Italian Tourist Dies After Avalanche Buries Him on Off-Piste Run in Austria

Italian Tourist Killed by Avalanche on Off-Piste Run in Austria

An Italian tourist has died after being buried by an avalanche while skiing off-piste in Marchkopf, Austria. Federico Giubilato, 41, was caught in the slide on Saturday afternoon alongside a friend. His companion survived with a hand injury. Federico did not.

What Happened on the Mountain

Federico and his 36-year-old friend, both from Bassano del Grappa in northern Italy, were skiing off-piste when the avalanche hit. The slide was approximately 820 feet wide and buried Federico under around 5.2 feet of snow and ice.

His friend managed to free himself and called for help. Mountain rescue teams arrived by helicopter roughly 30 minutes after the call. It took a further 30 minutes to dig through the snow and reach Federico's body. By that point, the mechanical engineer had died. He would have turned 42 the following Monday.

Who Was Federico Giubilato

By all accounts, Federico was someone who lived life on his own terms. He was an experienced extreme sports participant — regularly riding downhill mountain bikes, surfing, climbing, and freeskiing. He wasn't new to risk, and he wasn't new to consequences.

In 2019, he suffered a serious injury during one of his outdoor pursuits and spent more than two years recovering. During that time, he wrote openly about the experience, reflecting on how quickly things can go wrong in the mountains and what it takes to come back from a serious setback. The desire to return to the things that made him feel alive, as he put it, clearly never left him.

Europe's Avalanche Season Is One of the Worst on Record

Federico's death is not an isolated incident. This has been a particularly deadly season across Europe's alpine regions. The combined avalanche death toll across France, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria has already surpassed 60 for the season — a figure experts attribute to an unusually weak snowpack across the continent.

The problem, according to avalanche specialists, is structural. A weak base layer of snow at the ground level creates an unstable foundation. When fresh snow accumulates on top, those upper layers have very little holding them in place. The result is a season where conditions have been consistently more dangerous than usual across multiple countries.

Avalanche expert Alain Duclos has warned that the situation is not improving, telling The Sun that Europe should expect more slides — and that those slides are likely to be wider and more powerful than what has already been seen this season.

Other Recent Avalanche Incidents Across Europe

Federico's death follows a series of fatal avalanche events across the Alps in recent weeks. Just days earlier, a separate avalanche in Val Ridanna, Italy killed two people and seriously injured three others. Of the ten people caught in that slide, seven sustained injuries of varying severity.

In a separate incident, a 21-year-old Slovakian skier died instantly when a slab of snow broke loose above him while skiing off-piste, according to Styrian police. An Austrian man, aged 41, was also completely buried by an avalanche in the Tyrol region around the same time.

The Off-Piste Risk This Season

If you're planning to ski off-piste in Europe right now, or at any point during the remainder of this season, the message from experts is straightforward — the risk is higher than normal, and conditions remain unstable across a wide area. That applies regardless of experience level or how many days you've spent in the mountains.

Checking local avalanche forecasts before heading out, carrying the right safety equipment, and skiing with a companion who knows what to do in an emergency are the baseline minimums. This season has been a harsh reminder of what can happen when conditions turn.