Sheep hunters stranded near Atlin rescued after cold night in mountain cave

Hunting a mountain sheep in the North is bound to be memorable for any hunter.

Chad Girardin of Whitehorse and his nephew Matthew Westley from Atlin, B.C., will definitely remember their hunt last weekend — and not just because they got a ram.

The two were rescued from near the top of a mountain in northern B.C. early Sunday morning, after spending a frigid night in a small cave surrounded by snow.

Girardin, an experienced outdoorsman, had to put his skills to use during the ordeal.

Girardin, Westley, and Girardin's cousin Gord Loverin had gone after a thinhorn, or Dall, sheep in the backcountry area of McDonald Lake, near Atlin.

While Girardin and Westley hiked up into the mountains on Saturday, Loverin stayed at his truck down below in case they needed help.

Girardin and Westley walked over several mountains, and finally managed to successfully hunt an eight-year-old ram.

"We didn't have a packboard on us, so we had to go back to the truck which is about a four-kilometre hike," said Girardin.

It was about 2 p.m., and both Girardin and Westley walked to the truck to retreive the packboard, then back to the carcass to pack out about half of the sheep. They planned to return for the rest of the meat later.

But day soon started to turn to night and the temperature started to drop fast.

"We made it back to the last ridge," said Girardin. "There was probably three mountains we climbed around the side of to get to where you could pretty much see the truck."

Westley was tired out at that point — it was his first sheep hunting trip.

Girardin soon realized they would not make it down the mountain in the dark. It would be too dangerous to carry on with only one headlamp.

'We would have to spend the night'

"I realized, you know, maybe my nephew wasn't going to make it ... I kept trying to encourage him, and then I even took the meat out of the pack so that it could help me to assist him up the mountain a little bit better," Girardin said. 

"But that wasn't helping too much. We were able to get to about 30 feet from the top. But then we were just too done, so we decided we would have to spend the night."

Girardin said they then signalled to Loverin "with a few gunshots," to go and get help. Loverin drove to Atlin and told RCMP that his hunting partners did not come down the mountain.

"Police and Atlin Search and Rescue immediately responded and immediately got people in the area where the two hunters were last seen," said Atlin RCMP Const. Brendan Macdonald.

Police and rescue crews then spent the night below the mountain, waiting for daylight as it was too risky to perform a rescue in the dark.

Meanwhile, Girardin said he found a small shallow rock cave on the side of the mountain and he and Westley crawled in. They piled rocks in the front of the cave and used the packboard's nylon material to help block the wind.

They huddled together to try and stay warm. There was no wood nearby, and lots of snow, so it was too difficult to make a fire, Girardin said.

'A great lesson'

According to RCMP, the temperature dipped to –​10 C overnight.

At first light, rescue crews got to the pair and then flew them by helicopter to the Atlin medical centre. The two hunters were showing signs of early hypothermia but were in good spirits.

Girardin says he's thankful to everyone who helped with the rescue.

"If hunting was easy, everybody would be doing it," he said.

"This is my nephew's first hunting trip, and it wasn't as easy as one would think. It's a great lesson for him, because it can get very tough." 

The three hunters later went back and finished taking the rest of their meat from the mountain.