B.C. Search and Rescue Calls Off Search For Missing 20 Year Old

The Nguyen family was sightseeing near Shannon Falls Provincial Park in B.C. when they lost contact with their 20-year-old son, Alex.

The trip wasn’t meant to be a wilderness hike, but Alex, wearing flip-flops, decided to explore one of the nearby trails.

While he walked, his parents stayed in touch with him via text. The last message they received from him said he was tired and planned to turn back.

By 3 p.m., Alex’s phone had died.

His parents, waiting in the parking lot, became increasingly worried and eventually called 911.

Squamish Search and Rescue crews arrived on scene around 3:20 p.m. and were on the trails within ten minutes.

The team, led by Tyler Duncan, initially felt optimistic about the search as Alex’s mother had been tracking his location using Find My iPhone. A recent cellphone ping also placed him about halfway up the Sea to Summit Trail.

There was also plenty of daylight.

The Sea to Summit Trail, which connects Shannon Falls to the Squamish gondola, is approximately eight kilometers long and would take an experienced hiker anywhere from three to five hours to finish.

While one rescue team began descending from the top of the trail, others started from the bottom, moving toward the location of the last ping.

Duncan said he was “quite confident” they’d find Alex, believing they would come across him waiting at the spot where his phone last pinged.

A total of seventeen search and rescue volunteers searched the main trails, calling out and using whistles to try and find Alex.

Despite their best efforts, there was still no sign of him by 6 p.m. By then, the mood and search strategy began to change.

As the sun began to set, drones equipped with infrared cameras were deployed to cover areas too difficult to navigate on foot.

The initial phase of the search wrapped up around 1:30 a.m. The second phrase began just a few hours later at 5:30 a.m.

Determined to find Alex, Squamish Search and Rescue issued a call for assistance across the South Coast. More than a hundred volunteers responded.

A potential breakthrough came when a couple reported seeing Alex on the trail that first day. They said he didn’t appear lost or distressed, but had asked for directions on how to get down.

Despite that, the second phase of the search ended without success.

A third phase of the search soon began, with a Level 2 search manager brought in to help determine the next steps. It was then decided that the search would be expanded beyond the main trails.

Experienced searchers began combing the canyons and cliffs surrounding the waterfall. However, the fast-moving, turbulent water made it nearly impossible to conduct a full water search; they could only drop cameras into certain areas.

By the end of the day, the tone had shifted as teams began to consider the difficult possibility of suspending the search.

On the fourth day, the RCMP officially announced that the search had been suspended.

While the decision drew some criticism online, Duncan explained that they are simply waiting for conditions to improve before resuming their search efforts.