Professional skier Juliette Willmann has died at age 29 after a powerful avalanche swept her hundreds of feet down a mountain in Argentina’s Patagonia region while she was skiing with her husband.
The French freeride star was caught in the avalanche Tuesday on Cerro Crestón, near El Chaltén in southern Argentina, according to officials in Santa Cruz Province.
Willmann and her husband, 30-year-old Pierre-Idris Mehdi, were ski touring in the area when a slab of snow reportedly broke loose around 12:30 p.m.
Authorities said the avalanche dragged the couple roughly 400 meters — about 1,300 feet — down the mountain.
Other skiers in the area raced to help and managed to dig the pair out before formal rescue teams could reach the remote location.
Willmann was discovered buried approximately five feet beneath the snow and had no signs of life when she was found, officials said.
Rescuers attempted CPR with guidance from a doctor communicating by radio, but Willmann could not be revived.
Her husband survived and was conscious when rescuers reached him. Authorities said he did not appear to have suffered serious injuries and was later taken to a medical facility in El Chaltén for evaluation.
The difficult terrain complicated the emergency response.
Santa Cruz officials said the avalanche site can require a four- to five-hour hike from the nearest road, forcing rescue personnel to carry medical equipment, oxygen, a defibrillator and a stretcher into the mountains.
Specialized mountain rescuers from Argentina’s National Gendarmerie, park personnel, medical crews and members of the El Chaltén rescue commission all participated in the operation.
Teams reached the scene shortly before 5 p.m. and formally confirmed Willmann’s death.
Her body then had to be carried by stretcher along the mountain trail before being transported to El Chaltén.
Authorities are continuing to investigate exactly what caused the fatal avalanche.
Preliminary information suggests a slab in the snowpack may have fractured while the couple was ski touring, triggering the slide.
Officials said investigators will also work to determine what injuries ultimately caused Willmann’s death.
Willmann was far from an inexperienced skier.
She was one of France’s best-known female freeride athletes and competed on the Freeride World Tour from 2019 through 2022.
After winning the European qualifier circuit in 2018, she earned a place on the sport’s premier international tour.
Her career included two second-place finishes in Andorra during the 2021 season, and she finished fourth overall in the Freeride World Tour standings that year.
Willmann later stepped away from full-time competition and focused increasingly on big-mountain exploration, steep skiing and adventure projects.
Born in Marseille and raised in the French Alps, she had been skiing since childhood before transitioning from traditional alpine racing into freeride competition.
She eventually made Chamonix, one of Europe’s best-known mountaineering communities, her home.
In the days before her death, Willmann had been documenting her trip through South America with Mehdi.
In one of her final social media posts, she described how fortunate the couple felt to be exploring Patagonia together.
“We feel so lucky to be here,” she wrote, adding that their South American journey continued to amaze them.
The message has taken on heartbreaking significance following the accident.
Willmann had spent years skiing some of the world’s most demanding terrain and was well aware of the risks associated with big-mountain travel.
Her career took her far beyond traditional ski resorts, with expeditions centered on steep, remote and technically challenging mountains.
She had also spoken publicly about the unpredictability of the mountains and the importance of approaching them with respect.
Her death has sent shockwaves through the international freeride community.
Fellow professional skier Jackie Paaso remembered Willmann as talented, intelligent, kind and full of life, while former Freeride World Tour competitor Aymar Navarro described her death as an extraordinarily difficult loss.
The tragedy also comes during what appears to have been an especially happy period in Willmann’s personal life, with reports describing Mehdi as her recently married husband.
The couple had been traveling together through Patagonia before the fatal avalanche.
Willmann leaves behind a reputation as one of the most accomplished French freeriders of her generation — an athlete who moved from racing into some of the most demanding mountain terrain in the world.