A man climbing a mountain in the Sierra Nevada in California on Saturday was stranded for roughly eight hours, his body shaking as he balanced on a six-inch ledge at an elevation of 10,600 feet, before a dramatic rescue.

According to rescuers, the man and a friend had been climbing Mendenhall Couloir, a gully carved into Laurel Mountain in the Inyo National Forest. It is, at times, a vertical face.

The pair were not using ropes, which are not considered necessary for experienced climbers here, to ascend the 11,818-foot mountain, said Mitch Quiring, the public information officer for the Mono County search and rescue team, which conducted the operation. The man had followed a band of red rock, an established route, but stepped away from the route and became stuck on a ledge, he said.

“Having a couple of wrong moves,” Mr. Quiring said, “leads you to the brink of quite literally a life-altering decision.”

The route for Mendenhall Couloir can be hard to find at times, said Clay Tyson, the owner of Ground Up Climbing Guides, a local climbing service. “You can think you’re in the right zone,” Mr. Tyson said, “but it’s tricky.”

In similar situations, officials might have opted for a helicopter rescue, but high winds on Saturday made that too dangerous, Mr. Quiring said.

Saturday was an unusually windy day for the area, said Emily Wilson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in Hanford, Calif. Wind gusts reached up to 50 miles an hour around a similar elevation on Mammoth Mountain, about an hour from where the climber was clinging to the tiny ledge, she said.

The climber, whose name has not been released, called 911 around 1:20 p.m., according to the Mono County search and rescue team, a nonprofit group composed of volunteers. Mr. Quiring and a rescue partner were dropped off by a helicopter on Laurel Mountain, ascended about 1,000 feet and crested the peak, which looks out over Convict Lake.

For more than two hours, they looked for the climber, to no avail, even with the help of a helicopter pilot. GPS coordinates provided by the climber were not precise, Mr. Quiring said.

As the rescuers searched, their whistles and calls bounced off the rock. The wind often carried away their shouts, he said. “It’s like being in a hallway of mirrors,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Where exactly is that coming from?’”

But eventually, the climber’s voice pierced the wind, and the rescuers were able to spot his white and orange helmet against the gray rock, Mr. Quiring said. Relief washed over the climber.

But he was still in apparent distress, Mr. Quiring said, hopping from one foot to another, apparently to stave off a cramp.

The sun was beginning to set behind Laurel Mountain, and the dark and cold of nightfall brought new urgency. “He had been holding on and fighting and fighting,” Mr. Quiring said. “But it was our belief, at the time, that he would run out of that sustainability to remain safely on that ledge if we had left him overnight.”

In all, four rescuers devised a plan via radio and clicked on their headlamps in the pitch dark. With a meticulous system of bolts and ropes, they reached the climber. His friend, who had gotten ahead of him, reached the summit and was in touch with the crew during the rescue.

All together, the rescuers and the rescued climbed up the mountain, without ropes, and reached the zenith. It was 12:45 a.m., and the temperature had dropped below 50 degrees. Eventually, a car drove them off Laurel Mountain.

The man had been stuck for eight to nine hours.

“He did not give up, and that is really one of the biggest takeaways from this,” Mr. Quiring said. “This could have been a very different story if he didn’t push through the adversity.”