63-Year-Old Ski Tourer Dies In Avalanche On Breitenberg Mountain Near Ostlerhütte | 1st Avalanche Fatality In Bavaria Since 2014
Breitenberg Mountain, Germany – On Tuesday, March 1, 2016 a 63-year-old ski tourer was killed in an avalanche on the north face of Breitenberg Mountain (1838 meters) in the Allgäu Alps in Bavaria in Germany.
The skier left the Ostlerhütte, a cedar inn overlooking the Pfronten valley, and planned to ski a popular ski route back to the valley. As he descended the north face of Breitenberg Mountain, he triggered an avalanche that was 10 meters wide by 20 centimeters deep. The avalanche carried the skier 100 meters into a gully and buried him.
The avalanche was witnessed by an observer in the valley who spotted it through binoculars. This witness called the authorities. Emergency responders included 50 mountain rescuers, 9 avalanche search dogs, police and army helicopters, 16 police officers, and officials from the alpine Einsatzgruppe police.
The responders quickly recovered the victim using search dogs and avalanche transceivers. An emergency doctor attempted to resuscitate the man for 45 minutes, but was unsuccessful.
Earlier in the day another group of ski tourers had skied the same route back to the valley and had not triggered an avalanche.
After several days of heavy snowfall, the Lawinenwarndienst Bayern called the avalanche danger moderate on Tuesday, but bumped it up to considerable above 1600 meters on Wednesday.
This is the first avalanche fatality in the Bavaria in two years. The last one occurred on April 6, 2014 when ski tourers died on Steinköpfle at Immenstadt.
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