Five bodies found on Mont Blanc

Search parties have found the bodies of five French climbers on Mont Blanc after a group of six went missing on Europe’s highest mountain.

The group and their guide, has been missing since Tuesday night amid bad weather. The party made up of an experienced guide and five trainee outdoor instructorswereattempting to climb the 3.902 metre high Aiguille d’Argentière peak on the Mont Blanc massif.

This brings the death toll to 14 this climbing season alone on the French mountain, with two Belgians found dead on August 2 and seven climbers dying between July 15 and 30  two Irish, two Finnish, one German, one Ukrainian and one French. Local guides are concerned that the mountain is becoming a tourist ‘free-for-all.’

US mountaineer Patrick Sweeney outraged French authorities last month when he was attempting to break the record set by a 10-year-old London boy in reaching the Mont Blanc summit with his 9-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. The family were caught in an avalanche which Sweeney filmed on his head cam and loaded on to YouTube. US broadcasters feted the Sweeney family for their bravery. Denis Crabières president of the French national mountain guides’ union said Sweeney, “was trying to break the record for stupidity.”

The search for the guide, the sixth man, is still ongoing.