Eight of the nine missing skiers from Tuesday’s Blackbird Mountain Guides party have been found dead. The ninth is presumed deceased. The mission at Castle Peak is no longer a rescue.
Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon stepped to the podium Wednesday morning and said what the families already knew. Eight of the nine skiers missing since Tuesday’s avalanche at Castle Peak had been found dead. The ninth had not been recovered but was presumed deceased. The mission, she said, had moved from rescue to recovery.
With that, the Castle Peak avalanche became the deadliest in the United States since 1981, when 11 climbers were killed on Mount Rainier, Washington. It is the deadliest avalanche in California history.
Fifteen people had been on the trip. Six survived. Nine did not. Click here to read a statement from Blackbird Mountain Guides on the tragedy.
What Happened After the Snow Stopped Moving
According to NPR and the Associated Press, the survivors’ first hours after the slide were spent trying to help people they could no longer save. While they waited for rescue teams to reach them through the blizzard, the survivors located three bodies in the debris. They sheltered using whatever equipment they had, in temperatures below freezing, for most of the afternoon and into the evening.
Rescuers made contact through iPhone SOS messages, according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office. According to NPR, at least one of the Blackbird Mountain guides was able to send texts. The survivors were told to shelter in place and await a snowcat and ski team working toward them through conditions that made any faster approach impossible.
According to the sheriff’s office, rescue teams reached the six survivors just before sunset – around 5:30 p.m., roughly six hours after the avalanche hit. Two were transported to hospital for treatment. All had sustained injuries.
As reported by Captain Russell Greene at Wednesday’s press conference, the avalanche gave the group almost no warning. “Someone saw the avalanche, yelled avalanche, and it overtook them rather quickly,” he said.
Who They Were
Authorities had not released the names of the victims as of Wednesday evening, waiting to give families time. As Sheriff Moon told reporters: “They’re still reeling. I could not imagine what they’re going through.”
Sugar Bowl Academy, the private ski and snowboard training program located on Donner Summit, confirmed in a statement Wednesday evening that multiple members of its community were among those killed. “We are an incredibly close and connected community,” Executive Director Stephen McMahon said in a prepared statement. “This tragedy has affected each and every one of us.”
According to the sheriff’s office, one skier had pulled out of the trip at the last minute, which is why the group numbered 15 rather than the 16 initially reported.
What the Mountain Is Still Doing
The investigation into Blackbird Mountain Guides’ decision-making is underway. Sheriff Moon, as reported by CAP Radio, was careful but direct at Wednesday’s press conference. “Those are the decisions the guide company clearly had made,” she said of the choice to travel Tuesday. “We’re still in conversation with them on the decision factors that they made.”
Sierra Avalanche Center forecaster Ethan Feutrier offered the clearest picture of why this is not yet over. According to CAP Radio, he told reporters Wednesday that the avalanche – roughly a football field in length – released when a persistent weak layer collapsed under the weight of the new snow stacked on top of it. That weak layer, the faceted crystals that had been building since the dry spell weeks ago, is still there. “That persistent weak layer has reloaded with another three feet of snow,” he said. “The hazard remains high.”
The snowpack that killed nine people on Tuesday has not resolved. It has grown heavier.
The Weight of the Numbers
As reported by Fox Weather and the Associated Press, this is the deadliest avalanche in the United States since the National Avalanche Center began collecting systematic data in 1981. In the 44 years of that record, nothing in this country has been worse.
The Sierra Avalanche Center had issued its HIGH danger warning at 5 a.m. Tuesday, hours before the Blackbird Mountain Guides party began their return to the trailhead. The bulletin had specifically warned that avalanches could run through treed terrain. The weak layer problem had been documented for weeks.
None of that is an indictment of the people who died. They were serious backcountry travelers on a guided trip with professional leadership. The question of what Blackbird Mountain Guides knew, weighed, and decided on Tuesday morning is now a matter for investigators. It is not a question this article can answer.
What can be said is this: the Sierra Avalanche Center’s language on Tuesday was not ambiguous, the snowpack’s character had been established since January, and nine people who left the Frog Lake huts that morning did not make it back to the trailhead.
The mountain said what it was going to do. It did it.
What Comes Next
Recovery operations at Castle Peak are ongoing, pending weather. More storms are forecast through the week. The persistent weak layer, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center, remains loaded and dangerous.
Authorities are asking anyone with information about Tuesday’s incident to contact the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office. Names of the victims will be released once all families have been notified.
The Sugar Bowl Academy community is grieving. The Truckee backcountry community is grieving. The families are still reeling, as the sheriff said.
There will be time for a full accounting of decisions made and not made, warnings heeded and not heeded, and what the guided backcountry industry owes its clients in conditions like these. That accounting will come. It should come.
For now, the mountain still has one person that hasn’t been brought home.
This is a developing story. Radnut will continue to update as the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office releases information.
