Self-rescue is a group of techniques in climbing and mountaineering where the individual climber(s) – sometimes having just been severely injured – use their equipment to retreat from dangerous or difficult situations without calling on third party search and rescue (SAR) or mountain rescue services.^[1]

Self-rescue can save the climber(s) being charged for SAR services (e.g. full helicopter rescue can be expensive), can avoid putting SAR team members in harm's way, and also speed up the rescue time thus saving lives.^[2]

Not all climbers are familiar with or skilled in self-rescue techniques, which sometimes involve carrying out unfamiliar or unexpected actions and/or without the correct equipment (e.g. having to complete extended abseils without normal abseiling devices, having to ascend up a fixed rope without an ascender device, or having to extract a fallen climber from a deep crevasse without a pulley system), and under difficult circumstances (e.g. with broken limb(s), or in a lightning storm).^[3] Self-rescue can be particularly complicated on multi-pitch climbing and on alpine climbing routes, where the climber(s) are hanging from ropes on exposed rock/mountain faces.^[4]