Over a month earlier than usual, the French weather service has decided to halt its daily avalanche bulletin service.

The High Mountain Police (PGHM) have warned that it is the end of tolerance during the COVID-19 confinement and they will start issuing fines (135 euros) to anyone they find breaking the French govern

It seems that warnings and injunctions against venturing into the mountains have fallen on deaf ears in some quarters.

French and Italian mountain rescue services have called on backcountry enthusiasts to keep out of the mountains during the Corona Virus lockdown.

A 58 year old French man has been killed by an avalanche skiing off piste on the south side of the Grande Rochette (2508 meters) summit. The alarm was received at 12h30.

A 39 year old ski tourer has been killed after falling 200 meters in a couloir on the crête de Reychard/Onde sector in the commune of Puy St Vincent.

A 54 year old man has been killed by an avalanche above the Buet village in Vallorcine close to Chamonix. The victim, qualified as a mountain leader, was local to the area.

Hypster’s gotta brand new bagSo the trips with the local alpine club turned out to be as fun as a visit to a German dentist on a trip from Latin America.

The recent snow (up to 25cm in the French Northern Alps) has improved the skiing conditions but the wind has stripped much of the fresh snow on exposed slopes leaving hard, icy surfaces that have surp

"It was like a battlefield, so I said to myself there is very little chance that some of them are alive" - Tommaso Piccioli, one of the three survivors of the Haute-Route disaster that killed 7 of his