Night in woods chills hunter

Fifty-one-year-old George Paull decided to take a little break from hunting. Paull and his brother-in-law Charles Higgins, 58, both of 3144 Harriot, took the day off on the Friday to go hunting on Sooke Mountain, walking about four miles up the mountain before Paull spied a deer in the distance. Striking off alone, he tracked the animal down ravines and across pastures, through thick forest and clumps of salal; an hour and a half later he realized he was lost. Abandoning the hunt he found a logging road he thought would lead back to Higgins, ended up at an old logging site, found another trail and came out at a tiny lake just as the sun was setting. He kept on walking because whenever he stopped he felt the cold and his legs got cramps. Meanwhile Higgins had alerted Sooke RCMP and a search was organized. <strong>Ten members of the Sooke Search and Rescue team spent the night driving the old logging roads looking for some sign of the missing man.</strong> As dawn broke the Colwood RCMP dog team joined the searchers, and plans were made to bring in the RCMP helicopter when the mist had lifted.