"People don't get informed and, out of ignorance or recklessness, they climb the mountain poorly trained."

BarcelonaOn February 17, 1930, an avalanche in the Catalan Pyrenees claimed the life of Heinz Baldauf, a 21-year-old Italian skier. Baldauf was in La Molina to participate in a race of the Catalan Ski Championship, a competition in which he finished in eighth place. The following day, accompanied by Englishman Herbert Glaeser, he decided to climb Puig d'Alp. But 1930 was unlike any other year. The people of Cerdanya still remember it as "the year of the snow," as it snowed relentlessly for days, blocking roads and tearing off roofs. On that February 17, the two young men became lost in the Set Fonts valley area, and an avalanche brought their lives to an end. the life of the young South Tyrolean"It's an important date. For the first time, a person lost their life in a documented avalanche in the Pyrenees due to a recreational activity, in this case, a sporting event," explains Montse Bacardit, technician at the Lauegi d'Aran Center, the public avalanche prediction service of the Conselh Generau d'Aran. The tragedy that ended Baldauf's life was most likely caused by the skiers themselves, overloading the slope and triggering the avalanche.

As winter approaches, the staff at the Lauegi Center know they will have to work harder. This center works on predicting avalanche danger across the Vall d'Aran region. a daily bulletin prepared by a technical team in snow science And avalanches. Avalanches are part of life in the mountains; they always have been. In the Pyrenees, there are still songs and hymns dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows that recall tragic days like that Christmas Day in 1803, when an avalanche swept through the village of Àrreu, killing 17 people. Or the tragedy of 1855 in the Toran Valley, when a powder avalanche swept away the hamlets of Era Cassenhau and Pradet, causing the deaths of 55 people, practically all of its inhabitants. Or even further back in time, the one that devastated Tavascan during the 16th century. Avalanches are part of life in the mountains, but from the 20th century onwards, things changed with more avalanches caused by human activity, making the work of those who strive to understand snow and raise awareness about the dangers of avalanches and accidents even more crucial.

People like Montse Bacardit. This professional from the Lauegi Center is a snow specialist. When the Pyrenees experience a winter of abundant and continuous snowfall, as has been the case this year, her workload increases due to the heightened danger. "During these weeks at the heart of winter, we work nonstop, countless hours. This winter has been truly exceptional. Mentally, it's all-consuming, 24 hours a day, because when human activity increases, both recreational and everyday, there's a lot of exposure in avalanche-prone terrain," she explains. Snow is fascinating and complex. That's why every week the technical team at the Lauegi Center goes out skiing for miles, gathering as much information as possible to more carefully prepare their bulletin, essential for anyone wanting to enjoy the mountains. Kilometers and kilometers of skiing to gather as much information as possible, making cuts in the snow, analyzing all its layers to see if it's firm, if it's shifting, its temperature, its consistency... Everything necessary to draw conclusions and decide if that area falls into one of five avalanche danger categories. "Once the snow arrives and there's a sufficient initial layer for sliding, it's time to go out and document it," explains Montse. Depending on the temperature, the snow can shift more or less, for example. A wealth of information that, in the hands of professionals, can be used to alert the public.

Bacardit, born in the Bages region of Spain, studied biology, but her passion for snow led her to specialize as a snow scientist. "I'm a biologist, but while I was studying for my doctorate on mountain ponds, I did a lot of fieldwork in winter conditions and on snow. When I finished my doctoral thesis, I went to Canada, where there are professional courses to specialize in snow science and understand avalanches. I took every course I could in Canada and was lucky enough to find a job. In places like Canada, avalanches are a relatively normal part of life. There, avalanches involving human activity are also frequent and have been documented for over a century, including a fatal case related to railway construction in the early 20th century. In places like the Pyrenees or Canada, improved protection policies have made it rare to experience natural avalanches with victims like those of the early 19th century or those that unfortunately still occur in the Himalayas. The situation is different with avalanches caused by human activity."

"The risk is always there"

The technicians at Lauegi have years of experience understanding the mountains with the help of technology. This allows them to create the avalanche bulletin, provide information, and assess the avalanche risk, and if necessary, carry out controlled explosions to trigger them. A year ago, they also began working with artificial intelligence to better predict what might happen. In recent seasons, data confirms a trend toward warmer winters with less snow, but this doesn't mean there's no danger in dry winters: "The danger is always there, even when there's been little snow. The danger exists whether you're an amateur or a professional. Unfortunately, some accidents affect trained and experienced people," says Montse, from 2025, when she was swept 180 meters down the mountain during a traverse. It was a level 2 avalanche danger day on a scale of 5, but the scare happened. "If it happens to us professionals, it's a wake-up call for amateurs too. It's important that people are informed; sometimes it's frustrating when people don't do their research and, out of ignorance or recklessness, go up the mountain unprepared," he explains. For example, you should always go out with basic equipment consisting of a shovel, probe, and an avalanche transceiver (DVA), an electronic device that transmits and receives an electromagnetic signal, allowing you to quickly locate a buried person. There are also backpacks designed to keep you on the surface in case of an avalanche using an airbag system, as well as helmets. Carrying the safety equipment and knowing how to use it is key, since people usually go out in groups, and you can help someone trapped under the snow. According to studies, more than 90% of people buried in avalanches survive if they can be rescued within the first 10 minutes. After that, the average chance of survival drops dramatically.

Although the trend in recent years has been towards winters with less snow, this year has seen very heavy snowfall. For example, the Port Ainé resort has ranked fourth in the world for snowfall, only behind one in Switzerland and two in Japan. More than three meters of snow in a resort that has been packed to capacity. "When it snows heavily, more people go up, that's normal, but there's also an increased risk of avalanches," says Montse. The more people, the greater the exposure and the greater the risk of accidents. In recent years, some sports have gained more followers, as is the case with ski mountaineering and also with off-piste alpine skiing, known as freeride"To ski off-piste, you need to be trained and cautious, since you're leaving the controlled area of ​​the resort," says Bacardit. This Christmas, a video of the skier specializing in off-piste skiing went viral. freeride Ares Masip, who filmed an avalanche triggering her fall and being swept a few meters to the summit of Hortell in Andorra. Masip was alone off-piste at over 2,400 meters, accompanied by her dog, when she accidentally triggered a slab avalanche that luckily didn't sweep her away. "More and more people are skiing better and more confident. Or maybe it's a phenomenon of seeking adventure or showing off on social media. When the lifts open at the Baqueira-Beret resort the day after a snowfall, it's incredible, but people are everywhere as if there weren't any lifts."

A tragic winter

This season, 10 people have lost their lives in avalanches in the Pyrenees. Even more accidents have been documented, resulting in injuries, almost always related to recreational skiing or snowshoeing. According to data from the Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia, in the last 40 years, more than 50 people have died in over 300 documented accidents. This is why professionals like Montse urge caution and training for anyone planning to go skiing. "At the Lauegi Center, we provide regional forecasts for the entire Vall d'Aran area, as well as specific avalanche predictions and monitoring for the roads of the Bonaigua Pass and the access road to Beret. We also have an Avalanche Hazard Bulletin that is publicly available online," she explains. This bulletin, translated into seven different languages, is accessible to everyone. The technical team is also part of the Association for Snow and Avalanche Knowledge, which, with 40 instructors, offers courses at hiking centers and to anyone who wants to be prepared.

The Lauegi center was established in the 21st century, but the roots of avalanche prediction in the Catalan Pyrenees go back to the 1980s thanks to the initiative of two geology students: Xavier Bosch, who was then working at the newly created Geological Service of Catalonia; and Joan Manuel Vilaplana, known to everyone as NuéBosch and Vilaplana, professors at the Faculty of Geology of the University of Barcelona, ​​discovered that an avalanche danger bulletin was being produced in the Alps to prevent accidents, so they decided to do the same in the Pyrenees. They had to start from scratch, so they asked for help from Henri Pejouan of Perpignan, a member of the...Association Nationale pour l'Étude de la Neige et des Avalanches (ANENA). They received advice from him and saw how doors opened for them to train in an ANENA course in Chamonix. This was the seed of the first snow observer training course, aimed at firefighters and rescuers, which was held at the University of Barcelona in the late 1980s.

Two students from that course were Gloria Furdada, who documented the birth of this school in a Snow and avalanchesand Jordi Gavaldà. Both would be key in organizing the first network of snow data observers. These enthusiasts struggled to raise money to buy equipment, give talks at mountaineering clubs, and train collaborators for data collection, often mountain hut wardens and ski resort lifeguards who provided them with daily data altruistically. After years of improvement and training, participating in conferences in the Alps and the United States, in the 1990-1991 season they decided to take the step of publishing, for the first time, a public Avalanche Hazard Bulletin, once a week. The idea of ​​publishing it on Thursdays was to provide the information to people who went skiing on the weekend. The challenge was to reach more people effectively, so they sought the collaboration of the Federation of Mountaineering Clubs of Catalonia. In an era without the internet, the bulletin would be sent by fax and could be listened to by calling a telephone number where messages would be recorded for broadcast.

Knocking on TV3's door

Furdada even went so far as to personally visit the weather forecasters at Televisió de Catalunya, asking a surprised Alfred Rodríguez Picó and Tomàs Molina to explain that this service would exist on days when heavy snowfall was detected. Although the project suffered a major setback with the death of one of its founders, Xavier Bosch, from an illness, the first Avalanche Hazard Bulletin for the Catalan Pyrenees was issued in December 1990. By then, Jordi Gavaldà was already based in the Vall d'Aran, collecting data from observers at mountain refuges via radio and sending them the bulletin. Gavaldà took over the project in 1991, when Glòria Furdada was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Barcelona.

And it was Gavaldà who would build the project that would eventually become the Lauegi d'Aran Center, under the auspices of the Conselh Generau d'Aran. Since 1990, the Vall d'Aran has had an avalanche technician, Jordi. "The winter of 2003 was a turning point. There was a rather exceptional avalanche crisis that affected the roads, which were closed for many days. Avalanches destroyed houses, caused accidents... Although there were no fatalities, that winter made it clear that a forecasting service for the Vall d'Aran had to be established." And so the Lauegi Center was founded, located in the Innovative Business Center (CEI) of Casau, which today has become a benchmark for avalanche forecasting in the Pyrenees, forming part of the European Avalanche Warning Services. "The center was initially created to make specific predictions for the Vall d'Aran and local roads, but it has grown. At first, it was just Jordi, but then a second technician, Ivan Moner, joined. He's been on another project for the last two winters and has been replaced by Sara Orgué. And finally, I joined in 201." Bacardo. A team that applies European standards for hazard prediction and publication of the BPA.

In the Pyrenees, different bulletins are produced and included within the EAWS (European Avalanche Warning Services), a European entity that guarantees professionalism. Apart from that from the Lauegi center, We have what it takes the Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia Continuing the work begun by Bosch and Vilaplana in the 1980s, Meteo France also publishes a weather bulletin for the French Pyrenees, while the Andorran government and AEMET, the Spanish meteorological agency, each provide their own. Furthermore, a new official public weather bulletin for the Aragonese Pyrenees, adhering to European standards, is about to be released. This project is led by Ivan Moner. These professionals work tirelessly to raise awareness among all snow lovers, urging them to enjoy the snow responsibly. Danger is always present, coexisting with the beauty of these unique landscapes.