Thank god snowboarder Victor Liebenguth and his friends were in the right place at the right time to locate and rescue this woman buried by an avalanche at Verbier. Here is Victor’s account of the incident:
“Avalanche in Verbier, Switzerland. Thursday 30th of January was a hard day, almost one meter of powder landed on a four weeks dry terrain, the avalanche risk was so high (4/5).
We were riding some snug couloirs in Verbier area when we saw an important avalanche going down next door Creblet pass. Maybe 10 people riding at the same time, on the same face. No security precautions at all. Unfortunately, two girls were snowboarding in the middle of the face and the avalanche hit them so hard.
We were the first on-site and immediately started to do the beacon research. We quickly found the first one, the second one was 70m down the face and quickly rescued as well. While digging out the girls people around continued to ski in every direction and the inevitable happened, the second avalanche hit the area and a third person got stuck in it. Fuck that was scary.”
Victor Liebenguth posted the video for educational purposes and had this to say to anyone riding outside of the ropes:
“Verbier is the freeride mecca and everyone riding outside the slopes should have the right equipment, get informed of the conditions and more importantly get trained to mountain safety with institutes like ISTA to have the right reflex and knowledge. Usually not a big fan of watching that kind of content on the socials but I hope this will help a bit in motivating people to get educated.”