At 1130 yesterday in Chandolin, one of our neighbouring villages, two teen’s from Geneva were caught in a avalanche. One was able to free himself from the snow while the other was recovered with serious injury by a rescue team from a metre of snow. The slide occurred near the Illhorn poma lift on what’s a fairly popular slope a few metres from the piste and frequently skied. Neither teenager was equipped with an avalanche transceiver and the rescue response included two helicopters from Air Glaciers and 7 dog handlers.

Additionally, the local police are reporting the avalanche at 300m long and 20m wide and that the second casualty was recovered at 1300 and airlifted to hospital.

and there’s a photo from the local police

Police Photo

The 2nd casualty sounds in a very bad way from what I read. The photo is impressive, there are quite a lot of tracks already. Another example of where rocks are not providing you with any security but may actually be a contributory factor.

it’s slightly steeper than the photo suggests, the map gives a better idea

davidof - 22 December 2008 11:10 PM

The 2nd casualty sounds in a very bad way from what I read. The photo is impressive, there are quite a lot of tracks already. Another example of where rocks are not providing you with any security but may actually be a contributory factor.

I’m thinking the same thing, but don’t have a clue as to the aspect and wind direction.  Looks to me like they may have hit a deeply buried week layer that was closer to the surface near the rocks, where the snow pack was thinner.  I’m just guessing but from the photo there aren’t any tracks on the near side of the slide, so it could have been that despite the tracks it just took someone getting close to the rocks to pull the trigger.