Outside Online Staff Report

May 11, 2001 Rob Buchanan, who was on assignment for Outside in Italy when the news of Saari's death reached him, drove to Chamonix on May 10 to offer his support to Erickson and the other skiers. Buchanan sent the dispatch below.

Also, unreported in our notice of May 10: Saari is survived by his girlfriend of many years, Helen, a younger brother and sister, and his parents. His mother and father live in Bozeman, Montana, where a memorial fund to benefit the Friends of the Avalanche Center has been set up. Contributions can be sent to: Hans Saari Memorial Fund, Friends of the Avalanche Center P.O. Box 6799 Bozeman, MT 5977.


Date: 5/11/01 3:18 AM
From: Robbuc

On Saturday, May 5, Nat Patridge, an Exum guide and also head guide at Jackson Hole Resort, got caught in a slough on the glacier Ronde below the Aiguille Du Midi, and fell all the way down the exit couloir some 800 meters, breaking his tib-fib, but remarkably not injuring his head. Seven people were with him, including his travel partners Kris Erickson, Hans Saari and Mark Holbrook; due to fog and low clouds they had to evacuate him via mid-station on the tram, a ten-hour process. Patridge was alert throughout and seemed fine after surgery, but the next day slipped into coma. His doctors realized the coma was the result of a fatty embolism -- fat from bone marrow leaking into blood and thence transported to brain -- and soon got on top of it. I saw Nat yesterday (May 10), and he was well on the way to recovery -- alert and talking, sitting up. I think he is out of the woods.

Three days after Patridge's fall, on Tuesday, May 8, Kris and Hans went back up the mountain to ski the Gervasutti Couloir on the east face of the Mont Blanc de Tacul. Because the couloir was by all reports in perfect skiing condition, they and several others hiked the fast way to the top (around the back of the mountain) rather than climb up the gut of the thing as traditional ski mountaineering practice would dictate. Hans took one look down it and, as Kris says, "knew right away that he could ski it." And so he talked Kris into skipping it and trying something else that he had been eyeing all morning, a separate entrance to the Gervasutti that leads directly off the summit and is skiers right of the regular entrance. It is steep (60 degree-plus) and has only been skied a handful of times, first by Pierre Tardivel five or six years ago. Before the trip, Hans had talked about meeting Pierre, and possibly skiing with him, and I suspect skiing this route on the Gervasutti was a sort of tribute to Tardivel -- and something that would make phoning him later less intimidating. The snow on top was hard, but well bonded to the ice below. Hans led the way down, taking a few turns and then pulling to a stop in what seemed like a protected spot beneath a sheltering serac. But the snow there was more shaded than elsewhere, and hadn't bonded, and Hans knew he was in a bad place right away. "Don't come down here," he told Kris. "I'm losing it." He then began to slide. A minute later his edges let go. He tumbled over the edge and out of sight.

A guide on the ridge saw the whole thing and called in the Gendarmerie's helicopter right away. The helicopter arrived in ten minutes and the paramedics found Hans hung up in some rocks most of the way down the face. They plucked him off and then landed on the glacier lower down to try to stabilize him. It was too late, though; Hans was too badly broken up. They flew him directly to Geneva, where he was pronounced dead.