A hiker who went missing in northeast British Columbia’s backcountry has been found after surviving more than five weeks in a remote provincial park as snow fell and temperatures plunged below –20 C.
Sam Benastick, 20, was reported missing after failing to return home on Oct. 17 from a 10-day camping trip. He was reportedly found on a service road Tuesday morning, supporting himself with two walking sticks and his cut-up sleeping bag wrapped around his legs for warmth.
CBC News confirmed Benastick had been found through family, as well as with people involved in the search in Redfern-Keily Provincial Park, about 250 kilometres northwest of Fort St. John, B.C.
Including the planned 10-day duration of his camping trip, he was in the wild for a total of 50 days and considered missing for more than five weeks.
“You know, the guy says he’s in rough shape. But man, for 50 days out in that cold, he’s going to live,” said Mike Reid, the general manager of the Buffalo Inn in Pink Mountain, B.C.
Reid said he had spoken to the people who found Benastick and Benastick’s parents — who had stayed at his inn for more than 20 days in October while they searched for their son.
“It’s kind of unbelievable,” said Al Benastick, Sam Benastick’s uncle, on Wednesday morning.
“Imagine being out there, being that cold, for that long.”
He confirmed that Benastick is now in hospital in Fort Nelson, B.C., and his parents are on their way to be with him, making the long drive from Kamloops to Fort Nelson.
He said his nephew, who he described as an avid outdoors person, was suffering from “frostbite and some smoke inhalation.”
10-day camping trip
Benastick set out Oct. 7 on a 10-day camping trip in Redfern-Keily Park, which B.C. Parks describes as having alpine tundras and impressive Rocky Mountain peaks.
Visitors to the remote park are warned there is no potable drinking water and few shelters, and dangers include rapidly changing temperatures and grizzly and black bears.
Locals told CBC News temperatures had been dropping to below –20 C overnight in November.
The search for Benastick was extensive, involving RCMP canine units and search and rescue teams from across the province.
Police said he had last been seen at the trailhead of the Redfern Lake trail, where he was riding a red Honda dirt bike.
The official search effort was called off by police on Oct. 28, though the file remained open.
In updates posted to Facebook, Benastick’s mother described “scouring” various peaks and rivers, looking for any clues about where her son may have gone.
‘The hell is that person doing walking on this road?’
But there was no real information about his whereabouts until Tuesday when, according to Reid, Benastick was found by workers who were grading the area around well sites — when surveyors mark the roads around natural gas wells as part of regular operations.
“They’ve been on that road for a week. And he said four-wheelers [and] snowmobiles were going up and down that road,” Reid said on Tuesday.
“This morning, they had just started driving, and they said, ‘The hell is that person doing walking on this road?’ And he had two sticks, one in each hand, and it was Sam.”
Benastick’s rescuers told Reid that the hiker had cut his sleeping bag and wrapped it around his legs, and the 20-year-old had nearly collapsed of weakness when he was put into an ambulance.
In a release Wednesday morning, RCMP said Benastick told police he had stayed in his car “for a couple of days and then walked to a creek, mountainside, where he camped out for 10-15 days.”
Following that, he “moved down the valley and built a camp and shelter in a dried-out creek bed,” where he stayed until Tuesday morning when he flagged down his rescuers, police said.
Cpl. Madonna Saunderson acknowledged there were many questions about where Benastick was, why he could not be found and how he had survived.
She said RCMP would be getting more information from Benastick after he was in better health.
For now, she said, police were happy to report a positive result.
“Finding Sam alive is the absolute best outcome,” she said in a release.
“After all the time he was missing, it was feared that this was would not be the outcome.”
Getting a GPS for Christmas: grandma
Eileen Stevens, who described herself as Benastick’s “Nana” having married his paternal grandfather, said she was “elated” at the news her grandson had been found but that she never lost hope he was alive.
“Sam is a guy who knows the woods. He’s been raised — he’s a hiker. He’s a passionate fisherman.”
She said he had been well-prepared for the trip and had done lots of research in advance.
She said she doesn’t think he would have purposely gone missing for so long and joked that she would be buying him a GPS for Christmas.
More seriously, she said she was “proud” of him for surviving for so long in the woods.
“I don’t know his story, but I’m sure it’s going to be friggin’ amazing,” she said.
Uncle Al Benastick agreed, joking that while he hoped his nephew might be dissuaded from future adventures, he doubted the experience would turn him off of the outdoors.
Community support
Stevens also said she wanted to thank everyone who had been involved in the search and the people in the Pink Mountain area who had supported the family.
“They’re just such a wonderful community,” she said. “They really dug in and helped our family.”
Reid says he developed an emotional connection with the family during their stay at his inn — and he was told by Benastick’s father when the hiker was found.
“Right now, I … it’s amazing. I’ve got three kids myself, and for him to find his son, it’s just amazing,” Reid told Sarah Penton, the host of CBC’s Radio West, through tears.
Reid says he was always optimistic that Benastick would be found, and he is looking forward to having the Benasticks stay over again in future.