An avalanche swept through the Castle Peak area of Truckee, California - roughly 10 miles north of Lake Tahoe - at about 11:30 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, enveloping a party of backcountry skiers, authorities said. Early on Wednesday, officials reported that nine members of the group remained missing while six others had been rescued.
The Nevada County Sheriffs Office said in a Facebook statement that the rescued skiers suffered various injuries; two of them were transported to a hospital for treatment. Survivors had taken refuge in a makeshift shelter built in part from tarpaulin sheets and were able to communicate their location to rescuers using a radio beacon and text messages.
Officials cautioned that searching for the remaining skiers would be slow and hazardous. Rescue teams are operating amid an ongoing winter storm that has deposited several feet of fresh, unstable snow across the high Sierra in recent days, heightening the risk of additional avalanches. The Sierra Avalanche Center had issued an avalanche warning on Tuesday that remained in effect on Wednesday morning and said, "HIGH avalanche danger might continue through the day on Wednesday."
The sheriffs office adjusted the size of the party to 15 people, down from an earlier estimate of 16. Blackbird Mountain Guides, the company that organized the tour, said the group was returning from a three-day excursion when the avalanche occurred. The guide companys statement, released before the sheriffs revised count, said the party included four guides and 12 clients.
The tour group had been based at the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts near Donner Summit, just northwest of Truckee, at an elevation of about 7,500 feet. The area is known for heavy snowfall; in a typical winter the mountain receives more than 400 inches of snow, a statistic publicized by the guide company on its website. Blackbird Mountain Guides, founded in 2020, operates guided ski trips, alpine climbing outings and avalanche education in California, Washington state and British Columbia, as well as at international skiing destinations, according to its online information.
Avalanches are a persistent winter hazard in the United States. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center reports that avalanches have claimed an average of 27 lives each winter over the past decade, and it has recorded six U.S. avalanche fatalities so far this season. State authorities said California Governor Gavin Newsom had been briefed on the incident and that state teams were "coordinating an all-hands search-and-rescue effort" alongside local emergency personnel, according to a post from the governors office on X.
With conditions remaining unstable, officials emphasized the need for methodical, safety-focused operations rather than speedy recovery. The combination of deep new snow and ongoing storm conditions is complicating access and increasing risk to both survivors and rescuers. Authorities declined to provide a timeline for concluding search operations, underscoring the unpredictability posed by the weather and the terrain.
Context and operational detail
Rescue teams are relying on beacon signals and communications from those sheltering to locate survivors while monitoring avalanche forecasts. The revised headcount and the guide companys earlier breakdown of guides and clients are the primary details available about the partys composition. Officials continue to emphasize that the situation is evolving and that ongoing storm conditions are a major complicating factor.