Rock climber falls to his death on Sky Pilot Mountain

UPDATE: The body was recovered by the Comox RCMP  helicopter this morning.

VANCOUVER, B.C. — Authorities have confirmed a man fell to his death, on Sky Pilot Mountain yesterday afternoon.

The point is six kilometres from the top of the Sea to Sky Gondola and is considered to be mountainous terrain in the back country.

“It’s an area that’s been climbed for the last hundred years by mountaineers and it’s a very extreme area,” Trevor Dunn, General Manager of Sea to Sky Gondola told Global News. “It’s some of the most extreme territory in the southern coastal range…you have to be an expert to go up there,” he said.

Authorities were notified on July 5 at around 1:30 p.m. that a male climber fell 50 metres from the mountain range. Rescue efforts found his body in a ravine, but the weather has prevented Search and Rescue crews, RCMP and the BC Coroner Service from recovering the remains.

“Members of the RCMP’s Aerial Extraction Team spent the evening on the mountain, with the male’s remains,” RCMP Inspector Davis Wendall told Global News.

“The BC Coroners Service, Search and Rescue and the RCMP are working in partnership today to secure the male from the mountain,” he said.

Sources say the man was climbing with two other people, and that the group was from the Lower Mainland. The victim’s name has not yet been released.

–With files from Tanya Beja.