Cold, hungry, and happy to be back in civilization is how the South Cariboo Search and Rescue (SCSAR) describe a missing skier they located at Mt Timothy Sunday morning.
Manager James Seeley says 15 members mobilized to find the skier who did not meet with his skiing partner to come off the mountain.
“We deployed teams on all of the steep black diamond runs to snowshoe down the runs to make sure that the skier wasn’t lying there injured in the dark and when that failed to produce any results we started sending the snowmobile teams out through in the outer boundary areas.”
Seeley says they finally made a break in the search at about 1 in the morning.
“One of the snowshoe teams reported seeing tracks that went through a cut block down off the south side of the mountain so we directed all of the snowmobile teams onto that and we found the gentleman at around 1:30 and brought him back to the lodge at 2 o’clock.”
The biggest concern according to Seeley was if the 27-year-old skier sustained any injuries.
He says the best thing to do any similar situation is to stay put and don’t move.
“Chances are he would have been found earlier,” Seeley says.
“He might have even been located by the ski patrol when they were doing the boundary sweep-say 3:30 they might have noticed him or he might have heard them and been able to attract them, but when people keep moving and they keep moving in the dark, they’re at greater risk for injury and it makes it harder to find them.” ”
The call of the overdue skier came in Saturday afternoon at 3:30 pm.
He was uninjured.