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| Iris Kurschner//Getty Images |
Kalie McCrystal disappeared while training for a Matterhorn FKT attempt in Italy.
Rescue teams in Italy’s Aosta Valley have suspended the search for Kalie McCrystal, a 38-year-old elite Canadian trail runner and mountaineer who disappeared while training on the Matterhorn on September 1, but those close to her say they remain hopeful that she’s still alive.
McCrystal had traveled to the Italian resort town of Cervinia in early August to run a challenging skyrace and prepare for an ambitious project: climbing and descending the Matterhorn via the Lion’s Ridge route in under five hours in an attempt to break the fastest known time (FKT) set by American runner and climber Kraina Andersen on August 9. That ridge runs between the South Face of the mountain in Italy and the West Face of the mountain in Switzerland.
McCrystal lives in Squamish, British Columbia, where she works as a lawyer and also teaches at Capilano University. She shared details of her training plans on social media in early August, describing the sub-five-hour round trip on the Matterhorn as her major athletic goal for the season.
She had reportedly summited the mountain a few times this summer (and posted a photo on social media on August 7), so she was likely familiar with its current conditions. She also set an FKT of the Hornli Ridge route on the Swiss side of the mountain on August 14, completing the return trip from Zermatt in 6 hours, 47 minutes, and 33 seconds.
“I intended this to be a recon run, but it ended up faster than I thought,” McCrystal reported to the FKT website.
Several athletes close to McCrystal have noted that the Lion’s Ridge route was well within her ability.
“She knew what she was doing,” says McCrystal’s friend Hilary Gerardi, an American skyrunner and mountaineer who lives in Chamonix, France, and has known McCrystal since 2023. “This isn’t one of these stories of a trail runner getting in over their head. She summited the mountain many times, but she also spent time over there not necessarily summiting, but just going up there and checking the route.”
Gerardi was in Cervinia over the weekend helping coordinate search efforts and talked with an Italian mountain guide who had met up with McCrystal while he was descending the mountain with a client last Tuesday. That guide confirmed that McCrystal was actively talking to all of the guides and local climbers to get as much information about conditions as possible.
“He told me that ‘she was moving super well, competently, skillfully and that she was calm, relaxed,’” Gerardi said. “He said that he did not feel at all that she was being reckless, that she was in her element. He wasn’t worried about her at all.”
McCrystal is well known within international skyrunning circles as a highly capable and experienced high-altitude athlete, with a long track record in technical alpine terrain. She has competed in numerous races this year, including a victory at Cuatro Refugios race on February 22 in Argentina. That’s a 24.8-mile point-to-point race with 10,800 feet of vertical gain and loss.
She also recorded a fifth-place finish in the Beast of Big Creek 22K skyrace on August 1 near Hoodsport, Washington, and a fourth-place finish in the Trofeo Kima race, a 52K race with more than 13,000 feet of elevation gain in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. In 2022, she won the Whistler Alpine Meadows 50K in a course-record 5:59:32.
McCrystal was slated to compete in the 2026 Skyrunning World Championships on September 18 to 20 in the Canary Islands. Last September, she placed 12th in the 45K race at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Spain.
While back home in Canada this summer, McCrystal set a new women’s unsupported FKT on a route known as the Tantalus Traverse, a 26.3-mile point-to-point route with 12,000 feet of vertical gain and loss as it goes up and over Mount Tantalus in Squamish. She covered that distance in 9 hours, 40 minutes, and 32 seconds, taking nearly three hours off the previous women’s mark.
McCrystal was last confirmed seen on the afternoon of September 1, spotted by a group of Polish climbers making their way down the mountain near Pic Tyndall, a shoulder of the peak sitting above 13,800 feet and just short of the 14,692-foot summit, not far from the Jean-Antoine Carrel hut. On the same day, she was spotted near the summit through the long-range telescope of a search and rescue group near Cervinia as part of standard observations of the mountain.
“She saw her still going up, going quite quickly and she told the guide that she was training because she wanted to try the records. That’s the only information we have,” says Valerio Segor of Valle d’Aosta Mountain Rescue in Italy.
No one has reported seeing McCrystal since, despite an extensive search.
Search and rescue crews from Italy and Switzerland responded with an extensive aerial and ground operation, combing steep gullies, cliff bands, and stretches of the route on all flanks of the mountain. Helicopters equipped with RECCO technology—a system designed to detect reflective tags built into some outdoor gear—were brought in after McCrystal’s friends indicated her backpack likely contained one of the devices. The equipment failed to pick up any signal.
By last Thursday, after a full day of extensive helicopter sweeps produced no results, authorities made the decision to pause the aerial search. Ground efforts and investigative work have continued, although it’s near impossible for search crews on foot to access anything but the deep gullies near the base because of the steep faces of the mountain.
“There are very few routes on the Matternhorn because there are only a few safe ways to go up it,” Gerardi said. “Because it’s so steep and so dangerous with rock fall and, you know, glaciers at the bottom and crevasses. And it’s really sort of complex, very steep terrain.”
Italian investigators have reportedly turned their attention to a second SIM card McCrystal was known to be carrying, hoping that records of its last connection to a cellular network might help narrow down her location. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is also reportedly working to gain access to digital devices that might provide clues as to where on the mountain she was last active.
As the days pass without any sign of her, hope for a positive outcome has reportedly begun to fade among those close to the case, though her family, friends, and the broader mountain-running community continue to hold out for her safe return. Her mother traveled to Italy from her home on Vancouver Island late last week, while her sister arrived from London.
Capilano University and the Skyrunner World Series issued statements expressing support for McCrystal and her loved ones during the search. Athletics Canada, meanwhile, asked the media to help raise awareness of the search, describing McCrystal as a deeply respected figure both within Canadian athletics and the global skyrunning community, and expressing hope, on behalf of her family and everyone close to her, for her safe return.
“I think it’s a shock for me and for all of us because it’s so hard to lose track of somebody that we love so much,” Gerardi says. “And also, for so many of us, we can see ourselves in Kalie.”
- Brian Metzler
