Hope Search and Rescue kept busy on 9th November, after searching for a 75 year old male in the morning, the RCMP called out HSAR at night for a 54 year old male who had been separated from his hiking group and did not return to the rendezvous point.
RCMP met with Hope SAR at the start of the Needle Peak trail on Hwy 5 to gather info on what happened to the hiker. After reaching the top at Flatiron Summit, a group of nine hikers, started descending the trail back to the Needle Peak parking lot. A 54 year old hiker decided to go out ahead of the group and would meet group at bottom. When 8 of the hikers arrived at the bottom, the lone hiker was nowhere to be seen and reported him missing to RCMP.
Hope SAR and Mutual Aid from Chilliwack SAR a team of 4 searchers searched the trail during the night to try to determine where the hiker could have went astray. After finding nothing during the night Search management team start calling in Mutual Aid from other teams to expand the area being searched. While transporting search teams by helicopter to the top of Needle Peak to start the morning assignments the hiker was spotted a short distance off of the trail. The hiker was returned to command and it was determined he decided to try and follow the ski trails back to the parking lot instead of following the main trail.