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13h ago

Glacial Tarn Breach Forces Helicopter Rescue of 60 in B.C.'s Bugaboos

BC Parks has closed the Bugaboos core pending hazard assessments.

Rescuers took this image of flooding in Bugaboo Provincial Park on Sunday, when it took them seven hours to rescue over 60 people from the park in the East Kootenay.
Columbia Valley Search and Rescue members responding to a call.
An aerial view of the Kain Hut basin, Bugaboos, where a flash flood wiped out a section of the trail-1

Overview

  • Rescuers completed about 10 helicopter trips over roughly seven hours on Aug. 17 to airlift more than 60 hikers and climbers safely to the trailhead.
  • Columbia Valley Search and Rescue volunteers led the operation with help from ACMG guides, Alpine Club of Canada staff and a police officer, refueling at a nearby Canadian Mountain Holidays lodge.
  • A mountain tarn between Bugaboo and Crescent spires cut a deep channel through glacier ice, releasing fast, debris-laden water past the Conrad Kain Hut area.
  • The Alpine Club of Canada says the Kain Hut appears undamaged, but the approach trail is heavily impacted and currently unusable as officials evaluate alternate access.
  • BC Parks has closed the Core Area, the Kain Hut Trail, Boulder Camp and Applebee Dome Camp until further notice, with the incident underscoring ongoing glacier retreat and prior rockfall hazards in the range.