A sudden snowstorm in Chile’s iconic Torres del Paine National Park has left five foreign hikers dead, according to authorities in the Magallanes region, on November 17. The victims include two Germans, two Mexicans, and one British woman, regional director of Conaf, Chile’s national forestry corporation, José Antonio Ruiz confirmed on Sunday. According to Ruiz, rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that “there were no park rangers on the night” because of mandatory voting in Chile’s presidential election. The rescue was instead run by volunteers, some from the hiking group of 30 the deceased were part of.
The hiking group was trekking in the backcountry when a blizzard swept across the area. According to Tom Player, who spoke with British newspaper the Guardian, the tourists were concerned about the weather conditions ahead of the trek, but were told by staff that there was no reason the hike could not go ahead. Nine people went missing on Monday last week, as heavy snowfall and winds of up to 120 miles per hour swept across the Patagonian range. While four hikers were found fairly soon by the volunteers, the remaining five were harder to locate and were found in state of serious hypothermia. Those still alive were carried down on home made stretcher, made from hiking poles, tarp and duct tape.
According to British press, the British hiker has been identified as 40-year-old Victoria Bond. The Mexican victims were identified as Cristina Calvillo Tovar and Julian Garcia Pimentel, while the German nationals were named as Nadine Lichey and Andreas von Pein. Bond’s friend and hiking partner Christian Aldridge describes the rescue efforts in an interview with Sky News, to recover the last five climbers, including his friend Victoria Bond. Several were still alive and in serious states of hypothermia. Aldridge tells the heartbreaking account of his friend Bond succumbing to a hypothermia-induced cardiac arrest. Aldridge also shared his account of events on social media.
“We followed the official trail and the planned itinerary, and we set off from Los Perros after being told the route was open and safe. There were no rangers present at the camp when we arrived at the camp the previous evening or the following morning when we set off. We later learned this was due to staff being away for government voting. Normally rangers are the ones who assess weather conditions and close the pass if it becomes unsafe.
The weather changed with terrifying speed and conditions became extreme. By this point we were in a large group of experienced trekkers we had been travelling with. We turned back and did everything we could to get ourselves and each other down. Once down, a volunteer group of trekkers formed a search party and risked their lives to help those who were trapped. There was no official search organised by the park authorities that day.
We are sharing this only because people are asking, and because clarity is important. Our fellow trekkers were amazing and supportive and worked incredibly hard under impossible conditions.”
Chile’s President Gabriel Boric offered condolences on X, writing:
“I would like to express my deepest condolences to the families, friends, and relatives of the five people of Mexican, German, and British nationality who unfortunately died in the tragedy in Torres del Paine. You can rest assured that you can count on the full support of Chilean authorities and institutions in these difficult times.”
Survivors from the group reject suggestions by Chilean authorities that the deceased hikers were ‘lost.’ Player told the Guardian, “We’ve been relentlessly trying to correct the record. Claiming that anyone got lost—four out of the five people were on the trail. I saw three of them in my efforts to go up. Our friend Victoria…was on the trail. To claim they got lost is really upsetting and inflammatory. We have GPS data to back it all up.” It’s a sentiment shared by Aldridge, who shared a lengthy message on social media (below), in which he stressed that “something needs to change to prevent such a tragedy from happening again,”
Investigations into the exact causes of this tragedy are still ongoing. CONAF announced in a public statement that the organization “will review the safety and communication protocols in the park’s circuits together with the concessionaires, with the aim of strengthening prevention and emergency response capacity.”
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