Yesterday Thursday 22 February 2018, the gendarmes rescuers of the Chamonix PGHM (Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute-Montagne) had a big day in altitude. They made eight interventions in the department, most of them in the Mont-Blanc massif, only for skiing falls, except one in snowboarding.
According to Le Dauphine, all the victims suffered moderate injuries requiring hospitalization.
Among the victims, in mid-afternoon, a skieur has fallen down on a slope hundred meters while he was on the end of the classic descent of Col du Passon (3,028m) in the Mont-Blanc massif.
He was taken to the Sallanches hospital aboard the civil security helicopter.
The Col du Passon
The route starts from the top of Les Grands Montets cable car rising from the village of Argentière near Chamonix. Take the cable car to Lognan and then take a second cable car to the top of Les Grands Montets. Go left down the Rognon glacier keeping to the right of the rock and onto the heavily crevassed Argentière glacier. This is an awesome ski itself with just under 1000m of descent.
Traverse the Argentière glacier and the ski-tour starts with a skin up along the snow covered moraine slopes to the left (North) of the aiguille du Chardonnet.
Skin up about 750m towards the Col du Passon, before a short steep bootpack section up to the Col itself, then take a break at the Col before beginning the descent.
The descent of the Col du Passon towards le Tour village
The descent from the Col de Passon is generally pretty mellow, with good snow, and some trickier route finding near the bottom. Head north, down onto Le Tour Glacier (2,850m). Keep to the left until reaching a vantage point with a view overlooking the village of Le Tour (1,450m). From here, there is a choice of descents to the village.
