‘Skyrunner’ describes appeal and peril of sport as Canadian remains missing in Alps

Mountain trail runner Hillary Gerardi says traversing perilous terrain as an elite “skyrunner” is where she and those dedicated to the sport feel most alive, but some routes have little to no margin of error.

The American-born athlete, who has been living in France for the last 15 years, says her close friend Kalie McCrystal of Squamish, B.C., remains missing on the Italian side of the Matterhorn, where she was last seen on Sept. 1.

Gerardi says she and another friend were set to help McCrystal attempt to break a running record last week, but when they realized no one had heard from her, they alerted authorities, but no trace of McCrystal has been found.

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Gerardi says she met McCrystal a few years ago while competing at the Skyrunner World Series and they hit it off, both members of a record-breaking group of female athletes pushing the boundaries of the sport.

She says skyrunning for her is like “mindfulness meditation,” requiring full concentration and presence in the moment, unlike a treadmill or a paved path where the mind can wander free of danger.

Gerardi says mountain terrain traversed by skyrunners can involve narrow routes less than a metre wide with a “no-fall zone” on either side, and even the most advanced runners could slip or trip and fall.

“I think I would describe the terrain as entirely unforgiving. There isn’t room for being able to make mistakes, and to be clear, Kalie had gone up and down this route making no mistakes multiple times,” Gerardi said.

“She had been there before and she knew what she was doing and had done it with zero mistakes in the past.”

She said the best guess is that there was “just some kind slip, some kind of trip, something that happened.”

Gerardi said the area where McCrystal is believed to have gone missing is inaccessible and search efforts have now been suspended “unless new information comes to light that would allow us to narrow the search area and so that’s essentially where things are at.”

Athletics Canada said in an email on Tuesday that there were no updates on the search for McCrystal.