Eight skiers were buried alive in a deadly avalanche just north of California’s Lake Tahoe while another remains missing.
The avalanche occurred near the Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada on Tuesday as a 15-person group of backcountry skiers were returning from a three-day journey. Six were rescued, eight were killed, and another remains missing, though presumed dead, per Yahoo News.
Blackbird Mountain Guides, the ski-tour company that led the expedition, said that a total of 11 clients and four guides had been staying in remote huts below the 9,110-foot Castle Peak and were “in the process of returning to the trailhead” when the avalanche struck.
Emergency crews were dispatched around 11:30 a.m. local time. It took about six hours to reach six of the skiers, who were evacuated “with varying injuries,” according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office. Two were taken to the hospital for treatment.
The survivors included one guide and five clients, Moon said. Nine women and six men were on the expedition, she said. Four men and two women survived. The names of the skiers were not released. Moon said that all of the families had been notified.
Nevada County Sheriff Capt. Russell Greene said the skiers, both surviving and deceased, were located with emergency beacons and their iPhone SOS functions
“Someone saw the avalanche, yelled avalanche, and it overtook them rather quickly,” Greene said.
Though the deceased skiers’ bodies were located, they could not be recovered due to the unstable conditions. Search teams will resume recovery when the conditions improve.
It remains unclear if the backcountry expedition ignored a warning from the Sierra Avalanche Center on Tuesday morning following a heavy winter storm
“The potential continues for large to very large avalanches occurring in the backcountry today,” Steve Reynaud of the avalanche center said on Wednesday. “HIGH avalanche danger continues with travel in, near, or below avalanche terrain not recommended.”
The avalanche became the deadliest in U.S. history, seconded only by the 1982 incident at Alpine Meadows Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe, which killed seven people. The 2021 documentary Buried chronicled the deadly ordeal that left only one survivor, Alpine Meadows employee Anna Conrad, who was trapped for five days inside a collapsed resort building.
