With the return of good weather today skiers were out in force. Despite warnings and yesterday's avalanches the deadly series continued today. If social media is a guide ski tourers, perhaps better informed and equipped were absent from the hecatombe.
In the Chamonix valley, mountain rescue teams were called shortly before 3 p.m. to an avalanche in the central Posettes couloir above the village of Vallorcine, near Chamonix. Two men were caught by the slide. One of them, a 32-year-old ski patroller working at the Flégère ski area, was violently thrown against a tree and died from his injuries. He was the father of young children. The second skier escaped unharmed.
Credit: Piste Services Orelle
Further south in the Savoie, two more skiers lost their lives on Sunday, adding to the toll after three men were killed by avalanches the previous day. At Courchevel the piste patrol witnessed the slide at 11h40 in the north east facing Creux Noirs valley. A high mountain guide intervened immediately to assist the victims before rescue services arrived. Unfortunately one of the skiers was killed by the slide. Courchevel resort has said that "Given the current conditions, S3V urges all users to exercise the utmost vigilance and strictly adhere to safety guidelines and snow reports."
La Plagne/Champagny Avalanche [credit: piste services la plagne]
At 13h30 an English skier in his fifties was caught by an avalanche in the Verduns Sud off-piste area in the Champagny-en-Vanoise, part of the la Plagne ski area. The avalanche was on a south-east facing slope at approx 2300 meters altitude. He was not equipped with an avalanche transceiver. Despite the deployment of significant rescue resources, he was located only after nearly 50 minutes, buried under 2.5 metres of snow.
The avalanche risk was 4 out of 5 above 1600 meters altitude and authorities had called for extra caution saying the risk was "maximum" for back country travelers. Meteo France warned that there are numerous reactive slabs with remote triggering possible. Breaks could reach 1.5 m with significant mobilizable volumes of snow, giving rise to size 2 to 3 (medium to large) avalanches that can travel far onto flat terrain. In a large northern sector size 4 avalanches couldn't be ruled out breaking on a deeply buried weak layer.
Several other avalanches were reported during the morning. At Tignes, a snowboarder was partially buried in the Tignes lake skiing in the tremplins sector at 9h30. He was skiing a NW facing slope around 2100 meters altitude. He was rescued by piste patrol then taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia. In Orelle, two off-piste skiers without avalanche transceivers were caught in a slide around midday; one was seriously injured and airlifted to hospital, while the other escaped unhurt.
Tignes le lac [Credit: SAF Helicopters]
By midday, emergency services had already responded to six separate avalanches across the region. Authorities once again urged extreme caution, warning that the snowpack remains highly unstable and that off-piste skiing continues to pose a serious danger in the coming days. The access road to les Arcs was also blocked by an avalanche this evening.
In the Hautes-Pyrénées a group of six off piste skiers were caught by a slide above Barèges around 10h00. The slide, measuring 200 meters, buried one of the skiers. Equipped with avalanche rescue gear they were able to rescue their friend before the mountain rescue arrived. The resort organsied a search over the debris to ensure no other skiers were buried.