A Climber Was Stuck on a Stawamus Chief Cliff. A Flying Drone Delivered a Jacket and a Rope to Save Him.
A highly specialized search-and-rescue drone team pulled off a bold late-night rescue in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada, after a climber found himself stranded on a cliff. The man was stuck standing on a ten-inch ledge 250 feet above the ground, secured to an anchor but without enough rope to descend.
Squamish Search and Rescue sent in two aerial drones, one to light up the wall and provide a bird’s-eye view of the situation, and a second to deliver clothing, lights, and a climbing rope to the stricken climber. The rescue played out on Stawamus Chief, one of the world’s largest granite monoliths that is a hotbed for trad and face climbers.
Dustin Wales, 36, is the drone program coordinator for the responding agency, Squamish Search and Rescue. He told Outside that his team spent the last two years preparing for a situation like this, training drone pilots and establishing protocols for any situation across rugged terrain, including this.
“We just hadn’t had the opportunity to put this in action,” Wales said.
After 10 P.M. on September 10, Squamish Search and Rescue arrived at the Stawamus Chief, where the stuck climber had been attempting a multi-pitch route called Alaska Highway. Between the darkness, rockfall exposure, and scale of the terrain, Wales told Outside that a traditional rope rescue or helicopter evacuation would have been especially difficult.
“Both of those options being dangerous and challenging, the managers called up our drone team with a bit of an idea,” Wales said. “We theorized that we could deliver a pilot line to the person stranded on the wall.”
A Rescue by Two Drones
The stranded person had been climbing with two other people, who were able to safely scale down the wall. Wales and five other rescuers met them and established communication with the cliffed-out climber, putting a plan in place.
“When you’re doing a drone operation, it’s really important to discuss the risks when you have the opportunity to do so,” Wales said. “Through our communication, we were able to ask the climber if he was confident to come down, and also what he needed to come down.”
For the first flight, rescuers tethered a pilot line to the drone and flew it up to the climber. Once he had a hold of the line, responders on the ground tied a jacket and headlamp to it, which he then pulled up to himself. He used the gear to stay warm and light the rock.
Based on the climber’s information, Wales and his team then used the drone to measure the distance to the ground with lasers and a rangefinder. They then brought in a larger drone with a light, which hovered to spotlight the cliffed-out climber. Rescuers tied a 300-foot pilot line from the smaller drone to a climbing rope, and flew the device to the climber. The rope was a thin-gauge but high-strength Dyneema line, which the team spooled out between a ground operator and the drone.
According to Wales, the climber “captured the rope out of the air.” He then tied the line to his climbing harness and an anchor, and rappelled down to safety.
Flying drones are becoming common in search and rescue teams worldwide. In recent years, lifesaving officials have used them to spot lost hikers, drop food and water, and take aerial images of huge swaths of backcountry.
The Squamish incident shows that drones can also deliver climbing gear to someone in a highly precarious position.
“This rescue is a great representation of flight skills, training, management, and practice,” Wales said. “It’s a pretty big win for us. There was a lot of cheering from the ground crew. It was an awesome demonstration of what a lot of effort, training, and facilitation can culminate in.”
The post A Climber Was Stuck on a Stawamus Chief Cliff. A Flying Drone Delivered a Jacket and a Rope to Save Him. appeared first on Outside Online.
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