Terrible news from the French side of the Mont-Blanc massif!
On 20 November 2019, in the morning, two men from the Chamonix valley tragically lost their lives at the Aiguille du Plan!
The two men, who were well-known for their great mastery of mountaineering, experienced a 300 meters (984 ft) fatal fall after they unscrewed.
The climbing community mourns the loss of two world-class mountaineers.
Max Bonniot (31) was a member of Groupe Militaire de Haute Montagne (GMHM) and on duty at the time of the accident and Pierre Labbre (38) was a mountain guide at the Compagnie de Chamonix-Mont-Blanc.
According to planetmountain.com, the two men left on 19 November in the morning to climb the Bonington Route (V M7) up Aiguille du Plan (3,673 m or 12,050 ft) but had not been heard from since.
The second day, early in the morning, a helicopter spotted their bodies at the base of the gully.
The preliminary investigations indicate that the two men unscrewed & slipped while climbing together with a tense rope, and fell 300 meters (984 ft).
Those who follow mountaineering chronicles will often have read news of their ascents, which ranged from the Alps to Nepal, from Norway to Peru and Patagonia.
Among their many ascents and discoveries, Labbre established a new route on Latok II and followed this up in 2013 with a new route on the unclimbed south face of Gauri Shankar (7134m) in the Rolwaling Himal.
Bonniot, too, established new climbs in Nepal, such as the line-up Pangbuk North in 2017, while in Peru he breached the virgin East Face in Siula Grande in 2016.
More about their memorable accomplishments on planetmountain.com.
