An experienced climber who fell 25 metres off of the north face of Mt. Temple in Banff National Park was rescued by public safety officers last week.

The male climber was with an experienced climbing partner at an altitude of around 3,000 feet when he fell, resulting in several injuries, on March 25.

The Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay National Park public safety specialists received a call from the cell phone of the injured climber and responded to the scene with a helicopter from Alpine Helicopters, said Parks Canada public safety specialist Steve Holeczi.

Getting up a mountain face isn’t easy, he explained, giving credit to pilot Perry Hirsh for getting the team in position to rescue the two climbers.

According to Holeczi, four officers plucked the injured climber off the mountain, sending one public safety specialist down on a long line to pick him up, while his partner, un-injured, was picked up about 10 minutes later.

The injured climber was then taken by STARS to Calgary Foothills Hospital, where Holeczi said he remains in stable condition.

“It’s about 80 feet. That is a big fall, yes, it’s a very big fall. It’s a steep wall, so he ended up landing about 10 metres below where his belayer was standing. I don’t know exactly what made him fall or what he hit on the way down,” said Holeczi.

The injured climber was conscious, but Holeczi did not know the extent of his injuries, but did say that a fall like that could have easily resulted in death.
He said the two climbers are very experienced and have climbed many mountain faces that exceed the difficulty of Mt. Temple, and that the conditions of the climbing route and the weather were perfect.

For the public safety specialists, it was the first rescue at Mt. Temple they have had to respond to this year. Holeczi said it’s a popular mountain for climbers, scramblers and hikers alike, and it’s not uncommon to have to respond to incidents on the mountain. “Over the years there have been numerous rescues – there are multiple routes on the face there, and there have been previous accidents,” he said.

Holeczi said, typically, the number of rescues slow down on the mountain during the winter, but added that they never know when something could happen, stating that this rescue happened on a Thursday afternoon in March.