Andreas Fransson & JP Auclair Confirmed Dead in South American Avalanche

According to a news report published by Chilean news outlet Publicmetro.cl, extreme skiers Andreas Fransson and JP Auclair have reportedly died in an avalanche that occurred late Monday on Monte San Lorenzo on the Chilean-Argentinean border. Fransson and Auclair traveled last week to southern Chile with filmmaker Bjarne Salén and photographer Daniel Rönnbäck. The group planned to spend two weeks in the Patagonia region to film and shoot a collaborative webisode project.

According to the news report, an avalanche occurred late on Monday on Monte San Lorenzo (12,159 ft.), also known as Monte Cochrane, in the region of Aysén. The slide reportedly ran 700 meters and caught Fransson and Auclair, who have been confirmed dead. Salén and Ronnback were unharmed. Police have surveyed the scene from the air and have dispatched rescue personnel to the area, which lies more than 18 hours from the southern Chilean city of Cochrane.

Andreas Fransson, a Swedish transplant to Chamonix, is known for his extreme skiing feats including a first descent of Denali’s South Face in 2011. He was featured on the January 2013 cover of Backcountry Magazine and profiled in last October’s Ski Bum issue. JP Auclair is a Canadian freeskier, co-founder of Armada skis and most recently known for his street-skiing segment in Sherpa Cinemas’ “All.I.Can.”

October 2, 2014: Trey Cook, who runs the blog Chamonix Insider, posted details to his Facebook page on the accident, as relayed by Stefan Palm, an instructor with the Swedish Mountain Guides Organization (SBO). In the post, Cook says Fransson and Auclair were ascending Monte San Lorenzo when the accident happened. “About two-thirds of the way up,” Cook writes, “they were swept by a snow release very high above them that carried them about 700 meters down the couloir onto a heavily crevassed glacier.”

Salén and Rönnbäck were in place to film the descent but nearly four hours away over the heavily crevassed terrain. Unsuccessfully, they tried to radio Fransson and Auclair before calling Swedish Mountain Guide Per Ås and Argentine climber Rolo Garibotti via satellite phone. Ås contacted Palm, of SBO, who contacted Joaquim Oyaruz, a chilean heli guide, who tried to organize a helicopter rescue. Garibotti contacted Chilean climber Armando Montero, who was en route to San Lorenzo to climb the peak. Montero returned to Cochrane, Chile where he informed local authorities of the accident.

According to Cook, a helicopter flew over the site of the accident at 9 a.m. on September 30, located the bodies of Fransson and Auclair but was unable land due to the complexity of the terrain. Authorities later determined that the accident occurred on the Argentine side of the mountain, which places the recovery mission in the hands of Argentine authorities. “I’ve also received news that Bjarne and Daniel are now safely off the mountain,” Cook writes.

We’ll continue to publish more details on this accident as they become available. –BCM