Missing snowboarder rescued on Vancouver's North Shore

Rescuers have reached a missing snowboarder who was lost in Vancouver's North Shore mountains for two full days.

Sebastien Boucher, 33, was contacted by the North Shore Rescue team shortly after 5 p.m. by a team that was dropped in by helicopter after spotting some fresh tracks just before darkness.

Radio reports said he was shouting at them and "going bananas" from about 400 metres away from their location.

The rescue team reached Boucher later Tuesday evening and plans were to transport him to hospital.

Boucher is a director of finance with the National Bank of Canada, CBC News has confirmed. He works in both the Ottawa and Vancouver offices of the bank, but currently resides in West Vancouver. 

His mother and stepfather arrived from Ottawa Tuesday morning and headed up to the park where his car is sitting under a pile of snow in the Cypress Mountain Resort parking lot.

Fresh tracks spotted

Searchers reported finding fresh tracks on Tuesday afternoon west of Black Mountain heading away from the search area, leaving them optimistic but still uncertain of the Boucher's whereabouts.

Around 4 p.m. PT, the North Shore Rescue team said searchers had been dropped into the area by helicopter, and were assessing the tracks.

With darkness falling, the searchers were racing ahead of a large storm that is forecast to dump several centimetres of snow on the mountains on Tuesday night and raise the avalanche danger in the steep terrain to dangerous levels.

It's believed Boucher snowboarded out of bounds Sunday morning at Cypress Provincial Park in West Vancouver.

Boucher was believed to be snowboarding on Mount Strachan, within the Cypress Mountain ski boundary, when he went out of bounds toward the Montizambert Creek area.

Tim Jones, who is with North Shore Rescue, said crews spoke with Boucher at about 3 p.m. PT Monday when he turned off his cellphone to save the battery, making it more difficult to track him.

Rescue crews spent Monday night strategizing after a long day of searching.

"We were very worried about this guy, so you know we pulled out all the stops last night," Jones said.

"We had some of our most experienced people on skis going into terrain and it was very, very difficult."

Two teams with North Shore Rescue spent Monday searching on the ground but were unable to find Boucher.

Police said some tracks were located midday on Monday and indicated that Boucher was on the move, but his cellphone signal has been too weak for GPS to be helpful. 

On Monday night, an RCMP helicopter and an Armed Forces Cormorant conducted an extensive search using night vision and thermal imaging, but were not able to find any sign of Boucher.