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North Shore Rescue is putting out a reminder to hikers looking to get up into the mountains in the coming days and weeks that while the weather has been fabulous down near our homes and businesses, conditions at higher altitudes are still difficult.

Many trails are still snow-covered and hiking them in running shoes and light workout clothes is a very poor, very risky idea.

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That means, more than ever, that adventure seekers must remember that the first thing you do when setting out on a hike is to make sure you’re fully prepared for the conditions. Think of hitting the trails in the summertime is like skiing in the winter; you can’t do it without planning ahead.

“It would not be an understatement to say that pool of potential search and rescue customers was expansive,” NSR’s Curtis Jones writes on the service’s website of what he saw recently in the Mount Seymour parking lot.

Photo by James McLean / PNG

Further, there’s what he calls “the social media effect.” He pointed to a post on Instagram from May 19 by popular Vancouver website The Daily Hive, seeking to encourage people to get out and adventure. (A number of Instagram commenters made the same observation on the post, that it’s an inaccurate depiction of what conditions look like on the North Shore at the moment.)