A 67-year-old tourist from Taiwan spent a chilly night on Burke Mountain on Tuesday after leaving for a short hike late in the afternoon.
Coquitlam Search and Rescue was called in by Coquitlam RCMP at 3 a.m. on Wednesday morning to search for Peter Hsu, who was visiting family in the area. He'd been dropped off at the Port Coquitlam Fish and Game Club at the base of Burke Mountain at 3 p.m. Tuesday, intending to enjoy a brief hike, but he did not return home.
SAR teams from Surrey and Ridge Meadows were called in to assist in the search. They refocused their efforts after receiving a call at 6 a.m. from a witness who recalled seeing Hsu heading east and uphill on Burke the previous day.
At about 7 a.m., just as the sun was rising, a member of the public spotted Hsu walking along Victoria Drive near Mars Avenue. He was picked up by the RCMP and reunited with his family.
When SAR members interviewed Hsu, they discovered he'd been using his smartphone for navigation and was carrying no other equipment with him. Unfortunately, the information on the phone was out of date and the batteries on his phone died, leaving him without a map or a way to figure out which way to go.
He continued to move all night, which Coquitlam SAR noted usually contributes to the possibility of injury, but was found to be cold but otherwise in good condition.
"In the strongest possible terms, Coquitlam SAR recommends that people never rely on smartphones for back-country navigation," SAR stated on its website, adding search teams have repeatedly rescued people using phones as their only method of navigation.
Phones "almost always fail in predictable ways," they said, whether cold and wet weather causing them to stop working, the battery dying, GPS signal strength leading to failures or map information out of date. They recommend always bringing a paper map and the 10 essentials, which are available at www.coquitlam-sar.bc.ca.
