Read this on the train this morning, can’t remember the paper (it was the person next to me):
A 34 year British skier, living in France, was killed by an avalanche on Sunday mid-afternoon near Zermatt. The man was ski touring on the glacier du Schwärze after passing the Schwartztor under the Pollux summit. He was in a guided party of four. Another client, also British, was slightly hurt but remained on the surface of the slide.
I remember in the interview with Anselm Baud he talked about guides and guided groups. He said something like 16-17 guides killed over the last 18 months. I looked on Wikipedia and there seem to be around 1600 registered French guides, so that’s around 1% of the profession. I also recall a number of guided / instructor led groups being involved in incidents at the start of the season.
Seems like there are some major issues to address for French guides at the moment. Is it too much pressure? Or is it just that in an unstable snow season there will be appear to be a disproportionate amount of incidents involving guides?
