A guided party of 15 skiers is caught in a Sierra Nevada blizzard at Castle Peak. Nine remain missing. The forecasters had warned this was coming.
The Sierra Avalanche Center posted its warning at 5 a.m. The language was not ambiguous.
According to the center’s bulletin, HIGH avalanche danger existed in the backcountry, with large avalanches expected to occur Tuesday, Tuesday night, and into at least early Wednesday morning. Travel in, near, or below avalanche terrain was not recommended. Large avalanches, the bulletin warned, might run through treed terrain – the kind of terrain backcountry travelers have historically treated as a refuge when things go wrong.
Six hours later, at approximately 11:30 a.m., a 911 call came into the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office. An avalanche. Castle Peak area. People buried.
By Tuesday afternoon, according to the sheriff’s office, 15 people had been caught in the slide – four mountain guides and 11 clients from Blackbird Mountain Guides. Six survived and were sheltering in a stand of trees near the debris field, awaiting rescue teams fighting through whiteout conditions to reach them. Nine were unaccounted for.
By late Tuesday evening, rescuers had reached all six survivors. All had sustained injuries; two were transported to a hospital for treatment. The search for the nine missing members of the party remains ongoing, pending weather conditions.
The Numbers
According to Blackbird Mountain Guides, the group had been at the Frog Lake backcountry huts since February 15 – a three-day trip through rugged Sierra terrain, carrying all food and supplies. They were not casual day-trippers who had wandered past a boundary rope. They were a guided party with professional leadership on a serious multi-day alpine undertaking.
According to Sierra Avalanche Center forecaster Steve Reynaud, the group was returning to the Castle Peak trailhead near Boreal – a 3.5-mile route that, according to the Tahoe-Truckee Land Trust, passes through numerous avalanche hazards – when the slide released at roughly 8,200 feet. Castle Peak rises to 9,110 feet in the Donner Summit zone of the Sierra Nevada, anchoring terrain that backcountry skiers access via hut systems and ridgelines above Interstate 80. They were hours from being done.
What the Snow Was Doing
The storm had been building for days, and the snowpack beneath it had been building its own problem for weeks.
Brandon Schwartz, the Tahoe National Forest’s lead avalanche forecaster, told ABC News that the dangerous conditions were caused by rapidly accumulating snowfall piling on already fragile snowpack layers, coupled with gale-force winds. The fragile layer in question was what avalanche scientists call faceted crystals – large, angular grains that form when a temperature gradient exists across the snowpack during dry, cold periods. They don’t bond. They sit beneath heavier layers like marbles beneath a plate, waiting for the weight to exceed what the weak structure can hold.
The Sierra had provided exactly the right conditions to grow them. A dry spell created the temperature gradient. The facets formed. Then the storms arrived.
According to Reynaud, the avalanche was rated D2.5 on a scale of D1 to D5 – significant enough to bury or kill people and typically as long as a football field or larger. The Sierra Avalanche Center’s bulletin warned that high danger applied at all elevations, with large to very large slides very likely regardless of which direction a slope faced. According to the Press Democrat, Boreal Mountain Ski Resort reported 2.5 feet of new snow in the previous 24 hours and shut its lifts entirely. Schwartz told ABC News that rescuers were contending with 2 to 3 feet of new snow in the last 36 hours, with more falling at 2 to 4 inches per hour.
The backcountry, where no lift closures exist, kept accepting visitors.
The Rescue the Mountain Would Allow
According to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office, Captain Russell Greene confirmed the survivors were sheltering in place, adding: “We’re in the process of contacting the family members of the individuals that were out there.” It took rescue teams several hours to reach them through the blizzard conditions. As reported by the sheriff’s office, spokesperson Ashley Quadros noted the remoteness of the site combined with severe weather and highway closures significantly hampered the response. A helicopter evacuation was impossible. As Reynaud told the Press Democrat: “There’s not an easy way for search and rescue or outside help to get there.”
Forty-six emergency responders from the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection worked the incident. By late Tuesday, all six survivors had been reached, evaluated by Truckee Fire, and transported to safety. Two were taken to hospital for treatment. The nine unaccounted-for members of the party had not been located as of Wednesday morning.
Castle Peak Had Already Said Something
This was not Castle Peak’s first statement this winter.
According to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office and reporting by the Sierra Sun, on January 5 a group of five experienced snowmobilers – all equipped with avalanche beacons and transceivers – set out from the Johnson Canyon area and made their way to Castle Peak. On their return, an avalanche released on the backside of the mountain and buried one of them. His companions tracked his beacon, dug him out, and began CPR. As reported by CBS Sacramento, the victim was identified as 42-year-old Chris Scott Thomason of Bend, Oregon. He did not survive.
The peak and the specific snowpack problem it sits atop had made its character known. People went back because they love it. That is the part that doesn’t resolve into a clean lesson.
The Pattern Behind the Numbers
According to the National Avalanche Center, 25 to 30 people die in avalanches in the U.S. each winter. The number has not declined meaningfully even as safety education has expanded, equipment has improved, and forecasting has grown more precise. The reason is not ignorance. It is arithmetic: more people in the backcountry means more exposure, and more exposure produces more accidents even as individual risk per outing remains stable.
The demographic shift behind that arithmetic is documented. Since 2020, backcountry touring equipment sales have surged. Avalanche safety courses fill months in advance. Hut systems like the Frog Lake huts have made multi-day Sierra travel accessible to people who would not have attempted it a decade ago. The Castle Peak zone – accessible, scenic, serviced by huts, a short drive from I-80 – is exactly the kind of destination that attracts serious recreational skiers who have done the courses, bought the gear, and hired the guides.
The Blackbird Mountain Guides party caught on Tuesday had done all of that. They had professional leadership. They had spent three days successfully navigating demanding alpine terrain. They had, presumably, seen the forecast the Sierra Avalanche Center had issued loudly before dawn.
That is the part that doesn’t offer easy comfort. Avalanche forecasting is not a guarantee – it is a probability statement. A HIGH rating means conditions are very dangerous and large avalanches are expected, not that every party who travels will be caught. People travel in HIGH danger and come home. People exercise every caution and don’t. The math works at the population level. It offers nothing to any specific party on any specific slope.
At Castle Peak on Tuesday, the probability statement collected its accounting.
What Comes Next
According to the Sierra Avalanche Center, the warning remained in effect through Wednesday morning, with high danger potentially continuing through the day. More storms are forecast later in the week. The search for the nine missing members of the party is ongoing, pending weather conditions that have so far made the mountain nearly unreachable.
The bulletin had gone out at 5 a.m. It said exactly what was coming. Castle Peak, 9,110 feet of Sierra granite and accumulated winter consequence, is still making snow.
We will try to update on this situation as we are able. Read more skiing and snowboarding articles from Radnut: HERE
