BANFF, Alta. — A day outing on Cascade Mountain turned tragic when a 17-year-old male plummeted 50 metres to his death on the Labour Day holiday weekend.

"One of the boys was carrying a guitar at the time, so clearly they planned to go out and have a good time and enjoy the mountains," Gord Irwin, public safety specialist for Banff National Park, said Monday.

Three male teens from Calgary, aged 16, 17 and 18, had planned specifically to visit the area near Cascade Falls, a 2,998-metre peak overlooking the Banff townsite, Irwin said. Police have yet to release the teen's name.

The three set out together on Saturday, but the 17-year-old became separated from his two buddies when the terrain became steeper about halfway up the mountain.

"They were going to hike and scramble up the lower cliff," Irwin said.

Scrambling is a term for what one does on terrain that is in between difficult hiking and technical climbing, which requires special equipment and training, Irwin added.

"Scrambling is where you are still using your feet and occasionally you need your hands to touch the slope for balance, but you're clearly not on a trail any longer because you do need your hands to maintain balance.

"Unfortunately they got into the kind of terrain where they didn't have the equipment and that's when just a slight error, a slip of the foot, can then end up having extremely tragic consequences."

The boy tumbled about 50 metres over short, vertical cliff sections and ledges, coming to rest wedged in a crevice.

The teen was unconscious, had a weak pulse, shallow breathing and had severe head injuries, including a skull fracture, when rescuers got to him.

One of his buddies climbed down to the highway and flagged down a passerby, who called the warden service rescue team.

Irwin praised the friends of the dead teen.

"The boys stayed very collected, they did what they could for him, and they went for help at the appropriate time," Irwin said.

"They responded very appropriately in a very mature and very rapid manner."

The teen was taken by helicopter to Banff's Mineral Springs Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Two of the teens had been to the area before and one had done a bit of technical climbing in an indoor gym, Irwin said.

However, it takes years of experience and training to be able to know when the terrain changes to something that's beyond one's limitations, he added.

"What we really like to see people doing is getting out on the trails, enjoying themselves, having a good time, but before they start venturing off trails, do some background research, look at the guide books, instructional books and if you're thinking of doing scrambling or technical climbing, then get instruction from an accredited instructor like a mountain guide."

It was the fourth fatal fall in the Rocky Mountains this year.

Solo climber Alex Sullivan, 18, fell while scaling Mount Lorette in February. Aaron Earl Browne, 23, who was also climbing alone, died after plummeting from the same 2,469-metre summit in July.

On July 23, an elderly Scottish tourist took a bad fall while on an Alpine Club of Canada hike in the Valley of the Ten Peaks near Moraine Lake. He died in hospital a few days later as a result of serious head injuries.

Since 1990, Cascade Mountain, Mount Rundle and Tunnel Mountain have claimed more than 12 lives in climbing accidents.