The sun had long set, temperatures were dropping on Grouse Mountain, and Gerald Yang was wedged against a tree jutting out from a steep slope, staring down at a likely fatal 30-metre drop to rocks below. Read More
Gerald Yang is grateful to be alive after he found himself jammed against a tree on a Grouse Mountain cliff face, waiting for rescue
Gerald Yang is grateful to be alive after he found himself jammed against a tree on a Grouse Mountain cliff face, waiting for rescue
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The sun had long set, temperatures were dropping on Grouse Mountain, and Gerald Yang was wedged against a tree jutting out from a steep slope, staring down at a likely fatal 30-metre drop to rocks below.
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He watched anxiously as the North Shore Rescue helicopter searching for him passed over and disappeared.
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He couldn’t call again. His iPhone — and its integrated flashlight he’d tried to use to signal them — had died just seconds before the helicopter came into sight.
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The 23-year-old Coquitlam man had already escaped death minutes before, when he fell 30 metres before having his descent stopped by the tree. But his mortality was front of mind.
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Sunrise
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“In the moment, my survival instincts were just going off. I was like, ‘OK, no, I do not want to die. I do not want to die. I want to live,’” he said.
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He had no flashlight, no flares, no ropes, no mirror. All he had left was his Garmin smartwatch, which was also dangerously low on battery life.
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“It was really hard to find me because the area I landed on after the fall was pretty much covered by a big tree branch. So I was really hard for them to find,” he said Wednesday.
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“I had my watch on me, which was also a little bit low on battery. … ‘OK, actually, you know what? Let me try waving this light around, and maybe that way they can see something moving and they’ll be able to tell it’s me. And that’s how they located me, with me just waving my watch around.”
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Yang’s escapade started with his usual routine: Doing the Grouse Grind, a trail he does daily. He finished first in his age group in the 2025 Multi-Grind Challenge, coming ninth overall with 17 trips up the famed course.
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He opted to take a different route at the last minute, starting his ascent around 6:30 p.m.
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Traversing what he thought was the Taint Trail, a path he’d taken previously with a friend, he found himself at a rock face, with night falling, and thinking there was no turning back.
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“I think the map that I had open was wrong,” he said.
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“Eventually, the trail led to a freaking cliff. I was like, ‘OK, well, I don’t know if I’m in the right place.’ But then I checked my co-ordinates, and it seemed that I was, so I was like, ‘I guess I’m just going to climb up the cliff.’”
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He started climbing, slowly and carefully, but slipped and plummeted past where he’d started his ascent.