Cousins' friend Roger Payne, 55, was one of three Britons killed on Mont Maudit on Thursday.

BBC: Why risk an avalanche to climb?

John Taylor, 48, from Upper Poppleton, near York, died on 12 July 2012 on Mont Maudit, along with 47-year-old Steve Barber and Roger Payne, 55.

BBC: Avalanche victim John Taylor leaves 'lasting legacy'

Standing at 4, 465m (14, 649ft) and covered in a treacherous carpet of snow and ice, Mont Maudit near Chamonix, is a challenge for the most intrepid climbers.

BBC: Why risk an avalanche to climb?

The route the climbers were taking up Mont Maudit is very popular with alpinists tackling the mighty Mont Blanc, said Alexis Hennebelle of Radio Mont Blanc.

CNN: 9 dead in France avalanche, police say

Two groups of climbers were caught in the avalanche on the north side of Mont Maudit in the Mont Blanc range, near Chamonix on the French-Italian border, police said.

CNN: 9 dead in France avalanche, police say

The first many people had heard of him was when, in early July, an avalanche caused by a toppling ice-block swept him away, with eight others, on Mont Maudit, beside Mont Blanc.

ECONOMIST: Roger Payne

French critics of the 1940s and 1950s made a cult of the film maudit, the film doomed to ruin at the hands of producers and distributors who took it upon themselves to re-edit or suppress a director's work.

ECONOMIST: Film��s great might-have-been