Hiker falls to his death in Mont Blanc massif, one day after four climbers were found dead on the famous peak

A Danish hiker died on Wednesday in the Mont Blanc massif in the French Alps after slipping from a hiking trail, rescue services said. Just a day earlier, four mountaineers were found dead on the famous peak.

The 61-year-old man was hiking through steep terrain near Saint-Gervais-les-Bains in the Haute-Savoie department in eastern France when he fell about 30 meters, officials said.

The man died instantly as a result of the fall, said the mountain police PGHM in Chamonix.

Wednesday's death occurred one day after four climbers, two Koreans and two Italians, found dead on Mont Blanc even after being stranded for days on the highest peak in the Alps in harsh weather.

The four climbers “died of exhaustion,” the Haute-Savoie prefecture told the AFP news agency.

A senior PHGM commander told the regional daily Le Dauphine Libere that they had briefly reached the Italian climbers by telephone and determined their location at an altitude of 4,600 meters on the north face of Mont Blanc, but then the connection was lost.

At 4,809 metres, Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Western Europe and is very popular with mountaineers from all over the world. However, climbing the mountain is risky.

In 2022, a French mayor said conditions on Mont Blanc were so dangerous that climbers would have to post a €15,000 bail to cover rescue and possible burial costs, the BBC reported. Jean-Marc Peillex, the mayor of Saint-Gervais, criticized at the time “pseudo-mountaineers” who insisted on attempting the climb “with death in their backpack.”