The Firefighters rescued this Monday morning in Queralbs two British hikers who had spent the night outdoors as they could not continue the route towards the Coma de Vaca refuge due to the presence of ice on the path.
The alert was received around 10:45 a.m., when the two mountaineers communicated via a satellite phone that during the night they could not continue advancing because they were not wearing crampons. They also warned that the section they were traversing had too much slope and that, given the impossibility of continuing safely, they had opted to spend the night on the mountain.
Aerial rescue with the GRAE
In the operation, a helicopter with GRAE personnel, the special operations group of the Firefighters, was activated to access the area where they had been trapped. The two hikers were located and rescued safe and sound.
The intervention allowed to evacuate both to the Queralbs car park, next to the rack railway, where the action of the emergency teams concluded.
The rest of the group was already in the shelter
The two hikers were part of a larger group that was heading to the Coma de Vaca refuge. The rest of the members were already at the refuge when the rescue was carried out.
The incident was resolved without injuries, after a night in which the two mountaineers decided to stop their progress and wait for help upon verifying that the condition of the terrain prevented them from continuing to advance safely.