Bodies of 3 hikers recovered
Cousin says hiker who fell by waterfall near Vancouver lived and died selflessly
VANCOUVER — The cousin of a man who fell into a pool of a waterfall north of Vancouver says Charles Ryker Gamble lived an adventurous life travelling around the world but he’ll be remembered most for attempting to help his best friend before he died.
Rob Mangelsdorf said Gamble, 30, who was known as Ryker, had thousands of people following him online as he vlogged about his global treks, but in the end he was with a buddy he’d known since childhood. Gamble worked on a video blog called High On Life that has almost 500,000 YouTube subscribers.
Mangelsdorf said Thursday that Gamble was hiking with friends around Shannon Falls on Tuesday when the accident happened that left three of them dead.
“My understanding is they just went for a hike — they weren’t doing anything silly,” Mangelsdorf said.
The bodies of the three victims were recovered Wednesday after RCMP officers rappelled to the pool via helicopter because the area is otherwise inaccessible.
Cpl. Sascha Banks of the Squamish RCMP detachment said family members have declined to release the names of the victims.
John Willcox of Squamish Search and Rescue has said witnesses reported seeing a woman slip and fall and that her boyfriend tried to save her before another man attempted to help his friend.
Mangelsdorf said a fourth friend of the trio saw what happened and called Gamble’s mother with the tragic news.
“Even in his final act on this earth, he was trying to save the life of his very best friend,” he said.
“He’d known (his friend) his whole life, since they were little, little kids. They were inseparable their whole lives.”
Gamble had volunteered for years, including at a boxing facility in Vancouver where he coached youth, and overseas where he helped raise money for orphaned children, Mangelsdorf said.
“In his youth, he was an amateur boxer and he was good and fought at provincial level,” he said. “His mother helped set up a school for orphan children in Uganda and he was very active in that.”