Climbing Senior Editor Anthony Walsh spoke with Forrest Rynearson, manager of Squamish Search and Rescue, to uncover previously unreported details about the drone rescue on the Alaska Highway route that took place on September 10.
Anyone who follows the Squamish climbing scene even remotely has probably already heard this story. Last week, for the first time, local rescuers used a small drone weighing about one pound (450 g) to deliver a rope to a climber stranded 77 metres (253 feet) up the Stawamus Chief. Shortly before that, he and his partners had apparently completed the difficult Alaska Highway route (5.11d, 5 pitches). But how did one member of the team end up stranded on the wall without a rope after nightfall?
Many media outlets — both mainstream publications and climbing community resources — focused primarily on the unusual delivery of a rope by drone. But I was interested in a different question: how did a climber wearing a helmet and harness end up stranded in the middle of the wall without a rope?
In text conversations with friends, we considered different possibilities. Could he have been a rope soloist who somehow completely untied himself from the rope and then dropped it?
“Maybe something went wrong between the climbing partners?” my friend Ian suggested.
When footage of the rescue operation filmed by the drone began circulating online, even more questions arose. It showed a lone man in a green sweatshirt, black helmet and climbing harness clipped into a fixed anchor. At the same time, he clearly did not appear to have enough gear on his harness for rope soloing. And who would free solo in Squamish while wearing a helmet?
What actually happened on Alaska Highway?
After watching the grainy drone footage, I contacted Forrest Rynearson, manager of Squamish Search and Rescue. I congratulated his team on carrying out such a technically impressive rescue, but above all I wanted to understand how the climber had ended up in that situation in the first place.
According to Rynearson, on September 10 a team of three experienced climbers from out of town successfully completed the route. They topped out late in the day, close to sunset. The team then began descending via a separate bolted rappel line that runs independently of Alaska Highway’s steeply overhanging pitches.
For full-length rappels, they tied two single ropes together. They later discovered that one rope was 61 metres long and the other 65 metres.
The first part of the descent went smoothly. The first two climbers descended simultaneously, each on a separate secured single rope. They used a technique known as rappel stacking, in which the last rappeller’s belay device is pre-threaded into the system. The third climber then descended in the traditional way on both ropes using a tubular belay device.
But as the sun set and the steep walls of the Stawamus Chief disappeared into darkness, an extremely unusual chain of events unfolded.
The two climbers were descending simultaneously on their respective ropes. Each was completely focused on his own descent in the darkness. It had already been a long day on one of Squamish’s best-known multi-pitch routes.
One of them, believing that he was in the lead, spotted a bolted anchor glinting in the beam of his headlamp and headed toward it. He reached it at the very limit of his 65-metre rope, using every last centimetre as well as the additional rope stretch created by rappelling on a single strand.
Meanwhile, the second climber — who also believed he was in the lead — spotted another bolted anchor on the sheer face. His rope was only 61 metres long, and he too barely managed to reach the anchor, using virtually every centimetre of rope available.
Both climbers independently clipped into their respective anchors. Each then removed his rappel device.
At that moment, the free ends of the ropes immediately shot upward and out of reach. Only then did both climbers break out of their intense focus and look to see where the other was. They discovered that their anchors were separated by approximately 3 metres vertically and nearly 21 metres horizontally.
That was when the situation got out of control.
Because the third climber was rappelling on both strands, he could descend only 61 metres, reaching the closer of the two partners. Once the two climbers regrouped, they pulled their ropes down and attempted to throw them approximately 21 metres horizontally to their stranded partner.
After numerous unsuccessful attempts, it became clear that they would not be able to get the rope to him.
Then one of the climbers came up with another idea. He had heard that Alaska Highway had an exposed walk-off along a narrow ledge called Astro Ledge, high above the ground on the face of the Chief. The plan was for the two climbers with the ropes to continue rappelling, then climb back up to Astro Ledge, traverse across it and rappel back down the face to reach their stranded partner.
The idea itself was reasonable, but the climbers clearly did not know the area well.
Several years earlier, Astro Ledge had been destroyed by rockfall during a heatwave. It was only after the two climbers had already begun making their way across what remained of it that they realised something was wrong. Loose rock was everywhere, and the former “ledge” now looked more like exposed fifth-class climbing.
They had to abandon the plan. They then called for rescue.
A rescue operation for the year 2026
Forrest Rynearson’s team received the call at around 9 p.m.
Rynearson knows the Alaska Highway area well, including its current reputation for sudden rockfall.
“Lately, there has been one major rockfall after another in this exact area of the Stawamus Chief,” he said.
Squamish SAR had three options — and none of them was particularly good.
They could climb the five-pitch 5.11d route at night by headlamp and then rappel down to the stranded climber.
They could hike to the summit of the Stawamus Chief and begin a long series of rappels down the entire wall, risking rockfall and potentially spending the whole night in serious high-angle terrain.
Finally, they could call in a specialised helicopter from another area that was cleared to fly at night and attempt to remove the climber from the wall using a longline rescue.
Each option involved serious risks, from manoeuvring a helicopter beside a huge sheer wall at night to spending several hours directly beneath an active rockfall zone.
That was when the rescuers decided to try a completely different approach.
“We decided it was worth trying a new idea,” Rynearson said. “We attached a 100-metre-long, one-millimetre cord to a small drone using a remotely releasable hook mounted underneath it.”
Once the climber had this ultra-thin cord in hand — essentially a piece of heavy-duty “dental floss” — he could use it to haul up a full-sized climbing rope and rappel safely to the ground on his own.
“From a risk-management perspective, it was our best option,” Rynearson explained.
The drone operator delivered the thin cord to the stranded climber, along with a headlamp and a warm jacket. Before long, he was safely back on the ground.
Although the operation went smoothly from a technical standpoint, Rynearson emphasised that several important conditions had to come together for this type of rescue to work.
In this case, the climber was fortunate that he:
- was conscious and uninjured;
- was able to communicate normally with rescuers and tell them about his condition;
- remained mentally and emotionally composed and was capable of rappelling safely without assistance.
What all climbers and mountaineers can learn from this rescue
Most media outlets focused on the technical side of the unusual rescue. But for Climbing, the more interesting question is what could have been done to prevent the rescue from being necessary in the first place.
Rynearson emphasised that, despite what happened, this was a competent and experienced team. Its members had already completed several notable Squamish routes over the summer.
In my view, almost the entire chain of problems came down to one key factor — communication.
Both climbers descending on separate ropes believed they were in the lead, and neither checked where the other climber was.
Even if they had still ended up at separate anchors more than 20 metres apart horizontally, the subsequent rescue could have been avoided. They only needed to call out to each other and establish their relative positions — or simply wait for the other climber to arrive at the stance before coming off rappel.
In that scenario, after discovering that the other climber’s anchor was higher and off to the side, the lower climber could simply have ascended part of the rope and swung across to his partner.
Instead, both assumed that everything was going according to plan, came off rappel — and immediately lost access to their ropes.
There is another important lesson here as well: after a rappel that takes you to the very end of your rope, you should always have a plan for how you will maintain access to it.
I fully understand how stressful descending a steep wall at night can be. Your attention narrows to a handful of small tasks: the anchor, carabiner, rappel device, rope, the next manoeuvre. It is easy to become so absorbed in these details that you lose sight of the bigger picture.
If there is one universal lesson to take from this rescue, it is this: every so often, step outside that tunnel of concentration and look at the whole situation.
Checked that your locking carabiner is locked? Good. Now look around.
Does what you are doing right now actually make sense?
For his part, Rynearson viewed the team’s actions positively overall once the initial mistake had been made. Ultimately, their decisions helped prevent a far more complicated rescue involving multiple victims:
“Yes, mistakes were made. But the team tried to correct those mistakes on their own. When they realised they couldn’t, they called for help.”
Source: alp.org.ua