A deadly avalanche in California’s Sierra Nevada backcountry underscored how quickly conditions can shift in the mountains, even as stormy weather continued to threaten new slides during the recovery effort. As authorities reported that eight people died and one person remained missing two days after their group was caught in the Tuesday avalanche, rescuers worked through ongoing hazard conditions while six survivors lived to be found, the Associated Press reported.
The storm system that continued to lash the remote area on Thursday meant additional avalanches remained possible, according to the report. New snow built on top of unstable conditions that had already contributed to the deadly slide, complicating rescue work because the same dangers that killed the skiers and guides remained present as rescuers approached the scene.
Rescuers also faced a principle avalanche safety experts often emphasize: the priority is reaching victims without creating additional ones. “It was, quite likely, very necessary for them to leave the backcountry so their hazard wasn’t increased further,” said Anthony Pavlantos, who is based in Utah and runs avalanche safety programs and safety equipment maker Prival USA.
Pavlantos also cautioned against trying to assign a motive or a reason once an incident has occurred, saying what was “really hard to say is like ‘why were they moving?’ You can’t ever start placing blame on events like this because we can all be there.” He framed the episode as an illustration of how backcountry risk can overwhelm even experienced participants when conditions deteriorate.
Experts said the danger is not only about whether people go into the backcountry, but about where and when they choose to do so. Dale Atkins, who has been involved in mountain rescues and avalanche forecasting and research in Colorado for five decades, said, “It’s not about not going; it’s about where and when you go.” He added that an accident can create an illusion that people can keep pushing through storms, noting that “it’s really easy to be fooled by the snow and avalanches” and warning that “we keep going out even in the worst of storms because that’s what we did last time, and then our luck runs out.”
Atkins and other rescue experts also focused on timing and technique—how quickly rescuers can locate buried victims and how effectively they can dig. The report said it took rescuers six hours to reach the victims after the first report came in, and Atkins said the chances of survival for someone buried for an hour are only about one in 10. The six surviving skiers in California found three of the victims while they awaited rescue, and authorities had not provided a detailed account of how the other victims were located.
Because major avalanche debris can spread over a wide area, experts said search efforts often start with small, visible clues and then move to more deliberate methods. Anthony Stevens, chief adviser for the search and rescue team in Teton County, Wyoming, said the first thing to look for is clues such as a glove or ski pole that could reveal where a person ended up. The report said skiers in guided groups often carry avalanche transceivers—beacons that can send signals and display the direction and approximate distance to a victim when they are working as intended.
If transceiver use is not enough or does not pinpoint a victim, rescuers may probe the snow with long, slender poles, Ethan Greene, director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, said. After locating someone, digging becomes the next challenge: Atkins said the average burial depth is roughly a meter, or just over 3 feet, and that compacted snow and ice in an avalanche requires moving at least a ton of material to free a buried person.
Atkins said long-duration burials are rare but not impossible, describing past rescues where two people survived being buried for 22 and 24 hours following an avalanche in Washington state in the 1990s, with a third party member not surviving. “It’s very unusual for a rescue team to find a buried person alive. But it happens, and that gives us hope,” he said.
The recovery from the California avalanche was set to resume Friday, as storm conditions eased enough to allow rescuers to continue working, the report said.