A British mountain guide who wrote a book on how to avoid avalanches was in France’s Mont Blanc range, the United Kingdom’s Home Office announced. Roger Payne, 55, was shepherding a group of climbers up Mont Maudit when the avalanche hit. Payne, who lived in Leysin, Switzerland, was a former general secretary of the British Mountaineering Council. In an interview with ITV, mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington said that there was no way Payne could have predicted the slide. “Roger was an expert on avalanche danger, he actually taught it, instructed it, but that doesn’t make any difference,” he said. “They are unpredictable.”
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