Six French climbers killed in fall on Mont Blanc

The climbers, taking part in a two-week mountaineering course with a guide, died on Western Europe's highest mountain, officials said Wednesday, after a night of snow and wind.

|
Patrick Gardin/AP/File
Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest mountain on Feb. 19, 2003.

[Updated at 2:30 p.m. EDT]

Six French climbers died in a fall on France's Mont Blanc after a night of snow and wind on Western Europe's tallest mountain, officials said Wednesday.

August is the height of the climbing season on Mont Blanc, where even in the warmest months storms can strike quickly. High winds buffeted the area where the group fell, said Jean-Baptiste Estachy, head of the Mont Blanc rescue squad.

Estachy said five bodies were found Wednesday morning and the body of the sixth victim was later pulled out from the bottom of a crevasse.

The six included five experienced climbers and a guide. An investigation to uncover the exact cause of the accident was underway.

The climbers were taking part in a two-week mountaineering course with the guide and were reported missing overnight when they failed to return to a refuge. They had been on a planned trip to the Aiguille d'Argentiere, which tops out at 12,800 feet.

Mont Blanc, in addition to its primary peak, contains some 200 summits and touches France, Switzerland and Italy. Thousands try to climb its peaks each year and an average of 59 people are killed annually in accidents on its slopes, according to the Chamoniarde, a safety association.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Six French climbers killed in fall on Mont Blanc
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0813/Six-French-climbers-killed-in-fall-on-Mont-Blanc
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe