Stranded on a Cliff Ledge for 3 Nights, He Waved Something White — and a Helicopter Pilot Saw It

Keshav Jindal, 25, got separated from his hiking partner Monday afternoon on the trail up Mount Albert Edward in B.C.'s Strathcona Provincial Park. He was found alive Thursday morning, perched on a cliff ledge inside a crevasse, after a three-day search involving seven rescue teams and an RCMP helicopter.

Why You Should Care

This is the kind of story that's genuinely gripping on its own, but it's also a real reminder of how quickly a manageable day hike can turn dangerous — Jindal wasn't equipped for an overnight stay, and a short "wait here while you summit" turned into three nights exposed to the elements on a steep cliff band. If you hike in backcountry areas, even ones that feel familiar, this is worth reading not just for the happy ending but for how it happened in the first place.

Complex to Simple

Search and rescue teams don't search randomly — they work backward from what experts call "decision points," the specific moments where a lost person likely made a choice that changed their path. In Jindal's case, rescuers correctly guessed he'd tried to take a shortcut down toward a nearby lake and ended up "cliffed out" — hiker slang for reaching a point where the terrain drops away too steeply to continue safely in any direction, forward or back. That's exactly where the RCMP helicopter crew found him: not lost in some huge, unpredictable wilderness, but stuck at almost precisely the spot search managers had been focusing on.

What's Next

Search and rescue officials say Jindal is expected to face dehydration and hypothermia concerns after days on the exposed cliffside, though full details on his condition haven't been released. His case is likely to become a reference point for future search efforts in Strathcona Park — Comox Valley Search and Rescue's decision-point method, credited with locating him in a notoriously difficult search area, appears to have worked exactly as designed.