These eight friends find joy in the mountains, skiing together through the trackless powder of the tranquil, pristine wilderness of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains – and their close friendship stands out in the rugged, unforgiving terrain.
The trip was planned in advance: The three-day adventure begins at Frog Lake Backcountry Huts—an inaccessible but comfortable oasis at 7,600 feet in the Tahoe National Forest that’s only accessible by skis, snowboards, or snowshoes.
The group — mothers, wives and enthusiastic, skilled skiers — traveled from across the country to take a professionally guided backcountry trip over Presidents Day weekend. Accompanied by four guides and three others, they glided around frozen lakes and snow-capped cliffs, in the shadow of ridges dotted with redwoods and Jeffrey pine.
Meanwhile, the biggest winter storm of the new year looms over the picturesque mountains, with forecasters’ dire warnings echoing across social media.
Pine trees are covered with snow during a storm on February 17, 2026 in Truckee, California. -Brooke Hess-Homeier/AP
It’s the last day of a dangerous wilderness adventure. As predicted, a snowstorm arrived, bringing with it an unstable blanket of powder. When they were about to go home, the freshly fallen snow, light and soft, suddenly fell from the hillside like one of nature’s most ferocious forces.
“Avalanche!” one of them shouted.
Authorities quoted survivors saying that within seconds, a tsunami of ice, snow and debris washed down the hillside around them, almost thick enough to bury a house.
“It caught up with them pretty quickly,” Nevada County Sheriff’s Capt. Rusty Green later told reporters.
The first distress call, a silent text message from an emergency beacon, mobilized a small team of rescuers sent from different directions.
At 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, a voice on the fire department’s dispatch channel said: “Avalanche in Green Mountain area, receiving medical attention.”
“Nine or 10 people are buried and three others are trying to dig them out,” someone said in the audio, as emergency workers coordinated search and rescue efforts, noting that air support was unavailable because of the storm.
An hours-long battle for survival began. As the powder began to turn into a cold, concrete-like crust, some members of the group desperately dug into the snow for friends and associates.
An avalanche near Lake Tahoe, California, the worst in the United States in 45 years, killed or was presumed dead nine people, including six close friends and three guides. Six skiers survived and were rescued.
After an arduous journey to reach the survivors,
The dead include sisters Liz Clabaugh and Caroline Sekar. The others were identified by family members as Kelly Atkin, Danielle Keatley, Kate Morse and Kate Witt. The spouse of a Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue member who was involved in the disaster was also among the victims.
The families of the six women who were killed said in a statement that they still had “many unanswered questions.” The Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating whether criminal negligence was involved in the incident.
“Words cannot describe our grief,” the family said. “Our focus now is on supporting our children through this incredible tragedy and honoring the lives of these extraordinary women.”
The families of Caroline Sekar (left) and Liz Clabaugh (right) say they were among those killed in the avalanche. – The Crabb family
The family has asked for privacy as they grieve the “sudden and profound loss”. Hailing from Idaho, the Bay Area and the nearby Truckee-Tahoe area, the friends are “passionate, skilled skiers who cherish the time spent together in the mountains.” The statement said they had received wilderness training, trusted their guides and carried and were familiar with avalanche safety equipment.
The bodies of eight people who died skiing remain on an icy mountainside due to harsh conditions, the Sheriff’s Department said. Moon Jae-in said that another person is missing and is presumed dead.
“We are heartbroken and are doing our best to care for each other and our families the way we know these women would want,” the families said.
Only two members of the friends survived, along with a guide and two other skiers.
Eventually, one man and five women managed to escape, hiding under a tarp for several hours — “doing whatever they could” until snowcats and air rescue crews could reach them, Green said.
Chief Moon said rescuers trudged through heavy snow, battling strong winds in whiteout conditions and wary of the possibility of another avalanche.
The sheriff said rescue crews were 2 miles away from the skiers when their machine became jammed, forcing them to continue skiing until they arrived at the avalanche site around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Survivors used avalanche beacons and iPhone SOS satellites to send text message emergency services via satellite.
Don O’Keefe, law enforcement chief for the California Office of Emergency Services, said an emergency officer communicated with a guide for more than four hours to convey important information to the deputy.
Experts say people buried in avalanches are rarely able to dig themselves out. Within minutes, your breath will form an ice shield around your face. The snow will eventually harden like a concrete tomb.
The Utah Avalanche Center says 93 percent of avalanche victims survive if they evacuate within 15 minutes. After 45 minutes, only 20 to 30 percent survive. Few people make it after two hours of snow falling.
Experts say survivors assembled tent-pole-like probes and stuck them into the snow in hopes of hitting buried skiers.
That Tuesday morning, they frantically navigated the hardened snow for their ski partners and friends. Eventually, they exhumed three people who were dead, the sheriff said.
“It’s just horrific to find someone deceased, someone they knew and probably cared about,” Nevada County Sheriff’s Deputy Sam Brown told CBS News.
A ‘magical place’ haunted by tragedy
Kurt Gensheimer took a three-night trip to Frog Lake Backcountry Huts and left Sunday, just hours before the moms and other skiers arrived. They never crossed paths.
He has been there four times in the past four years and understands the appeal of a dangerous yet beautiful environment.
“This is an amazing place,” Gensheimer told CNN affiliate KCRA. “This is one of the best backcountry skiing locations in the country, and Frog Lake Lodge may be the best backcountry skiing facility in North America.”
He thought the cabins would be a safe place from the storm, but his team decided to leave before the storm hit.
“The discussion in the cabin was that there’s a big storm coming… there’s going to be a blizzard. You should either be out by Monday or plan to be there until Thursday, Friday,” Gensheimer said.
Blackbird Mountain Guides, the tour company that organized the ill-fated trip, said its tour leaders were rigorously trained and certified in avalanche education.
On February 20, 2026, in Truckee, California, a California Highway Patrol helicopter took off from a field after completing a mission with search and rescue personnel. – Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images
It is also aware of the danger of avalanches.
On Sunday morning, the same day the team set out, the company warned on Facebook that a major snowstorm was coming and urged skiers to keep an eye on the Sierra Avalanche Center and “use extra caution this week!”
That morning, the Sierra Avalanche Center issued an avalanche warning, which was upgraded to a warning at 5 a.m. Tuesday: “High avalanche danger exists in the backcountry.
Experts say the most dangerous time for avalanches is after a rapid snowfall. Moon said Tuesday’s avalanche was classified as a D2.5, a scale of five that measures the destructive potential of moving debris.
Despite the risks, the appeal of backcountry skiing remains.
Nate Greenberg, who lives in the Eastern Sierra and said he survived an avalanche in 2021, advises against rushing to judgment. Backcountry skiing involves multiple “micro-decisions,” he said.
Engineer and avalanche researcher Ian McCammon also highlighted the difficult decision-making process on the slopes.
“These accidents are often much more serious than what meets the eye,” McCammon told CNN. “Once you start to understand the details, you start to understand. It’s easy to say people are stupid, or it’s easy to say people take a lot of risks, but sometimes the situations they’re in are not obvious and it’s not obvious how they made the decisions they did.”
“We’re all desperate to understand what’s going on,” said Sara Boilen, a Montana clinical psychologist and backcountry skier who specializes in human factors in avalanche areas.
“As a researcher, I want to understand the situation so that we can improve our understanding of the difficulties of decision-making in remote areas,” she told CNN. “As an educator, I want to understand so I can help others learn. As a remote user, I want to strengthen my own decision-making by learning from others. As a human being, I want answers – how could something like this happen? We may never have all the answers. That’s the problem with evil learning environments.”
She added, “Imagine losing someone you love and also losing your relationship with a place that made you feel better. So what do you do when you lose someone in an avalanche and the mountains are the place where you feel most whole and alive and where you seek healing?”
CNN’s Nouran Salahieh, Elizabeth Wolfe, Chris Boyette, Cindy Von Quednow, Alisha Ebrahimji, Chris Dolce, Mary Gilbert, Martin Goillandeau, Chimaine Pouteau, Stephanie Elam, Diego Mendoza, Karina Tsui, Danya Gainor, Briana Waxman, Andi Babineau and Brad Parks contributed to this report.
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