At Pic du Midi, It wasn’t his time. A 47-year-old tourist escaped with minor bruises after falling several hundred meters on Thursday evening. A “great scare” for this woman from Dordogne who was attempting to climb the Pic du Midi on snowshoes, the high mountain gendarmerie platoon (PGHM) said on Friday.
Rescuers, alerted on Thursday at 5:30 p.m., intervened by helicopter to help him. They were able to see that she had miraculously not hit an obstacle while sliding down the slope.
Poorly equipped
With her partner and her two children, she had decided to begin the ascent of the Pic du Midi (2,877 meters) with only snowshoes. “It was a poorly equipped family” because “all the slopes are covered in snow and the snowshoe does not hold,” a non-commissioned officer from the PGHM from Pierrefitte-Nestalas explained to AFP.
Faced with these “winter conditions”, mountaineering equipment is essential: helmet, crampons, ice axe, good shoes and “possibly a piece of rope if the people we are accompanying do not feel comfortable”, a he listed. The woman, evacuated with her family, “was seen by a doctor and she was able to continue her vacation,” he concluded.
The mishap did not seem to discourage the fans. “We continued to get calls today from people who wanted to try the Peak again on snowshoes, and we strongly advise them against it,” said the non-commissioned officer.