Hiker calls for rescue after injuring ankle on remote Yukon trail

Be prepared for anything.

That's the advice Laura Cook would offer to anybody going for even a short hike in Yukon after she went on a day hike, but ended up immobile and waiting for a rescue.

She was travelling by herself along the Dempster Highway and she decided to hike up Sapper Hill.

"It would have been quite a lovely, easy day hike had it not been for one rock that decided its time had come and it came loose of the trail and tumbled downhill," she said.

"And I went with it, and that was the end of that."

Her ankle was badly sprained, so she was unable to put any weight on it. Still, she tried her best to make her way back down the hill to her vehicle.

"So after trying to self-recover for the better part of an hour and getting no more than about 50 metres, with very torn-up hands and knees, yeah, I bit the bullet so to speak, and called in the rescue," she said.

"What would have normally been maybe a 90-minute descent would have probably taken me about six hours, through bear country, into the darkness."

A helicopter took off from Dawson City to retrieve her, but it couldn't land where she was. The crew had to hike for about an hour to reach Cook. She was helped down and then taken to hospital.

Looking back, she says she's happy that she was well-prepared. She had her satellite phone and inReach device, and had also packed some overnight survival gear, just in case.

"I think it just reinforces that even if you're doing a short hike out somewhere remote, just to be prepared for all eventualities," she said.

"And in the end, I was actually pretty lucky because it is a minor injury. It was incapacitating, but it was minor."