09/02/2026
A Dropped Pack Changes Everything on the West Lion
Last night, Lions Bay Search and Rescue responded to a stranded hiker on the Howe Sound Crest Trail after an unusual accident on the West Lion turned a successful day in the mountains into an overnight rescue.
The hiker was experienced, with approximately 76 local peaks under his belt. He had successfully summited the West Lion and was descending when he stopped to take a break.
He put his 45-litre red backpack down and it fell off the cliffs and down the mountain. With it went almost everything he needed to get home safely: his Garmin inReach, bear spray, warm layers and, critically, his headlamp.
Suddenly, a successful summit day had become a very different situation. Without a headlamp, he knew he could not safely continue after dark. At approximately 6:45 p.m., he triggered an Apple Emergency SOS on his phone via satellite.
Locating him and accessing him, however, became complicated.
The coordinates received through the Apple SOS system placed him on Mount Unnecessary North. We asked for the coordinates to be reconfirmed and received essentially the same location. It was not where he was.
It’s important to understand that a cellphone location is not always a precise point on a map. Under an open sky, a modern phone can locate you within just a few metres. But in steep mountain terrain, errors can become tens or hundreds of metres, and poor location fixes can sometimes be off by much more.
Accuracy depends heavily on how much of the sky your phone can see and the geometry of the satellites available to it. Mountains, cliffs and deep valleys can block satellite signals, while signals bouncing off rock faces can introduce additional errors.
If you continue moving after calling for rescue, even a good location can quickly become an old location. Once you’ve called for rescue, unless you need to move because you are in immediate danger, stay put. A stationary subject gives Search and Rescue a location to work toward; a moving subject can turn a rescue into a search.
A side note on terrain: although it wasn’t a factor in this rescue, East–West gullies and deep valleys can be particularly challenging for satellite positioning. If you are in one, take note and know that a satellite message can take more than 30-45min to get out.
The subject was cold, scared and reported a bear nearby. He was sitting in cloud and could hear the helicopter attempting to reach him. At one point, the sound of the helicopter faded away.
He thought we had abandoned him.
We want people to know this: we will not abandon you.
If you are waiting for rescue and hear a helicopter nearby and then it disappears, do not lose hope. It may mean the crew has encountered a cloud ceiling, strong winds or another condition that makes that approach unsafe. They may be looking for another landing or hover-exit location, or changing the rescue plan entirely.
In this case, we couldn't get the helicopter through the cloud to reach him. We initially hoped to fly rescuers to the Mount Unnecessary landing zone, but the low cloud ceiling prevented the helicopter from climbing above approximately 1,100 metres. After trying several approaches, the closest safe insertion we could achieve was a hover exit near Christmas Gully, near Cypress.
The plan changed from a direct air rescue to a ground response.
A three-person Lions Bay SAR team travelled up the Howe Sound Crest Trail via St. Mark’s Summit and Mount Unnecessary to reach the subject. Whistle blasts and voice calls finally located him on the trail at roughly 1,400 metres elevation.
By the time the team reached him, the weather had deteriorated considerably. Heavy rain had arrived, visibility was extremely poor and the trail was exceptionally slippery.
Rather than descend the steeper Mount Unnecessary trail toward Lions Bay in those conditions, the team made the decision to retrace the route to Cypress.
The rescuers and subject reached the Cypress parking lot at approximately 3:30 a.m.
There are a few good learning points from this task.
First, keep critical equipment attached to you whenever possible, or secure them to a tree. A single dropped backpack took away this hiker’s light, communication device, warm clothing and bear protection all at once.
Second, don’t hike alone. When something unexpected happens like an injury, a fall, lost equipment or rapidly changing weather — having a partner can completely change your options.
Third, check the cloud base as part of your trip planning. Low clouds can significantly limit where a helicopter can safely operate and may turn what could have been a relatively quick air response into hours of travel on foot. Our next post will explain how to check this before you head into the mountains.
Consider the entire weather window, not just the conditions when you start. Don’t take on a big objective with a small weather window and a week of rain moving in. Deteriorating weather doesn't just affect your ability to get yourself out — it can significantly affect our ability to get to you.
Finally, being experienced doesn’t prevent things from going wrong. What matters is recognizing when the situation has changed. This hiker did exactly that. He knew continuing without a headlamp wasn’t safe, stopped and called for help before darkness and worsening weather made the situation even more serious.
- Lions Bay SAR
