How six people survived California’s deadliest avalanche

They were on their way home when the mountain gave way.

A group of 15 backcountry skiers — clients and guides from Blackbird Mountain Guides — had spent three days at the Frog Lake huts near Castle Peak in Nevada County, a rugged stretch of the Sierra Nevada popular with backcountry enthusiasts. Tuesday was supposed to be the trip out. An avalanche, roughly the length of a football field according to Tahoe National Forest supervisor Chris Feutrier, made sure it wasn’t.

By Wednesday morning, eight of the nine skiers who went missing in its wake had been found dead. Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said she believes the ninth skier is also dead, though that has not been confirmed. It is the deadliest avalanche in modern California history, surpassing a 1982 disaster at Alpine Meadows that killed seven.

Six people survived. What they did in the hours that followed may be the reason any of them made it home.

Shelter, Wait, Signal

In the immediate aftermath, the six survivors — one Blackbird guide and five clients, ages 30 to 55 — were stranded in some of the worst conditions the Sierra Nevada had seen in years. The storm had already dumped up to 40 inches of snow near Castle Peak since Monday, and the risk of a second slide was real.

The group did what backcountry training is designed for. They used emergency equipment to contact rescuers and built a makeshift shelter to wait out what would become a long, dangerous afternoon. Ms. Moon confirmed the emergency contact was the first link in a rescue chain that Gov. Gavin Newsom, posting on X, said involved nearly 100 first responders.

Officials told the survivors to shelter in place as best they could. For hours, that’s exactly what they did.

A Rescue Built Around the Danger

Getting to the group was its own problem. The terrain was remote, the storm was ongoing, and the same conditions that had just killed eight people posed a direct threat to anyone moving through the area.

Crews reached the scene just after 5:30 p.m. — roughly six hours after the avalanche struck. They traveled two miles by snowcat before abandoning it and skiing the rest of the way, a precaution taken to avoid triggering another slide. When they arrived, the survivors were sheltered and alive.

Two were too injured to walk and had to be assisted back to the snowcat. Both were hospitalized; one has since been released, the other remains under treatment for non-life-threatening injuries.

The response drew from agencies across the region, including the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue and teams from Washoe County, Nevada. 

The Question Underneath the Story

There is a harder issue beneath the survival account. The Sierra Avalanche Center had issued an avalanche warning for the Castle Peak area — in effect through 5 a.m. Wednesday — before the group set out. The trip continued anyway.

Ms. Moon said her office has been in contact with Blackbird Mountain Guides about that decision. Capt. Russell Greene of the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office was direct about it: “We advise against it honestly, but I wouldn’t say that it’s uncommon — not that it was a wise choice.”

For the six who survived, their equipment, their instincts, and a well-drilled rescue network all held. For the nine who did not, the warning that went unheeded remains a question investigators are only beginning to answer.