Two men die during separate hikes in Banff National Park, Alberta RCMP say
Posted Sep 14, 2026 4:44 pm.
Mounties in Alberta say two men died during separate hikes in Banff National Park last week.
One was a 24-year-old from Jasper, Alta., and the other a 33-year-old Calgarian.
RCMP Sgt. Susan Richter says relatives of the 24-year-old reported him missing on Wednesday afternoon after his satellite tracker stopped moving. A Parks Canada crew in a helicopter found him dead on the same day near Recondite Peak in the national park.
The man started his hike on Monday, she said, and he was found dead with climbing equipment and a helmet.
Richter said he was an experienced trekker as he worked as a hiking guide and was off duty at the time of his death.
“Parks Canada shared with me that Recondite Peak is very remote and only accessed by approximately 10 people a year,” Richter said Monday.
The second death in the national park was reported Saturday.
RCMP say the body of the 33-year-old was found near the Beehive Mountain. Richter said the man was hiking with his friends, got separated from them and was later found dead.
“(His friends) lost sight of him, and thought that they were just hiking at different paces and that they would meet up with him at the end because he was faster,” she said.
“When he wasn’t there, they attempted to reach him and were not able to, and they reported him missing.”
Richter said deaths are not uncommon in Alberta’s backcountry during the summer months: “Sometimes the causes of them are different. It can be from avalanches. It can from changing weather conditions.”
In July, a 65-year-old man from Calgary died after he became separated from his group and fell on a Mount Temple scrambling route in Banff. A 26-year-old woman also fell and died days before that during a hike in Kananaskis Country, south of Banff.
RCMP said a person died in a drowning in Kananaskis in August.
Last year, two people died and 10 people were injured after a rock slide near Banff’s Bow Glacier Falls Trail.
The popular hiking trail reopened this summer with warning signs encouraging hikers to stay away from hazardous areas at the end of the trail.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2026.
