TACOMA, Wash. -- A Tacoma mountain climbing teacher is in the hospital after a fall during a climb on Mt. Baker on Sunday.

Ken Capron is an experienced climber who teaches climbing at Pierce College. He was on his way down Mt. Baker after climbing the peak along with a climbing team, when he fell and broke his neck.

This accident came suddenly on a portion of Mt. Baker that isn't considered all that dangerous. The climbing team was low enough that safety ropes were no longer needed and Capron lost his footing and tumbled down a steep slope.

“Ken rounded a corner on a rock outcropping and caught his foot. And then he fell about 150 feet down, cart-wheeling over Heather and eventually down a snow slope again,” said Tyler Severy of Tacoma Mountain Rescue.

The 56-year-old Spanaway man fell while descending an area on Mt. Baker known as the railroad grade. Rescuers report he was in and out of consciousnesses because of head injuries.

Capron was airlifted from the mountainside by a chopper from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, once the weather cleared enough for the crew to fly near the mountain.

Severy said climbing all of the Cascade volcanoes is the culmination of a class Capron teaches.

Capron also works as a foreman at the Pepsi bottling plant in Tacoma. Co-worker Jennifer Arnold said the staff was told about his climbing accident when Capron wasn't at work on Monday.

Despite breaking his neck in two places, Capron is expected to make a full recovery.

He remains in St. Joseph's hospital in Bellingham for treatment of injuries to his neck, head and jaw.