A group of teen hikers relied on Google Maps. It was a disaster.
When a group of teenagers set out to hike British Columbia’s famed Howe Sound Crest Trail in early July, Google Maps suggested the trek would take about five hours.
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Instead, the hike stretched deep into the night, leaving the group exhausted, dehydrated, injured and in need of a helicopter rescue.
For Maria Masiar, training officer and search manager with Lions Bay Search and Rescue, the incident wasn’t simply the result of hikers making bad decisions on the trail. The mistakes started before they ever left the parking lot.
“The root cause of it was probably the planning in the first place,” Masiar told SFGATE. “They were trying to listen to a source that was inaccurate, and that led them down a series of poor decision points.”
The Howe Sound Crest Trail is one of British Columbia’s most iconic alpine trails, following a rugged ridgeline overlooking Howe Sound just north of Vancouver. Although the approximately 18-mile route with a 6,000-foot elevation gain can be completed by experienced trail runners in a day, search and rescue officials generally recommend hikers treat it as a two-day backpacking trip.
The teenagers, all 17 years old, believed Google Maps’ estimate that the route would take about five hours. The printed directions they were carrying, which were shared publicly by Lions Bay Search and Rescue, gave simple instructions for two legs of the trail, but didn’t account for the terrain or elevation.
“[Google Maps] is calculating the time that you’re walking a straight road on pavement,” Masiar said. “When you get into outdoor terrain, that no longer holds true.”
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Expecting only a short outing, each hiker carried about half a liter of water and limited food. There are no reliable water sources along the trail, meaning hikers must carry enough supplies for the entire route. As the group climbed, they began suffering from dehydration and muscle cramps but continued onward despite falling dramatically behind schedule.
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Eventually, the group made the decision to turn back and abandon making it to the end of the trail — and as the sun began to set and the group started to descend, fatigue took its toll.
According to Masiar, members of the group had already stumbled and fallen several times while trying to race the coming dark, and only one hiker had a headlamp. Eventually, another hiker slipped about 10 feet off a boulder, injuring his tailbone badly enough that he could no longer continue. Search and rescue crews responded, ultimately evacuating him by helicopter.
While headlines about the rescue focused on Google Maps, Masiar said the bigger issue is that many inexperienced hikers don’t realize the app was never intended to be a backcountry navigation tool.
“We all know that the product intention was created for street maps and urban areas, not backcountry hiking areas,” she said.
Lions Bay Search and Rescue recommends hikers use apps designed for the backcountry, but admits those services come with a cost that’s sometimes tough for young, inexperienced hikers to afford.
They also recommend carrying a paper map at all times.
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“A paper map can never die,” Masiar said. “Your phone can fall down the cliff. You can run out of batteries. That is your backup plan.”
The teenagers ultimately escaped with relatively minor injuries, something Masiar considers fortunate given the terrain. She believes today’s hikers have unprecedented access to trail information through YouTube videos, GPX tracks and navigation apps, making it easier than ever for beginners to attempt serious alpine objectives without gradually building experience.
“Physical fitness does not give you judgment,” she said. “People think that experience can be replaced by technology and that Google Maps can do no wrong, but it’s not at that point yet. You’ve got to take a lot of time to plan these sorts of hikes.”
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