Two similar emergencies on the North Shore mountains this weekend speak to a need for greater wilderness education of visitors, said Tim Jones, spokesman for North Shore Rescue.

The team was called by the North Vancouver RCMP around 2 p.m. on Friday regarding a call from a woman in distress somewhere on Grouse Mountain. Her whereabouts and her situation were unknown. Had she phoned the RCMP, the call could have been tracked, however she phoned the base of Grouse and staff in turn contacted police.

The woman eventually phoned a friend who worked with searchers to determine her location.

On their first flyover, rescuers spotted the glare off her sun goggles in Mosquito Creek. Team members were dropped into the area and headed toward her on snowshoes equipped for avalanche response.

The woman had snowboarded out of bounds and was found safe and sound in a gully system. As there was a language barrier, searchers were unable to determine whether she got there accidentally or intentionally.

An Asian foreign student, the woman recently finished a language program and is living in the Lower Mainland on an extended visa.

"She is representing this trend of foreign students or people who are visitors to the province who are running into problems," said Jones.

The woman was airlifted back to safety. The rescue took approximately two hours to complete.

The team responded to a second report of a missing person the following evening.

On Saturday night at 10:30 p.m., North Shore Rescue was again called by the RCMP regarding an overdue foreign exchange student from Germany, 29-year-old Adrian Gress, who is staying with a North Vancouver family. He arrived in Canada less than a month ago.

His homestay family told searchers that Gress had written a note in one of his classes that week about his weekend plans. An avid walker, not a mountaineer, he planned to hike from Lynn Headwaters Regional Park to Grouse Mountain. The route is an approximately 11-kilometre trek, closed in winter due to waist-high snow and avalanche conditions.

"When one of the homestay parents found out he was doing it, they quickly advised the student this was not a safe thing to do," said Jones. They recommended more appropriate trail systems.

However, Gress attempted the trek anyway. He left Saturday morning around 8:30 a.m. wearing militaristic boots without any tread, cotton pants and a jacket not made out of Gortex.

A search was immediately launched with searchers brought in from Coquitlam Search and Rescue and Grouse Mountain staff. The avalanche hazard was assessed to be moderate, although an extreme hazard warning had been in effect a few days earlier. Searchers went into the field from both ends of the trail.

Based on tracks, searchers thought Gress was in the Hanes Valley area. Around 5 a.m. Sunday morning, two campers were found who confirmed they had seen him. They were airlifted out.

By following his tracks, Gress was found soon after, at approximately 6:45 a.m., next to Hanes Creek, mildly hypothermic. He didn't have his boots on as they were frozen solid. He had taken them off and wrapped his feet in a towel and stuffed them in his backpack.

"What he did there probably saved his feet from getting severe frostbite, but the downside of that was he was going nowhere. He was stuck," said Jones.

Gress made a makeshift shelter and sat on the cold ground, rubbing his legs and moving his arms to produce body heat throughout the night. If it had been bad weather and not a clear night, he would have developed severe hypothermia, said Jones.

Gress and the searchers, who were also mildly hypothermic due to their night spent outside, were airlifted out.

Last April, the team responded to a call concerning a Korean student and her boyfriend who ventured through Hanes Valley not properly equipped and got caught overnight in Crown Pass. By luck her boyfriend found his way out and got help. She was lifted out by helicopter and suffered severe hypothermia.

Other incidents have turned out more severely over the years, including the death of a 28-year-old Korean snowboarder found in an out-of-bounds North Shore ski area in March 2002.

"We have a lot of foreign students who see our beautiful North Shore and I truly believe that they see it so close to civilization and (they think) 'How could I possibly get into trouble,'" said Jones.

Jones said the extremely busy team just doesn't have the resources to address the issue, other than to identify it as a problem. He said raising awareness of the issue now is not to be critical or to stereotype, it's just to point out a recurring emergency situation and to create a forum for dialogue on how best to prevent further life-threatening instances through education.

For example, programs like AdventureSmart, managed by the B.C. Provincial Emergency Program, helps people understand and reduce the risks of participating in outdoor recreational activity. This program could be brought into learning institutions as a proactive measure. As well, homestay parents have a role in wilderness education, he said.

"I just think that this is a key time, not to point fingers or to be critical, it's just showing a trend and now there's an opportunity for wilderness education, which is a positive thing," said Jones.

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