Submitted by ChamonixNews on
On the morning of Friday 28 July 2023, a Czech mountaineer was found dead at the foot of Mont Maudit (4,465 m). The previous evening, the 53-year-old man, departed alone from the Cosmiques Refuge, in the direction of Mont Blanc via the Trois Monts. Early in the morning of the 28th, the wife of the mountaineer called the Chamonix PGHM. She was concerned that she had not received a phone call from her husband and she had not been able to call him.
After receiving the call, a team from the Chamonix High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon (PGHM) boarded a Choucas 74 helicopter at their base in the Bois du Bouchet. The 3000 metre ascent was rapid and soon, the search began.
First, they found the climber's ice axe at the Col de Maudit. After that, it did not take long to locate his body some 400 metres below. Paramedics on the PGHM team pronounced the man deceased and the body was recovered, in the helicopter to the Bois du Bouchet.
As with all fatal accidents in the Mont Blanc massif, an investigation was opened, but the early indication is that during the climber's descent from the Maudit, an ice screw detached and the climber fell 400metres down the steep north west face of the Col.
