RCMP in K-Country say they have located the body of a 24-year-old hiker who went missing during a solo trip of Mount Smuts over the weekend.
According to Facebook posts from relatives of Zachary Coates, he left to climb Mount Smuts in Kananaskis around 1 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 11 and hadn’t been heard from since.
Police say they were notified just before 10 a.m. on Monday of a missing hiker.
RCMP then alerted Kananaskis Emergency Services (KES) who already had a conservation officer on the way to the area to find the trail head where Coates may have started. Police got there a short time later and found the missing man’s vehicle.
An RCMP helicopter was then dispatched.
“Within two hours, they had located our missing male on the western slope of Mount Smuts,” said Cpl. Troy Savinkoff. “Unfortunately, he was deceased. He was removed from the area by helicopter and then taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Calgary.”
Savinkoff says the man likely fell.
Various reports indicate Coates isn’t the first hiker to have a fatal fall at Mount Smuts; on Aug. 13, 2018, Catlin Hannah fell to his death during a hike on the mountain, and in 2005, a man in his 50s met the same fate.
The peak near Spray Lakes Reservoir is rated as ‘hard’ with a lot of scrambling involved
Savinkoff says the search for Coates was made easier in that officials knew where to look.
“That way if anything goes wrong, you’re unable to communicate back, your family and friends will call for emergency services to come find you,” Savinkoff said. “This one ended up in a very unfortunate incident, but had our hiker been injured in any way, we would have been able to find him quickly and provide assistance.”
The hiker was transported out of the area and taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Officials don’t believe the death is suspicious.