Crews battle the weather to resume search for missing snowshoers

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WEST VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – For the first time in days, conditions over the North Shore mountains are crystal clear, but fog kilometres away at Vancouver’s airport complicated the resumption of a search for two snowshoers who vanished on Christmas Day.

North Shore Rescue Team Leader Mike Danks says about 20 team members have returned to an avalanche-prone area around Mount Strachan north of the Cypress Mountain where a chopper will take them high in the sky in hopes of spotting 43-year-old Roy Lee and 64-year-old Chun Lam.

Danks says they’ve already searched all the trails on the mountain and are now moving into more dangerous terrain. “Our target areas are the gulleys and drainages and those are right in the middle of avalanche terrain and a lot of them are traps so we have to be very careful about putting our members into those areas.”

One of the helicopters is equipped with a camera capable of detecting body heat. Danks says that will be used to scour slopes that might be unstable due to the heavy snow that has fallen since Lee and Lam went missing.

He says rescuers remain optimistic, although he also says a decision about whether to switch from rescue to recovery mode may be soon be necessary.

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