The skiing community has suffered a heartbreaking loss.
Professional skier Jean Daniel Pession and his girlfriend Elisa Arlian have died in “a tragic mountain accident,” the Italian Winter Sports Federation confirmed June 1. He was 28 and she was 27.
The couple suffered an almost 2,300-foot fall while hiking Mount Zerbion in Aosta Valley, Italy, according to a translated article by Italian outlet RAI. Their bodies were discovered, per the outlet, buried in the snow by search and rescue teams hours after their families reported them missing when they didn’t return from the hike.
“It took hours and hours of flying over to locate them: there were no traces on the rock to suggest where they had fallen,” RAI wrote, per translation. “Perhaps, while they continued along the ridge that divides the north and east faces, they slipped on the snow or the ground gave way.”
The outlet added that a device was able to grab onto one of the couple’s cell phone signals, helping search and rescue narrow in on their location.