Wānaka Search and Rescue (SAR) has won multiple awards for rescues over the years, but the recent search for young Argentinian tourist Hector Gaston Artigau in Mt Aspiring National Park has been “unquestionably the most difficult operation we have undertaken", according to swiftwater/canyon team leader Roy Bailey.

Wānaka SAR volunteers spent over a week last month attempting to locate and retrieve the body of the young tourist who had fallen into a canyon near the end of the popular Rob Roy Track.

In one of the biggest, most intensive search and rescue operations in years, Wānaka SAR's swiftwater/canyon, sub-alpine and incident management teams - with the assistance of Aspiring Helicopters - spent nine days trying to recover Hector’s body from the canyon.

The effort involved more than 800 volunteer hours, Wānaka SAR chair Raewyn Calhaem said.

“Sadly, while the victim's pack and several other articles were recovered, the search could not locate his body, which is believed to be trapped in one of the deep pools in the canyon,” she said.

The search involved Wānaka SAR's swiftwater/canyon team being lowered by helicopter into the 60m deep canyon, along with the use of specialist equipment like a 'rescue raft' and 5m long probes.

While sub-alpine team members searched the accessible banks, the swiftwater/canyon team, using the raft as a floating platform, probed the depths of pools boiling with high-pressured water, and used an underwater camera and torches to search caves in the sides of the canyon base.

The search for the young man in the Rob Roy Stream was Wānaka SAR’s “most difficult operation” to date.

A police spokesperson told the Wānaka App this week there is no current active searching being done for Hector Gaston Artigau, “however, consideration continues to be given to potential next steps, some of which rely on the right atmospheric conditions”. 

"We deeply regret we could not bring appropriate closure to Gaston's family who are dealing with this tragedy," Raewyn said. 

"We have not given up, but for the moment we have done all that we can."

PHOTOS: Supplied