Man rescued by helicopter after spending night on Mount Fairview

A man in his 30s had to be rescued with a helicopter sling early Thursday after spending the night on a small ledge above a 100-metre cliff in Banff National Park.

Late Wednesday, Parks Mountain Safety got a call from the man who got stranded after he tried to scramble down the northwest face of Mount Fairview, near Lake Louise. The man had hiked up the regular trail to Mount Fairview on his own.

“He ended up getting to the summit as it was starting to get a little bit dark and wanted to try a shortcut to get back down to Lake Louise,” explained Steve Holeczi, a visitor safety specialist with Parks Canada. “He started going back down the other side.

“It doesn’t look that bad going down that way at first ... but it gets steeper and steeper and steeper and he ended up having to do some pretty serious down-climbing. It got dark and at a certain point he was above a massive cliff.”

Safety specialists conducted a ground search of the area around 7 p.m. Wednesday and were able to locate him, but unable to reach him. “We were below an overhanging wall so it wasn’t going to work,” said Holeczi, noting they told the man they would return at first light. “He curled up underneath the little overhang on a tiny little ledge above a 100-metre overhanging wall.”

They returned early Thursday with an Alpine Helicopter.

“We slung about 50 metres lower on to a bigger ledge and ended up climbing a pitch to get to him,” said Holeczi, noting they secured him and lowered him to the bigger ledge. “Then everyone got slung off.”

The man was cold, but otherwise uninjured.