At around 6:00 a.m., Team call-handlers were contacted by North Wales Police with regard to missing person.
The man, a 30 year old French tourist, had been missing since Sunday when he failed to return to his hotel in Bala, and ongoing NWP investigations had led to the discovery of his car in the Minffordd car-park, a popular trail-head for Cader Idris.
With an extensive search area to cover, and with bad weather forecast for later in the day, the team requested and received assistance from the Coastguard helicopter, R936, from our neighbouring team South Snowdonia Search & Rescue and from Search and Rescue Dogs (SARDA Wales) Izzy, Izzy and Spin.
With teams deployed on foot and in the air, "finds" of lost equipment on the mountain proved inconclusive or unrelated. Finally Search Dog Izzy, a trailing-dog trained to pick up the specific scent of a missing person, indicated that the had found scent, giving the first good evidence that the man was on the mountain, and an indication which path he had taken.
With this evidence, along with information gathered relating to mobile phone mast data, the search area was narrowed and,just before 1.00 p.m., Rescue936 reported that they had sighted a body on steep craggy ground above llyn Cau.
A party of Team volunteers was winched onto the crag, and discovered that the man had not survived his ordeal. In difficult conditions of terrain, and as other parties of volunteers waited nearby in case the deteriorating weather meant R936 was unable to operate, Team members loaded the man onto a stretcher. With the weather closing-in fast he was then winched into R936 and lifted down off the mountain. The helicopter then returned to lift the stretcher-party off the crag.
All were down off the mountain by 5:30 p.m.
