A pair of climbing partners could only watch last weekend as the third member of their group plunged 50 metres to his death shortly after reaching the summit of Mt. Logan's east peak.

Stephen Canning, 22, of Invermere, B.C., was about 15 metres away from one partner when he stopped to take a photo at approximately 6:30 a.m. May 23.

His climbing partner looked away briefly, only to look back as the younger man fell off the snowy, rocky face. His other climbing friend was about 100 metres below.

The two remaining B.C. climbers made their way down the mountain last week stopping for two days while poor weather socked them in.

They notified the Haines Junction RCMP on Friday afternoon on another climbing group's satellite phone that their friend had died.

A break in the weather Saturday permitted an attempt to recover Canning's body by helicopter, but it was unsuccessful.

Poor weather, high altitudes and the extremely remote location of the young man's body are expected to prevent further recovery attempts, said Ray Breneman, Kluane National Park's chief warden.

The trio of friends, all experienced climbers who'd been on similar expeditions in the past, had registered with the national park officials May 7 to climb Mt. Logan's east ridge. They expected to be done their expedition June 4.

The other two men are 36 and 43 years old. One is a commercial ski guide and the other is an apprentice ski mountaineer. All three had skied and climbed together before.

When the trio started their attempt at the east ridge's summit at about noon on the Saturday, the weather was clear. They crested the east peak just after midnight.

The increasingly poor weather forced them to camp not far from the summit. At about 6 a.m. Sunday, they started back down. It wasn't long after that Canning fell.

When he tumbled, 'it was really windy and a storm was moving in,' said Breneman.

'Nobody witnessed the actual cause of the fall, but they did witness the fall itself,' he said.

The fall happened at 5,850 metres (19,188 feet), just 100 metres shy of the summit at 5,950 metres (19,516 feet).

The mishap occurred on snow-covered rocky terrain below Logan's east peak.

Weather and the effects of high altitudes on the body and mind are usually factors in incidents like this one, Breneman said.

Canning's partners climbed down to him and tried to give their friend first aid, but the young man had no pulse, Breneman explained.

The pair had to continue their descent, and were forced to camp for two days to wait out bad weather.

Once back at base camp, they called the RCMP Friday afternoon on the other climbing group's satellite phone, as they hadn't taken one with them.

'You get all kinds of weather conditions,' said Breneman about climbing Mt. Logan.

'You can have a storm move in off the Pacific at any time and certainly there was a low out there. We were lucky we were able to get in on Saturday the weather opened up for a brief period. We had a brief window to get in and out.'

The mountain was socked in all Sunday. As of this morning, climbers out on the ice fields were calling the park warden's office for weather reports because they're still snowed in, said the chief warden.

On Saturday, Trans North Helicopter's Doug Makkonen, who is also with the coroner's office, flew in to attempt retrieval.

Because of the limitations of helicopters at high altitudes, only a few people could be on board, said Breneman.

One of the two remaining climbers flew up with Makkonen to point out Canning's body. In the intervening week, the mountain had several feet of fresh snow and high winds, noted Breneman.

The helicopter pilot dropped off the climber and went back alone with a long line to try to retrieve the body, now at 5,595 metres (18,650 feet), but was unsuccessful.

Breneman and fellow park warden Terry Skjonsberg flew in with Makkonen as well, but because of the high altitude, it simply wasn't safe to attempt the retrieval.