After spending nine days on the Columbia Icefields, a 46-year-old man wandered into the Icefields Centre, called his wife and then spent one more night out in the wilderness before calling the RCMP on Tuesday (Sept 15) morning.

“In his own words, he had no less than 30 close calls. He broke through snow bridges over gaping crevasses, suffered hypothermia, minor frostbite and was exposed to terrain that would have produced fatal falls,” said Steve Blake, public safety crew manager for Jasper National Park (JNP).

“It’s extremely amazing,” said Blake, noting that the man covered some incredible terrain to reach safety. “He’s really managed to survive the odds.”

Blake also stressed that it was important to “caution” soloists like this man that to “travel in glaciated terrain is a very dangerous undertaking.”

The night before the man was found, Blake had passed the information on to Jasper RCMP as they had been searching for a week without even a single clue.

“Not a single clue really leaves you in absence of an effective starting point for further investigation,” said Blake. “We looked in dozens of crevasses... not a clue, not a footprint, not a thing.”

With the only certainty being the position of the missing man’s vehicle, and that he was supposed to return to work last Tuesday (Sept 8), Blake said searching was being scaled back on Monday night with plans for some further helicopter searching in the area, and a ground crew were due to go up Mount Athabasca on Tuesday (Sept 15).

However, these plans were called off after the missing man made contact with officials early Tuesday morning.

According to Blake, the man is an “avid outdoor enthusiast... with a little bit of climbing background” and was travelling with a light sleeping pad, a sleeping bag, a bivy sack and only a little bit of food.

Dressed in just some light running shoes, with crampons, an ice axe and a hiking pole, the man headed off onto the Athabasca Glacier.

“He was interested in getting out there and spending a night,” explained Blake. “He was just going to play it by ear as the conditions and route present themselves.”

After the hiker was up nice and high near the Snow Dome, Blake said he was caught in a snow squall so he decided to spend the night there.

However, the turn in weather meant that serious blizzards made it difficult for the man to go anywhere and ended up staying there for the next few days.

According to Blake, the man was fighting to keep himself above snow during the blizzard as it was slowly covering his body.
“He was extremely cold and that’s, of course, when we were most worried,” Blake said.

Eventually, he managed to get up higher and onto a ridge, by which stage he was “pretty exhausted”.

“So he just started rationing his food and stayed put,” said Blake adding, “because he had a near miss with the crevasse he decided he wasn’t going to move.”

“He said he had extreme near misses, stepped through snow bridges (created by blowing snow) and was able to claw himself back out before he fell in.”

Lucky for this hiker, the weather turned good and the sunshine meant he could easily melt water in his cup everyday.

This, coupled with his rationed food, which Blake said was equal to about one-fifth of a bag each day, meant the man could wait until he was recuperated to try and get off the icefields.

“He just worked very hard to ration his food and keep himself warm,” said Blake.

For Blake and his team, where the man ended up was “pretty unbelievable”.

“He was outside what we consider the highest priority area,” he said, “he was in quite technical terrain... from our guesses to what he did, was almost the opposite in a couple key cases. From where he was last seen to where he ended up – he did a big round about route to get there.”

“Where he went and why he chose that, that’s all quite a mystery to us.”

Despite his ordeal, Blake said the man was keen to get back home and back to work.

“We took him to the Sunwapta Warden Station and gave him a bit of breakfast and some tea... and he said he was feeling okay, and he just said, ‘right, I should be on my way back to work’,” said Blake.