A professional skier has died after being swept 1,300ft down a mountain and buried beneath five feet of snow in a horror avalanche.
French freeride star Juliette Willmann, 29, was ski touring with her husband Pierre-Idris Mehdi when the avalanche struck on Cerro Crestón near El Chaltén, Argentina.
The pair were at around 3,100m (10,171ft) above sea level when the mass of snow broke loose at around 12.30pm yesterday (29 Sep).
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Both were swept around 400m (1,312ft) down the mountain, with Juliette becoming buried beneath around five feet of snow.
Pierre-Idris, 30, survived the avalanche with injuries and was rescued.
A distress beacon was activated around 15 minutes after the avalanche, while other skiers in the area began desperately digging through the snow.
Juliette was eventually found without vital signs and medics guided attempts to perform CPR by radio, as reported by Need To Know.
But despite efforts to save her, she died.
A major operation involving national parks officials, mountain rescue teams, police, civil defence and medical staff was then launched to recover her body from the remote mountain.
Juliette was a professional freeride and ski mountaineering athlete who competed on the prestigious Freeride World Tour between 2019 and 2022.
Born in Marseille, she grew up in the Ubaye Valley in the French Alps and first began skiing aged just two.
She came from a family of skiers, with her dad working as a ski coach, her mum as a ski instructor and her older sister competing for the French alpine skiing team.
Juliette initially competed in alpine skiing before moving into freeride and later high-mountain skiing.
After moving to Chamonix, she made a name for herself on the international freeride scene before turning her attention to big-mountain skiing and filmmaking.
She also practised judo, running, mountain biking and rugby.
Speaking in a 2024 documentary, Juliette said: “In the mountains you are vulnerable. The mountains decide and you have to listen to them, you have to respect them.”
She added: “Experience plays an important role, but I’m still at the beginning of the process.”
Juliette had travelled to some of the world’s most extreme mountain environments, including Nepal’s Dhaulagiri region, where she skied at around 19,700ft in 2024.
She and her husband had been travelling through Patagonia in the days before the tragedy, sharing pictures and videos of their adventures.
In her final Instagram post from Cerro Madsen near El Chaltén, she wrote: “We feel so lucky to be here, in the mountains of Patagonia, exploring this amazing place.”
She added: “This trip in South America keeps blowing our mind.”
The circumstances surrounding the avalanche remain under investigation.
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