Search called off for hiker missing for weeks on Vancouver’s North Shore

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. – Weeks after Liang Jin set out for a hike on Vancouver’s North Shore mountains, the search for the 21-year-old man has been called off.

Jin was last heard from Dec. 31 when he sent a text to his father saying he was going for a hike, and a further search of his computer suggested he was heading to the Hanes Valley or Lynn Headwaters.

Mike Danks, team leader with the North Shore Search and Rescue, says much of the snow has melted in the Hanes Valley area and they took search dogs in on Wednesday for a final look, but nothing more was found.

Crews were concentrating on Hanes Valley because they had reports of a single set of tracks spotted on the trail around the same time that Jin would have been in the area.

Danks says every time rescue crews are in Hanes Valley they’ll look for Jin and for Tom Billings, the British tourist who disappeared in November 2013 and was believed to be hiking in the same area.

He says people hiking in these areas need to tell others where they’re going, be prepared to be caught out overnight and have the proper gear, and they should not depend on a cellphone to get them out of trouble.