UPDATED: Fernie Search and Rescue has urged anyone heading outdoors to be prepared as the region braces for potentially damaging thunderstorms.
“It’s like all those things, everyone needs to do their homework and make sure they know what they’re going to do if things don’t work out the way they want them to,” said Fernie SAR head Simon Piney.
“Do they have a means of communicating for help? Have they left their trip plan with someone, so someone knows where to go look for them? Be prepared for trip weather changes, there’s a lot of that going on around here that’s for sure.”
It comes after the rescue of seven hikers who became lost while descending Mt. Proctor on Thursday.
The hikers were stranded on the 2393-metre (7851ft) mountain for about 12 hours, departing at 8.30 a.m. and not returning until 8.30 p.m. when they were evacuated by helicopter.
“They were fine, they were in good spirits but they’d been out there a long time and they were pretty lost,” said Piney.
“They tried a number of different options to get down once they’d left trail and each time they’d either got into brush or cliffs. They were pretty happy to be got out of there.”
Piney said the hikers were local and “reasonably well equipped”.
“They had food and water, I’m not sure overnight would have been much fun,” he said.
“From our point of view, they did the right thing, which was to press the help button reasonably early in the day. If they had waited until it went dark then it would have been quite a different rescue.”
Piney described Mt. Proctor as a “hard” trail to follow.
“Particularly when you’re in the alpine, it’s very rocky which means it’s pretty hard to see anything on the ground to follow and although there are cairns, they all get knocked over in the winter, so it’s a tough follow,” he said.
As of 4.30 p.m. Friday, Interior B.C., including the Elk Valley, remained on Severe Thunderstorm Watch with Environment Canada warning conditions were favourable for the development of severe thunderstorms, which could produce strong wind gusts, heavy rain and even hail.
The agency said the slow-moving storms had the potential to dump between 15-25mm of rain in one hour and produce wind gusts up to 80km/h.
Visit Weather.gc.ca/warnings to monitor alerts and forecasts issued by Environment Canada.
To report severe weather, send an email to BCstorm@canada.ca or tweet reports using #BCStorm.
EARLIER:
Seven hikers have been rescued from a Fernie mountain by helicopter overnight.
Yesterday afternoon, Fernie Search and Rescue was tasked to find seven hikers stranded on Mt. Proctor.
According to Fernie SAR, the group had left at 8.30 a.m. but lost the trail descending from the summit.
After various attempts to find the trail they called for help.
A helicopter with SAR longline technicians onboard was dispatched to locate the hikers, who were evacuated at about 8.30 p.m.
Fernie SAR thanked Bighorn Helicopters for their support and expertise.
