By Canadian Press

Crews search for skier, snowboarder missing since Saturday night on Cypress Mountain

Mar 21, 2021 | 11:28 AM

VANCOUVER — North Shore Rescue is searching for a skier and snowboarder who have been missing on Cypress Mountain resort since Saturday night.

Team leader Mike Danks says rescue crews were called by West Vancouver police about the two men who were reported missing by a girlfriend at 10 p.m.

He says the last time they scanned through the sky chair was around 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. and crews did not receive a response when they pinged their phones.

Danks says there was little information to go on and avalanche conditions were poor Saturday night, so crews weren’t sent out until first light on Sunday morning.

He says at 7 a.m., they finally received a ping off the men’s phones that placed them on an eastern aspect of Mount Strachan, one of the mountains that make up the resort.

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Danks says a helicopter searched the Australian Gully and Tony Baker Gully for two hours without success, but field teams found a track showing someone entered the gully system and did not come out.

He says rescue crews are working with avalanche forecasters to see if they can at least get some voice contact with the men to coax them back out.

“They’re in avalanche terrain. The conditions are not supportive of putting our personnel into those areas right now,” Danks said.

He added there could have been an avalanche that impacted the men, but crews don’t know for sure at this time.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 21, 2021.

The Canadian Press