{"id":41278,"date":"2015-02-08T02:15:28","date_gmt":"2015-02-07T18:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=41278"},"modified":"2015-02-08T02:15:28","modified_gmt":"2015-02-07T18:15:28","slug":"ice-climber-missing-in-banff-national-park-was-on-military-exercise-spokeswoman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/02\/08\/ice-climber-missing-in-banff-national-park-was-on-military-exercise-spokeswoman\/","title":{"rendered":"Ice climber missing in Banff National Park was on military exercise: Spokeswoman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Moraine<\/a>
Moraine Lake in Banff National Park (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta — A search and rescue technician with the Canadian military is missing in Banff National Park after being swept away in an avalanche.<\/p>\n

Media reports have identified him as Sgt. Mark Salesse, 44, of 17 Wing at Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

Capt. Bettina McCulloch-Drake says a soldier was on a routine mountain training exercise Thursday when he was caught in an avalanche.<\/p>\n

She says they are hopeful he is found safe, but adds they’ve been told the weather is “problematic.”<\/p>\n

Parks Canada, who is leading the search, says an “incident” occurred on the Polar Circus ice-climbing route.<\/p>\n

It says searchers were unable to get to the area on Thursday night due to avalanche hazard, deteriorating weather and nightfall.<\/p>\n

Parks Canada says it was trying to do a helicopter search of the area on Friday because a ground search was impossible due to avalanche conditions.<\/p>\n

“At the moment we are hopeful he will be found safe,” McCulloch-Drake said Friday, declining to confirm any details about the military member’s identity.<\/p>\n

A dog handler and searchers from Parks Canada Banff, Yoho, Kootenay and Jasper are involved in the search.<\/p>\n

According to a military news release in 2011, Salesse was badly injured during another training exercise that year when he fell from an ice wall near Ouray, Colo.<\/p>\n

At the time, Salesse was with 5 Wing Goose Bay, N.L. He suffered injuries to his lower back, ribs, leg and pelvis.<\/p>\n

Salesse was also stationed for a time at CFB Comox in British Columbia, and has been a member of the Governor General’s Foot Guards in Ottawa. He won a Governor General’s Medal for bravery for service in Croatia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta — A search and rescue technician with the Canadian military is missing in Banff National Park after …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":41355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}