In my continuous goal to ascend as many BC Mountains as possible, I realized that I had never attempted Mount Hanover which was so close to the GVRD.
In September, I had wedding to go to early in the evening and therefore I would not be able to have a decent climbing day unless I stayed local. This lead me to want to climb Mount Hanover.
On Saturday morning, Ben (Double E Alpinist) picked me up around 3:30 am so we could get an early 4 am start.
At the Lions Bay parking lot we were joined by Mark (MJ24), Paul and Thomas who were are well excited to scramble up this mountain.
We were traveling light and traveling fast, within a few hours we were already at hat pass. The traverse to the entrance of the gully was a lot of fun as it required to go over some snowfields, boulder hoping and scrambling up the creek (a shortcut compared to the normal route)
When we arrived at the bottom of the gulley, we all put our helmets and decided to stick closely together. Indeed, there were a lot of loose rocks and if one of us pushed one off, it would be best that it would not have enough time to gain momentum before hitting someone else.
The ascent was a pure pleasure and we were already feeling the Autumn coming in (this was early September)
At the top we took a few pictures and spoke about various possible routes up the north face of Brunswick. After a good hour of chilling, we decided to head back down. Even more on the decent, was it very important to stay close as releasing rocks was lot more probable.
We went down just fine the first two thirds although there were some delicate steps that required very good hand holding.
At the last tricky move, we had all made it down but Paul. As Paul was going down back facing, he slipped with his five finger shoes on the wet grass, this lead him to slide for only 2 meters but enough to have him push a huge 100 kg rock that started falling towards Thomas and Ben (Mark and myself were on the side). Luckily, they were both out of the way and the block stopped before injuring anyone.
We were very happy that nobody got hurt… Until we realized that in his slide, Paul has dislocated his shoulder.
He was in a lot of pain and we had a hard time to get him all the way down the gulley.
Once there, we attempted to relocate his shoulder, but that was impossible to us.
The only option that came to mind was to make it back as fast as possible to the cars and bring him to the hospital.
But the boulder hoping was just horrendous for someone who was in so much pain and could not use any of his arms.
We all decided that SAR was the only option at this time because it was almost impossible to move Paul and that he could perhaps fall and get in a worst shape.
We didn`t have any network being behind Brunswick but I knew that we would get plenty one we were on hat pass.
Mark and Thomas stayed with Paul while myself and Ben rushed to the pass.
For those who are not familiar with the spot, we had to go all the way down to the Brunswick bowl and then run up back to the pass. This took almost an hour while Paul was struggling to stay awake (he also had had little sleep the night before).
Once at the pass, we contacted 911 who reached out to SAR. But we were given little information. We waited for a while hoping to see a helicopter come, but nothing was happening.
We sent a few text to the others hoping that they would get a bit of network and decided to rush down to the SAR/Fire Rescue center in Lions Bay. Myself in Ben were pumped up by the events and came down super fast back to the car. I don`t think I have done this trail so quickly.
Once at the car we headed to the SAR center where we met the team who was well aware of the situation. The problem was that all the volunteers were stuck in a traffic jam caused by 2 major accidents on the 99.
In the command center, I pointed out exactly where the group was and how the terrain looked. The mission was going to be a helicopter evacuation for all three of them.
About an hour later, the entire SAR team was present and they could go ahead with the evacuation.
We all gathered in the Lions Bay soccer field where the helicopter landed. From there it took off and in two return trips, it had picked up everybody. Paul had had his shoulder relocated by the SAR member who simply massaged it. There had been no need of jamming it, all it needed was a gentle hand that put the shoulder back in it s natural socket.
Paul still had to spend some time at the hospital, so after landing an ambulance picked him up and went straight to Lions Gate GH.
It was a hot day and myself and Ben went to the convenience store to get food and drinks for the SAR team who well deserved it.
We thanked them for their amazing help and I had to rush to the wedding.
Fortunately, the wedding was in West Van but I had no time to shower. My wife brought me some clothes and I arrived right on time for the ceremony, sweaty and in jeans….
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