The fundraising campaign to benefit the family of Elena Cernicka, the North Vancouver mountaineer who died in a fall from Joffre Peak on Jan. 11, has amassed almost five times its original goal.
The Cernicka’s neighbours, Brenden Torrell and Allisha Matthews, launched an online crowdfunding campaign at YouCaring.com shortly after news of the fatal fall spread.
They’d hoped to raise $5,000 to help Cernicka’s husband Tomas and their two sons. By Tuesday afternoon, donations hit $22,000 and were still climbing.
The Edge climbing centre in North Vancouver, where Cernicka was a regular, also joined in the effort and donated 100 per cent of its afternoon proceeds to the family on Friday last week.
Meanwhile, Cernicka’s sister Alica Majercinova has posted on the campaign site about what happened that day. It was Tomas who found Elena after the fall.
Cernicka was known to be a cautious climber in the backcountry, Majercinova said.
“Being her little sister, she would always lecture me on the importance of having the correct equipment when outdoors and she would never let me go on any trips unless she was certain that I was with an experienced and capable group,” Majercinova wrote.
“I know that in the very moment before the accident, she was enjoying the beautiful scenery she was in but she didn’t love anything more than her children and her family. I have known her my whole life, and I am certain that if she considered the area or the conditions even a little unsafe she would have turned right back around even if that meant heading down from just below the summit.”
Majercinova described Cernicka as the “strongest woman I had ever known” and “the best role model anyone could’ve had.”
