In brief
- The avalanche swept the Castle Peak area of Truckee, California, about 16km north of Lake Tahoe.
- Rescuers reached six survivors, including one man and five women, earlier this week.
Eight skiers have died in an avalanche in California's Sierra Nevada mountains while one remains missing, authorities said, making the incident one of the deadliest single avalanches in United States history.
Rescuers reached six survivors, including one man and five women, earlier this week amid an intense winter storm that has dropped several feet of fresh snow on the high Sierra in recent days.
The avalanche swept the Castle Peak area of Truckee, California, about 16km north of Lake Tahoe, around 11.30am local time on Tuesday, engulfing a group of backcountry skiers.
One of the rescued skiers is still being treated in a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Nevada County sheriff Shannan Moon said at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
The survivors had taken refuge in a makeshift shelter, constructed partly from tarp, and communicated with rescuers via radio beacon and text messaging.
About 50 skilled rescuers were dispatched from the south and north and faced "extreme" conditions, Moon said, including blinding snow and gale-force winds. A team was able to use a snowcat vehicle to get within 3.2km of the survivors and then ski to the accident site.
One of the deceased skiers was married to a member of the area's search-and-rescue team, authorities said.
The group of skiers was finishing a three-day excursion with Blackbird Mountain Guides. The tour group included four guides and 11 clients, who stayed at the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts located near Donner Summit, north-west of Truckee, at about 2,300m elevation.
In a typical winter, the mountain receives more than 10m of snow, making it one of the snowiest places in the western hemisphere.
Blackbird was founded in 2020 and operates in California, Washington state and British Columbia as well as numerous popular skiing spots abroad, according to its website. The company provides guided ski trips, alpine climbing trips and avalanche education.
The Sierra Avalanche Center's avalanche warning, which it issued on Tuesday, remained in effect on Wednesday morning.
"HIGH avalanche danger might continue through the day on Wednesday," the agency said.
Avalanches have claimed an average of 27 lives each winter in the US over the past decade, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, which had tallied six US avalanche fatalities so far this season.
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