Report Questions Skiers Decisions in Deadly California Avalanche

A new report released two months after California's deadliest avalanche in modern history has raised questions about the decisions of a group of backcountry skiers who traveled closely together through hazardous terrain despite warnings of high slide risk.

On February 17, 2026, a soft slab avalanche struck near Castle Peak in the Sierra Nevada mountains, northeast of Donner Summit and close to Lake Tahoe. The slide caught 13 members of a guided party of 15, killing nine people, including three veteran guides and six clients, most of them women from a close-knit group of experienced skiers. Six others survived, four of whom were rescued by companions on site.

The group, organized by Blackbird Mountain Guides out of Truckee, consisted of two separate parties that had combined for the return trip: a group of female friends with two guides and a trio of men with two others. They were ending a three-day backcountry skiing tour at Frog Lake Huts and skinning toward the Castle Peak Snowpark trailhead beside Interstate 80 to avoid an approaching storm. Around 11 a.m., while crossing the runout zone below Perry Peak, the avalanche released from a north-facing slope. Estimated at size D2...