Photo: @fynn_it //Unsplash
Valais regional police and search and rescue crews continue to search for a missing backcountry skier after locating the bodies of five others in the Swiss Alps. They have not shared the exact identities of anybody in the group, which reportedly included several members of one local family and another skier from Fribourg in western Switzerland.
The group set out in “relatively good” conditions early Saturday, according to Valais Police Commander Christian Varone. They’d started in the resort town of Zermatt and were headed to the village of Arolla, part of the world famous “Haute Route” between Zermatt and Chamonix.
Another family member was scheduled to meet the group at the end of their day but when they didn’t arrive at their designated meeting point that family member contacted local police. Just over an hour later, at 5:19 p.m. local time, one of the skiers managed to place a call to emergency services. That allowed search and rescue workers to pinpoint the group at an altitude around 11,483 feet in the area of Col de Tête Blanche. By this point, according to Varone, the good conditions that started the day had turned to “catastrophic.” Temperatures had fallen throughout the day and avalanche risks were up.
Those factors also immediately impacted the rescue efforts. Rescuers had set out for the location but the changing conditions, including wind and fog to add to the avalanche risks, forced them to turn back.
“We were trying the impossible,” Varone said, but were forced to turn around to avoid “seriously endangering the lives of the rescue workers,” and adding that “sometimes you have to bow before nature.”
Five members of the group were eventually found late Sunday and two of the bodies were dug out from snow when the group was found, according to Reuters. Rescuers had advised them to build a snow cave when they first made contact Saturday. Mountain guide Anjan Truffer told Swiss broadcaster SRF that they had tried to follow that advice but weren’t equipped with adequate gear. Meanwhile, local police said on Monday they continued to search for the sixth member of the group.
“Our priority is to find that sixth person,” Varone told the media. “As long as there is hope we will do all we can, but we have to be realistic about the conditions that person has lived through over the past 48 hours.”
