As desperate friends and family await word on the fate of nine backcountry skiers who went missing in an avalanche just north of Lake Tahoe on Tuesday, others are wondering why they were out in a raging blizzard in the first place.
The storm, which dumped several feet of fresh, unstable snow in the high Sierra in recent days — shutting down freeways and commercial ski resorts — had been forecast nearly a week ago.
Nevertheless, the group of 15 — including four professional ski guides and their clients — headed out on Sunday for a three-day backcountry adventure at the popular but remote Frog Lake huts.
On Tuesday, as the group was making the perilous journey back from the huts through a raging storm, an avalanche struck, according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office.
After a massive search effort involving dozens of first responders, six of the skiers were rescued with “varying injuries” Tuesday evening, the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook. Two were transported to the hospital.
The search for the other nine is ongoing “pending weather conditions,” the sheriff’s office wrote.
While the fate of the missing skiers remains unknown, Tuesday’s avalanche has the potential to go down as one of the worst in modern California history.
In 1982, seven were killed in an avalanche at the Alpine Meadows resort in North Lake Tahoe. In 2008, three men were killed by an avalanche near Wrightwood, in the San Gabriel Mountains, while skiing out of bounds near the Mountain High resort.
Skiing in the backcountry is always more dangerous than at resorts, where professional ski patrollers work tirelessly — and at substantial risk to themselves — to clear dangerous accumulations of snow from towering peaks and cornices so it doesn’t come crashing down on paying customers gliding below.
But in the back country, you’re completely on your own.
The website for the Frog Lake huts, which are owned by the Truckee Donner Land Trust, warns that the journey from the trail head to the cabins takes several hours and passes through dangerous avalanche terrain.
Blackbird Mountain Guides, a well-known Truckee-based guide service that also teaches avalanche safety courses, ran the fateful outing that began on Sunday.
Blackbird managers did not respond to an email requesting comment Tuesday night. A statement posted on their website said the group was “in the process of returning to the trailhead” when “the incident occurred.”
The severe winter storm that slammed into the area early this week had been predicted long before the trip began. As early as last Wednesday, meteorologists were forecasting a lengthy blizzard dumping five feet of snow over several days beginning on Sunday.
Those predictions came true — prompting an outpouring of social media criticism of the guides for going ahead with the trip.
“Anyone with any basic knowledge or ability to look up weather should know what they’re getting into,” a local named Erica Eng wrote in the comments of the Nevada County Sheriff’s Department’s Facebook announcement of the massive search and rescue effort for the missing skiers.
Others chimed in accusing Blackbird of recklessness and profit-chasing and demanding that the company reimburse taxpayers for the expense of the rescue operations.
Dave Miller owns International Mountain Guides in June Lake, another professional guide service that runs trips to the Frog Lake huts. Until more is known, he declined to speculate on Blackbird’s decision to run the trip during the storm.
But he said the allure of backcountry skiing is undeniable and that clients pay for the access to pristine, uncrowded slopes and comfortable, European-style mountain huts.
The outings are pricey. Blackbird charges more than $1,000 for its three-day trips — more than the cost of a full-season pass that covers many of California’s best-known commercial ski areas. But the sense of adventure is worth it to a growing number of well-heeled clients.
“Fresh powder is a thing of the past at ski resorts,” which have become so crowded that all of the good snow is carved up by other skiers by 9 a.m. after a big storm, Miller said.
“I remember having fresh powder at Palisades Tahoe back in the ‘80s in the middle of the day, but that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.
And then there are the Frog Lake huts themselves, which are modern and cozy, with heat, electricity, beds, bathrooms and a full kitchen.
“It’s like the hut system in Europe,” Miller said. “California doesn’t have any other places quite like that. It’s incredibly comfortable — way better than camping out in the snow.”
Unless things go horribly wrong.
On Tuesday, the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office reported that a group of 16 skiers (later revised to 15) had been struck by an avalanche around 11:30 a.m. in an area just north of Donner Pass.
Highly skilled rescue ski teams — comprised of 46 first responders — had departed from Boreal Mountain Ski Resort and Tahoe Donner’s Alder Creek Adventure Center to make their way to the six known survivors, according to sheriff’s officials.
But the weather remained severe, and the avalanche risk remained dangerously high.
The Sierra Avalanche Center, based in Truckee, had issued an ominous warning at 6:29 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
“Travel in, near, or below avalanche terrain is not recommended today,” the center posted. “A widespread natural avalanche cycle is expected over the next 24 hours. Large avalanches may run through treed areas. If attempting travel today in non-avalanche terrain, be certain that there are no steeper slopes connected to the terrain you are traveling, either above or to the side.”
That warning was still in effect as rescuers raced to the scene to try to rescue the lost skiers.
The storm was so bad that Interstate 80 had to be closed through Donner Pass. Even local Sierra ski areas, like Palisades Tahoe, closed on Tuesday because their large staffs of professional ski patrollers could not keep up with the rapidly accumulating snow and keep guests safe from avalanches.
Even before Tuesday, this had been a dangerous avalanche season in the high Sierra.
In early January, 42-year-old snowmobiler Chris Scott Thomason was buried underneath the snow in another avalanche around Castle Peak. Despite having all the latest safety gear and being in a group of other experienced riders, and despite the efforts of an off-duty Truckee fire department medic who performed CPR on him, Thomason did not survive.
In late December, a 30-year-old ski patroller at Mammoth Mountain named Cole Murphy was killed in an avalanche deliberately started by colleagues trying to clear heavy snow from expert terrain.
Murphy was swept up in the slide and dragged hundreds of feet down the slope. It took his desperate colleagues 18 minutes to find him and dig him out. By then, his skin was blue and he wasn’t breathing.
He was airlifted to a hospital in Reno and pronounced dead days later.
