It was another busy weekend for North Vancouver emergency crews, rescuing two groups of hikers off the trails in just 24 hours.

Vancouver resident Nicola Toews set out with a friend to hike Mt. Seymour on Saturday at 2 p.m.

The duo, both in their twenties, made it successfully to the top of the mountain, but took a wrong turn on the descent and ended up on a trail that wasn’t on their map.

“We had a feeling we were on a wrong trail… and by the time we realized the trail was going down and in the wrong direction we were worried we didn’t have enough daylight to backtrack,” Toews told CTV News.

Lucky to be receiving cell service, Toews called a friend who directed them to nearby Elsay Lake’s emergency shelter, where they spent the night.

After an exhausting an intensive overnight search, North Shore Rescue arrived at the shelter and airlifted the two hikers out.

“In hindsight we were prepared for a four or five hour hike, but we were not prepared for anything to go wrong,” said Toews, noting while they had extra food and water they lacked a more detailed map and a compass.

“You have to be prepared for anything to go wrong, that’s the lesson we learned the hard way last night.”

The Elsay Lake rescue was the second in just 24 hours.

Late Saturday night, North Shore Rescue weathered hazardous conditions over Crown Mountain, long-lining out three hikers stranded in perilous terrain.

“They're in a white out, and they're standing on the back of a 2,000-foot cliff, and they have no idea where they are,” said Jeff Yarnold, North Shore Rescue. “They've lost the trail, they're climbing vertical rock, and they're in way over their head.”

While for all of the hikers rescued this weekend there was a happy ending, Yarnold is once again warning the public to be prepared.

“People need to know what they’re getting themselves into,” he said. “It could easily go the other way, and we could be looking at people not making it back.”

With files from CTV Vancouver’s Sarah MacDonald