Dallin Beaumier did everything right.
The 33 -year -old left a detailed plan with the family and packed the right team.
Even so, he ended up in several unexpected situations on his trip to and from Della Falls, right in the middle of Vancouver Island.
What was even more unexpected, perhaps, was when he appeared at the door of a local search and rescue more than a week after his terrible experience began.
It all started when Beaumier, from Burnaby, BC, began his trip to the cataracts of June 30. He decided to drive to the cataracts, taking wood registration roads, after looking at the price of the aquatic taxi generally required to get there.
He knew it would be difficult, and it was: along the way, the silencer in his car Chevrolet Cavalier 2001 bent in half. When leaving, its oil tray hit a rock and leaked, and then its transmission began to fail.
But let’s go a bit, to what happened between car problems.
Not only
Beaumier parked his car and walked about 20 kilometers until the beginning of the Falls path, where he took spectacular views. On the way on July 2, he camped to spend the night, only at the camp, or so he thought.
“There were no birds singing, or carpenter birds. I was quite silent,” he said.
Then, suddenly, he heard a grunt sound.
“I thought, what is that? A helicopter?”
It was a puma.
Although he had taken a knife and a bear spray in the forest, he did not have them within reach, so Beaumier grabbed a large rock.
When the Puma retired, Beaumier prepared to sleep in a moss bed, breathing the outdoors. But he had the feeling that the puma was still on the prowl.
“I became in my whistle and then listened to correting in the trees. And I was like, ok, it’s still close.
“When I was falling asleep, I heard that something appeared behind me and began to throw. You feel it in the spine, as if it were scary.”
Beaumier began shouting and began a fire, remaining awake during most of the night to remain alert. While sleeping when the sun came out, the end of the cougar tail disappeared in the brush.
Building a car
Then the trip returned, on July 3. After its transmission, Beaumier realized that he would have to walk with what he could carry of the car. But he would need more than he could pack on his back.
The survival mode had been activated and began to make a car with the car parts.
“I took the two spare tires on the back of my car and then cut my cane in half and put it through the catalytic converter and then … I simply cut the silencer and then put it in rooms and then hit it with my torch,” he said.
And then that broke.
Then he turned the car into an improvised sled. He took it out for two days, before stopping to camp, boil some drinking water and rest, and had another surprising encounter.
“And once I got to the bottom [of the hill]I had an encounter with bear. “
When he saw his face of “Big Fuzzy Wuzzy” looking at him through the trees, he shouted and flew his whistle to scare the animal.
From there, he continued on his trip. Full of adrenaline, Beaumier said he slept very little.
The search and rescue team of Alberni Valley says that a missing hiker appeared in his hall, a day after the search and rescue efforts were deployed. The hiker had been trying to walk through the steep area of Della Falls in Strathcona Provincial Park, when her car broke.
Knock at the door
Meanwhile, his family had called the RCMP, acting with Beaumier instructions to seek help if he had not returned within a week of his departure. The RCMP then called the local search and rescue team.
The search manager of the Alberni Valley Rescue Squadron, Richard Johns, said the members were sent by helicopter to the Della Falls area to search for July 7.
“Although they didn’t see their vehicle, they quickly located many indications that he had been there,” said Johns. Indications as tracks of the sled of Beaumier.
“We definitely knew it was in the area.”
The next afternoon, when the team was sending to its last team of the day, there was a blow at the door of its headquarters.
“I was the person I have been looking at a photo of the whole day,” Johns said.
Five days after leaving Della Falls, Beaumier had left. He said he was lucky to meet a friendly man in a camp along his way, who took him to the city. The two enjoyed a meal in McDonald’s together before going to the rescue squad hall.
“The random photo we had downloaded from Facebook was the same shirt that was wearing when it entered,” Johns said.
“Our teams … They heard their story, there were many big smiles and much appreciation for the amount of effort he made to walk while he did and putting the effort in rescue. Our teams will definitely not forget this for a while.”
Planning and communication
Johns said his team “was lucky” due to how detailed Beaumier’s travel plan, and that he had shared it with the family before leaving.
The plan included the team he was taking, the route he planned, where he was going to park his car, and when to ask for help if he had not returned.
Beaumier said he hopes that others do that in the future, to save rescuers if they are trying to find him.
He also suggests that people take a whistle when they are in the field.
“That whistle was actually a lifeguard,” he said.
It was a great planning for a trip that left the rails several times.
So was it worth it?
“Oh my God, that view of Della Falls, is like a three -level waterfall, strongly recommends it,” said Beaumier.
“Some of my ancestors carried cars through the plains from Missouri to Utah, so I obtained a real appreciation of how much work took me. They taught me strength and a little more humility of that experience.”
But feel deeply sorry for the disaster he left behind.
“I want to apologize to the public for leaving my vehicle there. I hate the garbage, but now it belongs to the mountain.”
