The family of a B.C. woman who disappeared while running on the Matterhorn in Italy has issued a statement saying they believe she fell to her death.
Kalie McCrystal, 38, was last seen on Sept. 1, 2026, while training to break the record for the fastest ascent and descent of the nearly 4,500-metre mountain.
Her disappearance prompted an extensive search by the Guardia di Finanza rescue team, but they could not locate her.
McCrystal, from Squamish, was a skilled climber, according to her family and had previous experience climbing the Matterhorn.
“Kalie was an incredibly special person,” her mom and sister wrote in the statement issued on Sept. 15.
“She moved through life with equal parts determination and fun. Her absence will undoubtedly leave a huge hole in the communities she was so invested in, across Skyrunning, Squamish and beyond.”
Mountain trail runner Hillary Gerardi told The Canadian Press that she and another friend were set to help McCrystal attempt to break a running record in early September, but when they realized no one had heard from her, they alerted authorities.
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Gerardi told Outside Online that McCrystal was scouting the mountain ahead of an attempt to become the fastest woman to run it.
She told the magazine that she planned to support McCrystal’s attempt to break the fastest known time for ascending the peak.
McCrystal’s mom and sister said that their family will never be the same.
“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 felt most at home.”
McCrystal was one of Canada’s top skyrunners, according to skyrunnerworldseries.com.
Skyrunning is described as reaching the highest mountain peak in the shortest amount of time from a town or village.
It is defined by the International Skyrunning Federation that was formed to govern the sport in 2008, as “running in the mountains above 2,000m altitude where the climbing difficulty does not exceed II° grade and the incline is over 30%,” according to skyrunning.com.
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