Some sad news has reached us today from our colleagues at Some detail on the accident. According to Swiss Guide Hermann Biner, a friend of Rey’s it was normal to be unroped at this point on the glacier due to the risk of stonefall. He said that a hundred climbers must have crossed the snow bridge the last few days without incident. Tributes have poured in from around the world on http://www.clauderey.com/
Another guide was telling me that it’s normal to be unroped at this point also. In fact, I’d not appreciated where it was exactly, he was saying it was just after leaving the ladders from the Konkordia Hut. You can see the situation from the webcam :
http://www.wettercam24.ch/e/channel3/konkordiahuette/index.shtml
I’d had the impression it was actually nearer to Konkordiaplatz but I think that was nothing more than local gossip.
Françoise Gendarme has been elected as the first woman president of the SNGM (French Mountain Guides Union). The SNGM has just 15 women amongst its 1500 guides.
http://en.kairn.com/news.html?ident=59034