Missing hiker found dead in a B.C. boulder field

The Weather Network file photo - SAR

Sunday, June 7, 2015, 6:54 PM - The body of a 20-year-old man was found Saturday afternoon after search crews looked for the missing hiker in southwestern B.C. for over 24 hours.

The young man's friends said he went jogging ahead of them on a trail in Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park. The group was on their way to Lindeman Lake. Once his friends arrived at the lake, the man was nowhere to be found.

Chilliwack Search and Rescue (SAR) was called to the area Friday evening. A dozen volunteers scoured the trail, part of the Lindeman Lake shoreline and a creek, SAR search manager Doug Fraser told CBC.

The search was put on hold Friday night as SAR called for more volunteers. The search continued with as many as 30 volunteers Saturday morning, but there was still no sign of the missing man.

"All of this was really, really strange. Typically when we get called into this area, within an hour or two we've located the missing hiker," Fraser told CBC. "It's just really difficult to get lost in the area. It's such a well-marked, well-worn trail with lots of hikers on it, so it's very strange that nobody had seen this individual."

Around 2 p.m. Saturday, a pilot from RCMP Air Services spotted the hiker's body in a boulder field southwest of Lindeman Lake.

Fraser added it was strange where the hiker ended up due to the location of the boulder field being quite a bit of elevation above the lake.

"It was very, very strange and difficult to explain why he ended up where he did," Fraser told CBC. "He had fallen, either down the steep boulder field, or from a point somewhere on the cliff band above the boulder flied, and died from his injuries there."

The death appears to be entirely accidental, CBC reports.

Source:CBC