Four days after one of the most serious avalanche accidents in US history, the bodies of all nine victims have been recovered.
02/22/2026, 05:3402/22/2026, 05:34
There are seven women and two men between the ages of 30 and 52, including three mountain guides, as the sheriff’s office in Nevada County, California announced on Saturday. They died in an avalanche near Castle Peak in the Tahoe National Forest on Tuesday. A winter storm with heavy snowfall complicated the rescue work.
An Army helicopter on a casualty recovery mission near Truckee, California.Image: keystone
The group of four mountain guides and eleven guests were on the way back from a three-day guided ski tour to the Frog Lake huts when the snow slab, which was around a hundred meters long, came loose. Six of them, including a mountain guide, survived the avalanche and were able to send an emergency signal. Dozens of rescue workers fought their way to the scene of the accident in the snow and reached the survivors after hours. Two ski tourers had to be treated in hospital.
Explosive weather conditions with avalanche warnings
The authorities have launched an investigation into how the accident occurred in the explosive weather conditions. Because of all the fresh snow, the Sierra Avalanche Center had warned of a high risk of avalanches.
There have been several serious avalanches in the region in the past – but the last event of this magnitude was decades ago: in March 1982, seven people were killed in an avalanche accident at a ski resort in the Lake Tahoe area. (sda/dpa)