The freeride community is mourning Juliette Willmann, the 29-year-old French skier from Chamonix who died in an avalanche on Cerro Creston in Argentine Patagonia on September 29. She was ski touring roughly 35km from El Chalten with her husband, mountain guide Pierre-Idris Mehdi, when a snow slab released beneath them at around 12:30 pm. Both were swept roughly 400m down the mountainside.
Willmann was found buried about 1.5m under the snow. Rescuers attempted CPR, but she could not be revived. Her husband was injured in the slide but survived and was evacuated. An investigation into the precise circumstances is underway, as reported by Alpine Mag.
Willmann was a serious competitor, not a casual backcountry skier. She took the overall win at the Freeride World Qualifier in 2018, then spent four seasons on the Freeride World Tour between 2019 and 2022. Her strongest year was 2021, when she finished second in two events and fourth overall. After leaving the competition circuit she shifted her focus to high-mountain skiing, which is what brought her to Patagonia in the southern hemisphere spring.
The area around El Chalten has become a magnet for ski tourers and splitboarders chasing big, remote lines in the Andes — Cerro Creston among them. But it is also a place where spring conditions can be volatile: lingering winter snowpack, strong winds and rapid warming cycles all conspire to create slab avalanche risk, even for experienced parties travelling with a professional guide. The incident is a stark reminder that the same terrain that draws riders to Patagonia demands genuine respect for forecasts, timing and terrain assessment.
For anyone planning a spring ski trip to the region, the takeaway is not to stay away, but to plan carefully — travel with certified guides, check local avalanche bulletins daily, and be willing to turn around when the snowpack tells you to.
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