Instead, a Te Anau search and rescue team tramped to the site in the middle of the night, arriving about 4.30am.
Southern Lakes Helicopters operations manager Lloyd Matheson said the alpine climbing group had been on a 10-day expedition, and was heading to the Milford Sound Highway where their vehicles were parked, during the night. They were only about 5km from the road.
Mr Matheson said the group had not been on a track, which the climbers could not use because of the weather.
Once the beacon was activated, the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Wellington organised police at Te Anau to send in a ground party, Mr Matheson said. One member of the climbing party had also walked to the road to raise the alarm.
The search and rescue team, which included a nurse, stabilised the man until the helicopter was able to attend at first light.
Mr Matheson said the country was "dense bush on a sheer face in a river catchment" by the Donne River.
The man had fallen in "a real steep area" covered with fallen trees, in a heavy beech forest in torrential rain near a flooded river.
"Just totally miserable," was his description of the conditions.
The rain had not stopped in the morning when the helicopter attended, and was "absolutely persisting down".
"We managed, through long-line extraction, to extract him from his predicament."
The man was initially flown to Milford Sound, where a doctor stabilised him, before he was flown to Dunedin, and admitted to Dunedin Hospital.
Mr Matheson understood the man was Wanaka-based, and "part of the climbing fraternity at Wanaka".
District Command Centre deployment co-ordinator Senior Sergeant Brian Benn, of Dunedin, said the two members of the climbing group left at the scene had also needed assistance, and had been evacuated by the second helicopter.
It was understood they were suffering from hypothermia.
