Accident: Face du Charvet E Face, 11:45 Val d'Isère April 1

Part of a group of skiers was taken in an avalanche on the Face du Charvet in Val d'Isère close to mid-day today April 1. One person was taken over a cliff and badly injured (flown in helicpter to the hospital)

The Face du Charvet is an East facing slope that starts at about 2600 m - the base is about 2000 m. I was just finishing my morning on spring snow at about 12:15 on a West face in the Marmottes area when I saw the rescue taking place.

I'm still getting the details on what happened and to who, but it looks like, at about 11.30 -11.45 this morning, a point release avalanche built up above the group (gaining in size with snow from last night and three nights ago - turning into a large size wet loose snow avalanche) and took several of the group with them. One of which was taken over a cliff.

These people, the victim's group, were wrong to be on that East facing slope late in the morning. Even at the best of times, an East facing slope in the Northern French Alps at that altitude should never be skied at that late hour at this time of year. It destroys the spring snow for the rest of us plus it can obviously be very dangerous. Furthermore, we didn't get a good freeze last night; so that slope should not have been skied past 9.30 this morning (and even then I'm doubtful if the snow would have held a skiers weight since it hadn't transformed much either).

Rescuers from the Service des Pistes de Val d'Isère were subject to the danger of at least 3 or 4 big natural avalanches that came down above them while they were trying to do the rescue. During one of these avalanches, I saw the rescuers scattering to the sides of the gully where they were doing the rescue to avoid being taken themselves. The roar of these big wet snow avalanches is impressive and bites at your nerves. The rescuers were right under these secondary avalanches; thier lives were very definitely in danger and that is why part of one the titles of the videos is, "..bravo service des pistes de val d'Ière". Respect to you guys.

For more information on the subject of spring skiing, see the part of my post HAT Snow report for 2 - 8 April under the heading A GUIDE TO SUCCESSFUL SPRING SKIING. I published this post on this blog a couple of days ago.

I don't know any more than this now - photos and vids with commentary are below - if anyone has further information please post it here.

Thank you,

Henry

More photos here on the HAT FB page