Family of missing Canadian skyrunner accepts that she died on the Matterhorn

Open this photo in gallery:Canadian mountaineer and skyrunner Kalie McCrystal went missing Sept. 1 during a solo practice run. Ms. McCrystal had sought to set a record for ascending and descending one of the highest peaks in the Alps.Instagram/@kalie_mcc/SuppliedThe family of Kalie McCrystal has acknowledged that the Canadian mountaineer and star skyrunner met a tragic death on the Matterhorn, on the Italian-Swiss border.Ms. McCrystal, a 38-year-old lawyer from Squamish, B.C., went missing Sept. 1 during a practice run aimed at setting a record for ascending and descending the 4,478-metre-high mountain, one of the highest peaks in the Alps. She was alone at the time.In a statement, her sister Jody McCrystal and their mother, Wendy Cooper, thanked the search-and-rescue teams for their two-week effort, which included helicopter and drone flights, AI analysis of images taken below the peak and on-foot patrols over the treacherous rocks and debris where she may have disappeared. The RCMP were also involved in the attempt.“Despite Kalie’s exceptional skill and experience in technical mountain terrain, including her previous experience on the Matterhorn itself, everything we now know suggests she fell while descending,” their statement said. “Despite the efforts of so many over the past weeks, the search has not led us to Kalie. This is not the outcome any of us had hoped for and is very difficult to accept.“While we desperately wish we could have found her, we find peace in knowing that she was doing what made her feel most alive until her very last moments, and that she remains among the mountains where she was most at home.”Kalie’s family was in the Italian alpine village of Cervinia, at the base of the Matterhorn, while the search was under way. They found the hotel room where she was staying, including her luggage and clothing. The Matterhorn is considered a formidable mountain for even well-trained hikers and climbers, including skyrunners. Skyrunning is a relatively new sport that requires athletes to run up high-elevation mountain trails and slopes with inclines of as much as 30 per cent. Sometimes, they rely on chains fastened to the rock faces to assist their climbs.Various Matterhorn records say that 500 to 600 climbers have lost their lives on the mountain since the first recorded ascent in 1864. A Finnish climber went missing on the Matterhorn in late July. His body has yet to be located. Ms. McCrystal’s disappearance marks the second presumed fatality on the mountain so far this year. In an interview Monday, Valerio Segor, director of civil protection for the Aosta Valley region in Italy’s northwest, near the French-Swiss border, said, “We are very sad and disappointed” that the rescue teams, including those of Italy’s quasi-military Guardia di Finanza, could not find any trace of the Canadian climber. “We did everything that was possible to locate her,” he said. “Even AI analysis of the images taken by the drones could not find any new information.”Two Polish climbers saw Ms. McCrystal ascending and descending from Pic Tyndall, a “sub-summit” about 200 metres below the Matterhorn’s peak on the Italian side of the mountain, on the afternoon of Sept. 1. The two women shot a video, which the rescue teams have seen, of Ms. McCrystal ascending the mountain. “They said she was going up the mountain very fast,” Mr. Segor said.The initial searches concentrated on that area of the Matterhorn. The Guardia di Finanza learned that the last signal from the electronic SIM on Ms. McCrystal’s phone came that afternoon. Ms. McCrystal was a seasoned, trophy-winning skyrunner who has trained and competed in mountain races across South America and in Europe, typically finishing among the top-five competitors.As a lawyer, she specialized in international arbitration. She was an instructor in the school of legal studies at Capilano University, which has a campus in Squamish, where she lived. She was a graduate in law of the University of British Columbia.