night, to help four hikers, three men and a woman, stuck on Panorama Ridge. Through communications via broken cellphone connection, the hikers said they were soaking wet and unable to get down the mountain because of the fog.
The weather though only got worse. Search crews couldn’t get a helicopter up the mountain so instead sent two teams up the mountain with rain coming down in horizontal sheets. Thunder and lightning was also threatening from a distance. Crews though were able to reach the hikers, who were huddled in their tent about 200 metres from the emergency shelter, at about 2 a.m. on Sunday.
After a quick assessment, the rescuers got the hikers to the emergency shelter and provided dry clothes, blankets and hot drinks.
Despite stormy weather on Sunday, two helicopters, one from Talon and another from Valley Helicopters, found a break in the weather, got up to the mountain and retrieved everyone at about 11:30 a.m.
B.C. Emergency Health Services checked the subjects out and released them. “Task completed at 11:30 Sunday morning,” search and rescue reported.
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