29-year-old French skier dies in avalanche in Patagonia

Juliette Willmann, a 29-year-old French tourist, died on Tuesday after being caught in an avalanche on Cerro Crestn, in the Lago del Desierto area in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz. The news was reported by the provincial Security Ministry.

Her partner, also French, was rescued with minor injuries and is out of danger. The two were skiing when the avalanche struck in a high-mountain area.

The monitoring system received an emergency beacon alerting authorities to an avalanche in the area. The National Parks Administrations emergency protocols were activated and an intensive rescue operation was immediately launched involving personnel from the National Parks, the National Gendarmerie, the Provincial Agrarian Council, Civil Defense and medical teams.

A first search party headed toward the affected area, followed by additional rescuers who arrived from El Chaltn, 35 kilometers away.

After several hours of searching, rescuers located the two tourists. They confirmed that the woman had died, while her partner was evacuated and taken for medical treatment. According to initial reports, he is out of danger.

Cerro Crestn is part of the Andes near Lago del Desierto, an area frequented by ski mountaineers. The activity combines traverses and climbs through mountainous terrain, with routes that can include steep slopes and exposed sections.

A prominent athlete  Willmann was born in Marseille and was a professional skier specializing in freeride and ski mountaineering. 

She spent her childhood living in the Ubaye Valley in the Southern Alps and later moved to Chamonix, one of the major centers of mountaineering.

She initially competed in alpine skiing before moving on to international competitions, including the Freeride World Tour (FWT), where she competed from 2019 to 2022.

In 2024, she released a documentary titled RISE with Juliette Willmann, in which she described her life as an athlete and her passion for the mountains.

When I started venturing in the high mountains, I would see guys doing incredible tricks at full speed and I would say to myself: Wow, I want to do that, she said in the documentary.

Before her death, she had been traveling through the Patagonian Andes with her partner, where they completed several ski routes. The last post she shared on her personal Instagram account featured a series of photos and videos from Cerro Madsen, near El Chaltn.

In the post, which she shared two days earlier, she wrote: We feel very lucky to be here, in the mountains of Patagonia, exploring this incredible place.