On Tuesday, a powerful avalanche close to the Donner Summit north of Lake Tahoe claimed the lives of eight people — with another person still missing but presumed dead.
The six women killed, whose names were released by their families on Thursday, were skiers on a guided two-night backcountry trip into the Castle Peak wilderness, with the majority of them hailing from the Bay Area.
The names of the three guides killed in the avalanche have not yet been released.
The loss of life has prompted a litany of questions — and critiques — about safety while skiing and recreating in remote areas during winter.
With much still unknown about what happened earlier this week, KQED spoke to experts about the backcountry itself: the appeal, the risks and the sheer preparation that exploring this beautiful but often dangerous kind of terrain demands.
The “backcountry” is a term referring to land that’s not a ski resort. This is terrain that is out of bounds of any developed park or resort, which means it tends to be somewhat difficult to access and lacks infrastructure like roads.
Being in the backcountry also means there’s no ski patrol or avalanche control, when resort staff deliberately trigger small avalanches in an effort to stop larger ones from potentially building up.
In the case of the Castle Peak wilderness, where Tuesday’s fatal avalanche occurred, this particular backcountry is part of the Tahoe National Forest. But it’s not a designated wilderness area, so people skiing and staying overnight there don’t need a wilderness permit to recreate there.
As ski resorts have gotten more and more crowded, skiing in the backcountry has risen in popularity — most notably when the COVID-19 pandemic closed resorts in 2020.
And for many, being in the backcountry is about getting away from it all, said Dave Miller, owner and director of International Alpine Guides and an internationally certified mountain guide who grew up in North Lake Tahoe.
During the winter, most people are traveling in the backcountry on skis or snowshoes. Using “skins” on skis gives skiers traction for uphill climbs. They can be removed for downhill portions.
Historically, Miller said, many backcountry skiers used telemark setups, in which the heels always remain unlocked on the skis. However, contemporary backcountry skiers often prefer alpine touring sets for exploring the backcountry, he said, which allow skiers to switch modes for uphill and downhill travel.
Many places in the backcountry do have cell service — others do not. But on Miller’s guided trips, he said, no one is ever completely out of communication. (Miller’s company was not involved in the Castle Peak trip, which suffered the fatalities on Tuesday, and which was led by Truckee-based guiding company Blackbird Mountain Guides.)
Like many backcountry skiers, Miller said his guides carry a satellite communication device like a Garmin InReach, which is used to send and receive the morning’s forecast via satellite.
The iPhone’s SOS feature, which allows a user to send texts without cellphone signal using satellite, was also used by rescuers of the Castle Peak party.
As for accommodation, the group on the Castle Peak trip had stayed two nights at the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts. Owned by the Truckee Donner Land Trust, these cabins require reservations, which can be extremely hard to get.
While anyone going out to ski in the backcountry should have avalanche education and equipment (more on this below), not every part of the backcountry is in avalanche territory, explained Miller.
“There’s a myth that the entire backcountry has avalanche danger,” Miller said. “In a place like Tahoe, for instance, I’d say that the majority of the backcountry doesn’t have avalanche danger. There’s a lot of avalanche terrain in the Tahoe area, but it’s not everywhere.”
Still, skiing is an inherently dangerous sport, stressed Miller, even at ski resorts. And doing it in the backcountry adds new elements of risk: not just avalanches but also delayed response times for rescuers if something does go wrong with your trip.
Kevin Cooper, a longtime Tahoe backcountry skier ingrained in the local ski industry, said that to help people understand the risks, he likens backcountry skiing to surfing.
The wildness of the mountains is no less dangerous than the ocean, he said. “Debunk the myth that the backcountry is safe, because it’s not,” Cooper said. “There are so many factors out there.”
Still, many people safely backcountry ski during good weather and bad, but they should always be prepared with the latest avalanche forecast from places like the Sierra Avalanche Center, know their route and have checked the weather to mitigate risk.
Most of all, stressed Miller, “in high avalanche danger, you should go nowhere near avalanche terrain.”
“But you’ve got to know how to identify that, and that’s where an avalanche course comes in,” he said.
Anyone skiing in an unregulated backcountry area like Tahoe National Forest should carry avalanche equipment like a beacon, probe and shovel — and even more importantly, be prepared and knowledgeable about avalanche safety.
Miller said this is why his “top advice” is always to take a formal avalanche course.
There are a number of courses available to anyone interested in backcountry skiing through outfitters like REI or local schools like Lake Tahoe Community College.
Those courses teach skiers the basics of avalanche safety and preparation, with a major focus on planning, Miller said.
They emphasize not just how to read the avalanche forecast, but also how part of making a safe plan for the day is being willing to abort that plan, he said. Cooper encouraged anyone new to backcountry skiing and taking their first course to “be the dissenter” in the group.
“There are times when you look at a terrain trap, and you go, ‘No, we shouldn’t go down there,’” he said. “Everyone else says ‘yes,’ and you’re the one person who says, ‘No, I don’t think that’s safe.’”
“That’s OK, because you’ll live to ride another day,” he said. “There’ll be another peak to bag.”
Courses also teach participants how to make observations in the backcountry about weather, snow stability and snow science more generally — and also include crucial learnings about group management.
“Heuristics” — the ability to problem solve and make decisions with available information — are “huge” for being safe when it comes to avalanche risk in the backcountry, Miller said.
But you can’t just take one course and walk away ready, Cooper stressed: “It takes years of knowledge to understand snow, snow loads, wind loading — all the different conditions Mother Nature puts out there.”
Most of all, Cooper stressed, “never ever go alone” into the backcountry.
For one thing, there’s those crowds at the resorts. Miller said he fondly remembered the times in the 1980s when he could get midday fresh powder turns at Palisades Tahoe — but today’s crowds at resorts make that near impossible.
But to Miller, the real draw of backcountry skiing is “getting away into what I call ‘the real world,’” he said. “You’re getting out into the wilderness.”
Others, he said, want the physical exercise and challenge the backcountry poses.
“A lot of people just like the exercise of it,” he said. “If you want a really good workout, you go backcountry skiing.”
Backcountry guides have professional training in avalanche stability evaluation, Miller said, and at any reputable guiding company, carry certifications from organizations like the American Mountain Guides Association and the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education.
In a Wednesday statement, Blackbird Mountain Guides founder Zeb Blais said that the four guides who accompanied the group on the Frog Lake trip were AGMA-trained or certified in backcountry skiing, in addition to being AIARE instructors.
Unlike individual skiers, any backcountry tour operator must also have guiding permits from the Tahoe National Forest that allow them to operate in the forest.
On a guided trip, the preparation is extensive, Miller said — no matter the length or location.
First, guides will look at the avalanche forecast from the Sierra Avalanche Center, and then weather reports like those from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to determine future risk.
These reports help guides decide at around 7:30 a.m. which terrain to “open” and “close” each day — and this is a decision that sticks, he said.
“If we decide to close terrain at 7:30 in the morning at the guides’ training, we don’t open it,” Miller said. “Even if we get out there and find out, ‘Well, it doesn’t seem as bad as we thought,’ we don’t open that terrain.”
On a day with high avalanche risk, any terrain with slopes over 30 degrees or underneath potential avalanche runout zones — where an avalanche eventually slows then stops — would be “closed,” Miller said.
Guides also typically make a huge amount of contingency plans, Miller said, including routes and backup routes that avoid avalanche terrain depending on conditions. And if conditions are so bad that no route is safe, they don’t go out at all, Miller said.
“At some point, you’ve got to ask yourself, is it worth going out in that bad of conditions?” Guided trips — like the one led by Blackbird Mountain Guides at Castle Peak — also require the participants to be prepared.
Listed on their website are prerequisites for any clients wanting to join their Frog Lake Hut trips that include advanced resort riding skills and intermediate backcountry experience — which includes 20 or more days spent in the backcountry. They also require participants to have moderate fitness levels.
In addition, Miller said that in his experience, most people backcountry skiing these days have taken at least one avalanche course, which he said was not the case in the sport even 20 years ago.
In their Thursday statement, the families of the six women named as victims of the Castle Peak avalanche stressed the group’s experience and preparation.
“They were experienced backcountry skiers who deeply respected the mountains,” the families said. “They were trained and prepared for backcountry travel and trusted their professional guides on this trip. They were fully equipped with avalanche safety equipment.”
As well as stressing their certifications, “guides in the field are in communication with senior guides at our base, to discuss conditions and routing based upon conditions,” Blackbird founder Zeb Blais said. “There is still a lot that we’re learning about what happened.”
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health confirmed to KQED on Friday that it has launched an investigation into Blackbird Mountain Guides, the Truckee-based guiding company involved in the incident.
In a statement, Cal/OSHA said that “the agency has up to six months to complete an investigation and issue citations if violations of workplace safety regulations are identified.” KQED has reached out to Blackbird for comment.
A spokesperson for the Nevada County sheriff’s office said Friday that they were also “investigating the incident to determine if there were any factors that would be considered criminal negligence.”
KQED’s Carly Severn contributed reporting to this story.
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