A group of eleven from the UCPA started up the Grands Montets lifts Monday morning to tour the Haute Route. The classic ski tour from Chamonix to Zermatt usually takes between five to seven days. The first leg of the tour would take the skier to the Val d’Arpette. The weather was not amazing but the avalanche risk was only two out of five on the Chamonix side. The Swiss side had a risk of three. The director of the UCPA Argentiere, Luc Verrier, said that they considered this level three risk to be mainly closer to Zermatt as other sides of the mountain had so little snow. The group climbed up and over the col du Passon, then le Tour, at more than 3000m, then over to Switzerland into the Trient area. Another group, composed of a dozen Austrians and three guides, was in the area at the same time as the UCPA group. Just before the group reached the col des Ecandies (2800m), the avalanches came down. According to witnesses, the avalanche was not large but it was strong enough to carry away two of the skiers. One young female in the UCPA group was swept away and believed to have fallen in a crevasse. Her body has not yet been found. An Austrian skier fractured his femur in the avalanche and was immediately found by his colleagues and kept warm until rescuers were on the scene. Rescue workers were on the scene immediately searching for the woman but were forced to halt the search around 21:00 with no luck and could not pick it up the next day due to bad weather.
