Pret-Roose Michael de

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Biografie:
The Count Michael de Pret-Roose (1925-1979)
On New Year's Day 1979 a huge avalanche from high up on the Pazzalastock near Andermatt killed Michael de Pret-Roose, his wife Karin, his stepson Nicholas and the guide Ernst Renner; the 2 other members of the party, despite great hardship, survived (see Ski Survey March 1979 for details).
Thus ended an era for British ski-ing. First because of Michael's key role in so many respects: chief instructor of the representatives' course of the Ski Club of Great Britain for many years, organizer and leader of ski-mountaineering courses and tours (often with his close friend, our member Martin Epp), organizing ski-racing champion hips, and off-piste skier extra-ordinary. He was SCGB rep at his home in Andermatt, became a Vice-President of that Club and was awarded the Pery Medal. And secondly, because Michael and Karin's quite exceptional personal kindness and generosity was unobtrusively extended to so many skiers and skimountaineers joining them in these activities.
I first met him on the 1970 SCGB reps' course, and subsequently spent 2 whole months in the mountains with him during the British Alpine Ski Traverse 1972 on which we shared the lead (A) 78 13). He was much the best skier in the party, but added to this his physical strength and fitness and his total commitment and competence in so many aspects of ski-touring. He even walked during the previous autumn the whole section Davos-Andermatt make sure that there would be no route-finding problems on the day; and he or Karin were continuously in touch with the Swiss Avalanche Research Centre before and during the traverse to get the latest information and forecasts of the varying avalanche risk.
Michael was also an outstanding mover on rock and ice, hardly noticing technical difficulties or exposure which slowed others. I understand from Martin Epp that he had done many hard routes in the Andermatt and neighbouring areas; and had also climbed extensively at high standard elsewhere, including the Grand Tetons, Wind River Range and Devil's Tower in North America.
A profile in Ski Survey New Year 1976 made clear the wide range of his interests. After leaving Eton, he served with the 12th Lancers in Italy and Palestine. He then spent 9 years training race horses and playing cricket. As well as ocean racing in his own boat, he sailed with Drumbeat on the Bermuda race and the 1960 Transatlantic race when she lost her mast. He broke his kneecap when he was knocked overboard at the start' of the Fastnet race and settled for the calmer ambience of Brittany where he moved in 1964; and where he built a house in 1969 to which he returned each summer. He called his boat there Rotondo after one of his favourite Andermatt peaks.
There are many skiers and ski-mountaineers who will remember Michael and Karin and the happy days spent with them, with great affection and respect, recognizing that British skiing, and particularly British ski-touring, will never be quite the same again.
Alan Blackshaw
Waiter Kirstein writes:
I went in 3 winter seasons with him; he was a marvellous and most careful leader, in fact he had to handle the office in Andermatt which issued the electronic avalanche apparatus to British panies in the Alps.
He never went without a guide, though he was the most experienced and safest leader I have
ever known. That makes this terrible accident still more tragic.

Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 86, 1981, Seite 270


Geboren am:
1925
Gestorben am:
01.01.1979