14 DAY TRIAL // A British resident by the name of Peter Saunders and his 12-year-old son Charlie have died while hiking in the French Alps over the weekend, reports say.
According to Metro, Saunders lost his son, who fell on a track near Mont Blanc, called emergency services then ventured off to find him.
The Guardian adds that their bodies were recovered in a corridor near the Couloir des Bossons track. The boy took a 300-m (984-foot) fall, while his father fell 200 m (656 feet) trying to locate him.
At approximately 3 p.m. on Saturday, Saunders contacted the Annecy mountain rescue gendarmerie in charge of the Chamonix area, letting them know about his son going missing.
“He said he could no longer see him and couldn't get to him," [...] We think the father tried to find his son after he called us and asked for rescue,” recalls deputy commander Captain Patrice Ribes.
Saunders and his son flew in on Saturday from Geneva and took a chair lift from Bossons until reaching an altitude of about 1,400m (4,600ft).
The father-and-son team were not properly equipped for the hike, failing to carry axes and rope on them and wearing regular hiking shoes, which did not feature crampons.
“They had equipment for a day’s hiking with trekking-type shoes, but not suited to the winter mountains with snow and ice,” Ribes says.
Rescue crews only got to them the next day, scouring foot paths until identifying the spot they were in by using a photograph sent in by the father. They managed to pinpoint the location at 2 a.m. on Sunday and found their bodies at 7.40 a.m.
“We are providing consular assistance to the family at this difficult time,” a spokesperson for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in a statement.