An alpinist named Pietro Cosimo captured a scary rock slide on France’s Mont Blanc on July 31. The Italian climber was on his descent from Mont Blanc and had just passed the Couloir du Goûter, known as the “death channel,” when a rock slide tumbled down the snowy section. No one was harmed in the incident, but the video illustrates why passing the couloir has been compared to playing Russian roulette.
“We had just crossed the death canal and were returning from Mont Blanc on the normal French route with other mountaineers, and a minute and a half later, all hell broke loose,” Cosimo wrote in the Alpinisme Massif du Mont Blanc Facebook Group.
The section is an extremely dangerous part of the classic French route to climb Mont Blanc. The corridor connects the Nid d’Aigle and Goûter huts and is known for its many fatal accidents. Between 1990 and 2017, a total of 102 people lost their lives on this section, and another 230 were injured.
Heatwaves have made the passage even more dangerous in recent years, with the melting ice causing more frequent rock slides. Consideration has been given to the construction of a tunnel to prevent unnecessary deaths. The Petzl Foundation has been investigating ways to limit the number of deaths on this popular climbing route, including an alternate route as well as a tunnel option. Mont Blanc is one of the busiest mountains in the world, with an estimated 40,000 climbers attempting the ascent each year. It is recommended that the ascent be commenced early, as a study from June 2020 showed that passing the couloir before 10:00 a.m. is safest. This finding led to adjusting the tramway timetable to allow for earlier ascents of Mont Blanc.
