A 45 year old French man was killed this morning while ski touring in the Mercantour close to Nice. He was on the south face of the Mont Archas and was touring with a friend who gave the alert and was able to localize the victim. The man was under the snowpack for around 50 minutes and was finally recovered at 11h20. There has been fresh snow in the range over the last couple of days. The man was resident of le Belvédère, a village local to the mountain range. This brings the number of avalanches resulting in fatalities to 32 since mid December with 39 deaths. Well above the long term average. The majority of incidents, 15, involved ski tourers and 9 accidents involved more than one person. The increase is principally down to unstable snow conditions.

According to a report in today’s Nice Matin, the victim did not have an avalanche beacon:

http://www.nicematin.com/article/faits-divers/un-habitant-de-belvedere-tue-par-une-avalanche

that would account for the long delay finding the victim.

davidof - 18 April 2010 09:38 PM

The increase is principally down to unstable snow conditions.

Some of my French friends said they did very little touring for most of the winter because conditions and weather were bad.
I left and went home a few days early in early March, because I thought there was no point in staying around and being frustrated (or tempted).

Ken