Tragedy struck a Dutch family on July 24 high in the Italian Alps on 12,500-foot (3,800-meter) Mont Dolent, a spur peak of Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. The family of five, enjoying a long summer holiday in the mountains, was descending the normal route on Mont Dolent. The route, a popular moderate alpine climb, has some exposed and steep but not difficult snow sections. The mountain, lying on the border of Italy, France, and Switzerland, had another serious accident only the week before.
Ada De Jong, the 50-year-old mother, apparently decided to retreat and descend from the route. While she stopped to rest below, she watched the rest of her family—56-year-old Pieter Hendrik Germs, a doctor, and children Els Adriana, age 23, Mark Pieter, age 20, and Karin Maria, age 17—continue their descent. Then, she said, “I saw my husband fall, then all of my three children, one by one, they all fell. I was watching 200 meters (600 feet) away.” The bodies came to rest on rocks after tumbling 1,600 feet. Needless to say, the mother was hospitalized with severe shock after witnessing the tragedy.
A reconstruction and analysis of the fatal fall was done by the Italian Alpine Emergency Corps. Delfino Viglione, head of the accident recovery crew, told the Dutch newspaper Binnenland, “The Dutch were reasonably experienced and had the proper clothing and equipment. The weather conditions too were excellent. But they were with too many tied to the same cord. Two or three, that’s possible if you descend in a row, but four will soon become too many.” The reconstruction showed that the son led the descent, followed by his two sisters, and the father bringing up the rear above. Viglione says the son stumbled, plucking the sister behind him off too. The other sister was then pulled down by the rope. The father made a heroic effort to self-arrest the fall by plunging his ice axe into the soft snow, but he too was yanked off. “We found traces of his ice axe in the spot where the fall began,” says Viglione.
Italian climber Luca Signorelli looked at the accident based on rescue details and personal information from "reputable sources" and reported on the cause of the accident at UK Climbing’s Forum: “Yesterday the Dolent slope had a bad case of ‘red snow’…snow mixed with sand taken from the altitude winds all the way from North Africa. It's nothing unusual, but it calls for some extra caution. The snow/sand combination, during the hottest hours of the day, makes for a particularly sticky mixture, that may create some serious balls below your crampons…. So one has to be careful and do the usual ‘hit the boot with your axe’ maneuver when moving…. The best guess we can do is that a snowball formed below the crampons of one of the four climbers, who slipped, hit one of his companions and caused the fall of all the team.”
The Alps are dangerous mountains. The Italian side of Mont Blanc sees 15 to 20 fatalities a year, while the French side above Chamonix has 50 to 100. Delfino Viglione, when asked if the mountain should be closed, replied, “But you have to consider that millions of people climb up the mountain, and greatly enjoy it, also because of the adventure. We cannot put an end to that. We can point out the dangers to people, we can make sure they are well-informed and direct them to mountain guides, but ultimately it remains everyone's individual responsibility.''
I send my best wishes, prayers, and condolences to the sole survivor...death in the mountains is never easy or pretty.
Photo above: Delfino Viglione explains to reporters the tragic accident on Mont Dolent.
Photograph courtesy Bennenland
