The guardians of the snow: "People don't do their research and, out of ignorance or recklessness, they climb the poorly formed mountain."

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 Mount 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 struck. which would end the life of the 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 sport," explains Montse Bacardit, a 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 more intensively. The Center works on predicting avalanche danger in the Vall d'Aran region with a daily bulletin prepared by a technical team in snow science and avalanchesAvalanches are a 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 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 their inhabitants. Or even further back in time, the avalanche that devastated Tavascan during the 16th century. Avalanches are part of life in the mountains, but things changed especially from the second half of the 20th century onwards, with more avalanches caused by human activity, making the work of people who strive to understand snow, provide defense systems against natural avalanches, establish avalanche danger prediction programs and accident awareness more necessary.

People like Montse Bacardit. This professional at the Lauegi Center is a snow specialist. When the Pyrenees experience a winter of abundant and continuous snowfall, as is the case this year, her workload increases, since the avalanche risk is high and there's no respite from it. "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 on avalanche-prone terrain," she explains. Snow is fascinating and complex. That's why every week the technical team at the Lauegi Center has to ski many kilometers to gather as much information as possible and produce a more thorough bulletin, essential for anyone wanting to enjoy the mountains. Kilometers and kilometers of skiing to gather information, making cuts in the snow, analyzing all its layers to see if it's stable or unstable, the temperature gradient, the hardness... Everything necessary to draw conclusions and decide if an area falls into one of five avalanche risk categories. "Once the snow arrives and there's a sufficient initial layer for skiing, it's time to go out and document it," explains Montse. Depending on many meteorological variables, the snow is more or less stable, that is, more or less prone to avalanches. A wealth of information that, in the hands of professionals, can be used to inform 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 caused by 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 and Canada, improved protection policies have made it rare to experience natural avalanches with fatalities 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. They create and disseminate avalanche bulletins and can determine avalanche danger and, if necessary, carry out controlled explosions to trigger them. A year ago, they also began working with artificial intelligence to more objectively predict avalanche danger. In recent seasons, data confirms a trend toward warmer winters with less snow, but that doesn't mean there's no danger in dry winters: "The danger is always there, even when there has been little snowfall. The danger exists whether you're an amateur or a professional. Unfortunately, some accidents affect someone with the experience of four people. In 2025, a mountaineer 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 professionals, it's a wake-up call for amateurs too. It's important that people are informed." "Sometimes it's frustrating because people don't do their research, and out of ignorance or recklessness, they go up the mountain poorly trained and with objectives ill-suited to the conditions," he explains. For example, he reminds us that you should always go out with basic equipment consisting of a shovel, a 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 need to be able to help someone who gets trapped under the snow. According to studies, more than 90% of people buried alive 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 Swiss resort and two Japanese ones. 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 filmed herself being swept a few meters up the slopes of Hortell in Andorra during an avalanche. Masip was alone off-piste at over 2,400 meters, accompanied only 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 they're overconfident. Or maybe it's a phenomenon of seeking adventure and 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 going down everywhere as if there were no tomorrow."

A tragic winter

This season, 10 people have already 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 forecasting for the entire Vall d'Aran area, as well as specific avalanche prediction and monitoring for the roads leading to the Bonaigua pass and the access road to Beret. And we have the Avalanche Hazard Bulletin"This bulletin, which can be consulted on the website," he explains. It is available online, translated into seven different languages ​​to make it accessible. The technical team is part of the Association for the Knowledge of Snow and Avalanches, which, with 40 instructors, offers courses at hiking centers and to anyone who wants to be prepared. 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 Survey of Catalonia, and Joan Manuel Vilaplana, known to everyone as Nué, a professor at the Faculty of Geology of the University of Barcelona. They had been studying avalanches with the aim of preventing accidents, so they decided to do the same in the Pyrenees. They had to start from scratch, so they asked Henri Pejouan, from Perpignan, a member of the National Association for the Study of Snow and Avalanches (Den 'el van van'), for help in training. from Anena 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. Snow and Avalanches—and Jordi Gavaldà. Both would be key in organizing the first network of snow data observers, 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 danger bulletin, once a week. The idea of ​​publishing it on Thursdays was to offer the information to people who were going skiing on the weekend. The challenge was to reach as many people as possible, so they sought the collaboration of the Federation of Hiking 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 the 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 to ask 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 illness, the first Avalanche Hazard Bulletin for the Catalan Pyrenees was issued in December 1990. By then, Jordi Gavaldà was already based in Vall d'Aran, collecting data from observers at mountain refuges via radio and sending it for the Bulletin. Gavaldà took over the project in 1991, when 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 blocked for many days. Avalanches destroyed houses... Although there were no fatalities, that winter made it clear that we had to implement our own avalanche prediction service. And so the Lauegi Center was founded, located in the Innovative Business Center (CEI) of Casau, which today has become a benchmark for avalanche prediction in the Pyrenees and is part of the European Avalanche Warning Services. "The center was initially created to make specific predictions for the Aran Valley and local roads, but it has grown." At first it was just Jordi, but then a second technician, Ivan Moner, joined. He's been working on another project for the last two winters and has been replaced by Sara Orgué. "Daily," explains Bacardit. A team that applies European standards for forecasting and publishing the bulletin.

In the Pyrenees, different bulletins are produced, including those issued by EAWS (European Avalanche Warning Services), the European entity that guarantees professionalism. Apart from the one from Lauegi Center, we have what theCartographic and Geological Institute of CataloniaContinuing the work begun by Bosch and Vilaplana in the 1980s, Météo-France also publishes a bulletin for the French Pyrenees, while the Andorran government and AEMET, the Spanish weather agency, each issue their own. Finally, a new official public bulletin for the Aragonese Pyrenees, a project led by Ivan Moner, is about to be released. These professionals are working to raise awareness among all snow lovers, reminding them to exercise caution. Danger is always present, coexisting with the beauty of these unique landscapes.