Three elite mountain climbers — including one from the U.S. — are presumed dead after a massive avalanche at a Canadian national park this week, according to park officials.
The climbers, part of the North Face Global Athlete team, include American Jess Roskelley and Austrians David Lama and Hansjorg Auer, the Calgary Herald reported.
The trio was attempting to climb Howse Peak on the Icefields Parkway within Alberta’s Banff National Park Wednesday when they disappeared.
“They are missing, and local search and rescue has assumed the worst,” The North Face said in a statement obtained by the outlet. “We are doing everything we can to support their families, friends and the climbing community during this difficult time.”
Stephen Holeczi, a visitor safety specialist at the site, told the paper he believes a Size 3 avalanche, packing about 1,000 tons snow, ice and rocks — with the potential to bury a car, destroy a small building or break trees — occurred at the site.
“We did see signs of multiple avalanches and debris containing climbing equipment along with strong evidence that the climbing party was deceased,” he said.
Recovery teams have temporarily halted their efforts because additional avalanches are possible, Holeczi told the outlet.
Barry Blanchard, a local mountain guide, told the outlet he chatted with Roskelley when the trio arrived at the site about a week ago and provided route suggestions.
Though the scenery is breathtaking, the peak has a steep alpine wall — making it a choice destination for only experienced climbers, he said. But he called the three men well-equipped and among the top 1% of mountaineers worldwide.
“If you want to equate it to racing, they are Formula 1 drivers,” Blanchard told the paper.
Lama, 28, the son of a Nepali mountain guide and a nurse from Austria, holds the title of the youngest person to ever win an International Federation of Sport Climbing World Cup in both lead climbing and bouldering, according to his bio on the North Face website
Auer, 35, grew up in Austria, where he and his brothers would often guide sheep from the family farm into the mountains, his bio says.
And Roskelley, 36, grew up in Spokane, Washington — where adventuring was in his blood as he and his family often went on excursions throughout the Pacific Northwest, according to his North Face bio. In 2003, when he was 20 years old, he summited Mount Everest with his dad, renowned climber and author John Roskelley.
“This route they were trying to do was first done in 2000,” John Roskelley told the Spokesman Review. “It’s just one of those routes where you have to have the right conditions or it turns into a nightmare. This is one of those trips where it turned into a nightmare.”
A version of this report appears at NYPost.com.
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