Six Days Lost Above Squamish: How He Walked Out Alive

Six days. Five nights. That is how long Stanislav Volo was out in the alpine above Squamish, British Columbia, after a hike meant to take six hours — long enough for cold, rain and a storm to do their work, long enough for food to run out, long enough for most searches to turn into recoveries. He walked out anyway, on his own feet, onto a logging road on the far side of the mountain. ^{3 4}

Volo, 43, of Squamish and a father of two, set out Sunday, August 30, 2026, for the Mount Habrich Loop, a technical and exposed alpine route of roughly 12 kilometres with more than 1,000 metres of climbing. ^{3 21} He was last seen getting off the Sea to Sky Gondola at 11:33 a.m. that morning, heading for the ridge. ^{7 3} By that evening he was overdue, and Squamish RCMP opened file 2026-7488 and a multi-agency search began that ran through Friday evening. ^{7 14}

At the top of the route, where no one else was around, his phone died and he could not find the descent. ^{2 3} Navigating by phone, with no other way down obvious, he thought he heard Highway 99 and started toward the sound. ² It was not the highway. It was pipeline construction. ² He slipped in a drainage, hurt his heel and wrist, and could not climb back to retrace his steps. ^{3 19} From there the only option he saw was down — down the back side of the mountain, through steep gullies, cliff bands and boulder fields that do not forgive a bad ankle. ²

He had packed for a day, not a week: dry clothes, a granola bar, Powerade, beef jerky and gummy bears. ² The first night he slept on rock. ² The nights that followed brought cold, rain and a storm that search manager Tyler Duncan later described as horrendous to endure. ² Helicopters flew over and did not see him. ² He found a small cave near a waterfall and made it his shelter. ^{8 2} He rationed the gummy bears, which he said helped with the shivering, then ate a sweet-tasting wildflower when that was what was left. ^{8 2} His food ran out before he walked out. ²

Two days in, a portable charger finally worked. ² With about 3 percent battery, around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, September 1, Volo reached 911. ^{11 17} The call was brief and garbled, with almost no location detail beyond that he was stuck on the mountain, and then it dropped. ^{11 17} One account also reports a missed call to his wife around 4:30 p.m. on the Sunday he went missing. ² There was very little information from the call, but searchers knew he was on the mountain and alive two days after he vanished. ¹¹

What made that fragment useful was paper that existed before he left. Volo had left a detailed trip plan with his wife — Mount Habrich Loop after the gondola — and Duncan said that plan let crews narrow what otherwise would have been an unsearchable expanse of technical terrain. ^{3 2} Duncan called the task a needle in a haystack, and said mid-search that crews were confident in the roughly 10-square-kilometre alpine area because of the trip plan, a sighting by another hiker, and a cellphone ping on Tuesday. ^{3 27} The later recap was blunt: that 911 call and that trip plan helped crews narrow where he was. ³

The search became one of the biggest Squamish Search and Rescue has run. ² Roughly 40 searchers were out on Wednesday alone, with teams from North Shore, Chilliwack, Lions Bay, Pemberton, Whistler, Ridge Meadows and Coquitlam, plus RCMP dog and air units, Sea to Sky Gondola staff, drones and helicopters. ^{21 14} Duncan, with roughly two decades in search and rescue, called it one of the most involved searches of his career. ² No official total of volunteer hours has been published; the scale is described by days and bodies, not timesheets. ² Updates that newsrooms quoted came from Squamish Search and Rescue on Facebook and Instagram, not its largely unused X account. ²⁹

On Friday, September 4, Volo kept descending until the trees broke and gravel appeared under his feet: the Indian Arm Forest Service Road, on the back side of the mountain. ^{4 12} Construction workers met him first, then Squamish Search and Rescue, whose public update confirmed he walked himself out and was located on the Indian Arm FSR. ⁴ He had self-navigated out of steep storm-hit terrain that Duncan called amazing to escape. ² Task manager Nils Robinson called him one tough dude. ²

He was taken to Squamish General Hospital and treated for what RCMP initially believed were minor injuries. ^{14 26} Later reporting described more: a broken heel, cracked bones in the wrist, a black eye and bruises. ^{3 19} He was discharged, was eating pizza the next day, and says he is recovering well. ² Accounts differ on whether to call it five nights or six days, and early field assessments understated his injuries, but the outcome is undisputed: he survived and walked out. ^{2 10}

Volo says he relied too much on his phone, that it can happen to anyone, and that after days of waiting he chose to keep descending rather than wait only for helicopters. ² Duncan's advice is equally plain: leave a trip plan with someone who can act on it, and call 911 the moment you are in trouble — there is no special Sea to Sky number. ² A man given up for lost in a storm on a mountain wall is alive, eating at home, because searchers knew where to look and knew he needed looking for. ^{2 4}