Backcountry Avalanche accident near Tahoe

Here's a "final report".  Don't think there's anything new here. 

https://avalanche.org/avalanche-accidents/#/report/cc583756-68b3-4e06-9fa9-769af352fc18   

I worked as a mountain guide in the Tetons and that region for a number of summers before AMGA was a thing. I remember it being a discussion, but not an actual need to be AMGA certified to  be a guide. There were plenty of very qualified guides before AMGA certification. I have also seen some unbelievably dangerous guiding by UIAGM-certified guides in Chamonix. The point is while I don't think that having these certifications necessarily makes a guide safer, it does require that a guide have more documented experience and education, which surely can only be a positive. Still, it requires a certain personality and fortitude to be a good guide. 

Guiding is a very hard job. Long hours, potentially weak clients, risk of storms, etc. One of the aspects of guiding that I always found to be most troubling was the inherent conflict of interest. If you're just a few minutes from summitting the Grand on a guided trip, and a summer storm is approaching with lightening and thunder, if you choose to descend without summitting (which is likely the right decision), you better believe that your clients are going to be mighty disappointed. Maybe even pissed and questioning your judgement. I never liked this aspect of guiding where money can put pressure on a guide to make a decision that they would not otherwise make. Of course, the good, career guides learn to manage this conflict, but it was an aspect of guiding I never felt good about. 

Remember, in this situation, snow was falling at a rate as great as 3"/hour. That is an incredible amount of snow dumping down, and the winds were apparently screaming. If there was any visibility at all, there certainly wasn't much. Add to that the pressure to get the clients out, (which certainly every single client would have wanted given the dangerous conditions, and also probably had prior commitments back home to return to), and it would have been a very confusing environment in which to make the "right" decision. Especially since the quality of the options was likely not very apparent, given the lack of visibility. 

This sounds to me like a combination of small decisions that in-and-of themselves were not bad decisions, and a freak accident. So tragic. But maybe not truly preventable. 

A nice post by Brad White, which I agree with. I am figuring Brad, that you are a different Brad White than the one working at the IMCS 1993-94, although I can envision that Brad sharing your stated perspective, and opinions. 

The Sierra Avalanche Center final report on this has been available for a few days.

Thanks Eric. I am indeed a different Brad White than the famous one from New England. I'm originally from KY and have lived in CO for 38 years. I was employed by Jackson Hole Mountain Guides for 5 summers back in the early 90's. Cheers!

A couple months later and this is just as heartbreaking as it was when it happened. In reading the accident report, one of the parts that felt like a punch in the gut was this, 

"*The Guide and Client not caught in the avalanche were able to save the lives of others. 2 of the 4 buried survivors required companion rescue to excavate the snow that covered their airways. The rapid location and excavation of these two individuals was lifesaving. At the time of the avalanche, the Guide and Client not caught in the avalanche were a ways behind the rest of the group due to the client experiencing an equipment problem with one of their ski binding toe pieces (Philipps et al.,2026). This separation may have kept them from being caught in the avalanche along with the rest of their party."

Not to open a philosophical can of worms about free will vs. fate or anything, but to think that those two very likely survived due to a simple equipment issue is a heavy thought. Imagine being the guy who survived because your binding was being stubborn and bought you an extra few minutes. 

The things about this accident that boggles the mind:
 What exactly was the game plan for the party if they had, in fact, managed to safely ski out to their parked cars at boreal/donner summit sno park? The only road out of there was closed and unplowed, i80 was closed,  everything was under multiple feet of snow, etc... They would have been stuck at their cars. Even if they had skied out directly from frog lake through carpenter valley back to the truckee area, they wouldn't have been able to make it back to the bay area (since the freeway was closed), where most of the clients lived. In other words, there was no world where leaving frog lake hut actually got the clients home sooner. 

In terms of people asking why the group was all bunched up together in avalanche terrain-- got to remember
a) they were travelling through a very large amount of fresh new light cold snow-- the trail breaker would be moving way slower than the people behind him. 

b)  everyone was carrying multi-day packs
c) visibility was terrible (high snowfall and really high winds)

All in all, not surprising they were not spread out

For me, I still think the best solution would have been to stay at the huts for another three or four days.  

Sometimes, you just need to put everything aside, and accept the circumstances. 

I am suprised that the guides, in all liklihood in communication with their superiors, thought that they could somehow thread the needle with these conditions.

I am also suprised that none of the experienced clients pushed back on the decision. 

This accident will certaintly be folded into the history, narrative, and education of ski guiding in NA.  I hope it leads to different decisions in the future.   

I say this with great sympathy for all involved, and full knowledge that I might have made the same decisions if I had been part of the guide or management team, or one of the clients.  

We are all human, and we all make mistakes. 

Bruno Schullwrote:

For me, I still think the best solution would have been to stay at the huts for another three or four days.  

Sometimes, you just need to put everything aside, and accept the circumstances. 

I am suprised that the guides, in all liklihood in communication with their superiors, thought that they could somehow thread the needle with these conditions.

I am also suprised that none of the experienced clients pushed back on the decision. 

This accident will certaintly be folded into the history, narrative, and education of ski guiding in NA.  I hope it leads to different decisions in the future.   

I say this with great sympathy for all involved, and full knowledge that I might have made the same decisions if I had been part of the guide or management team, or one of the clients.  

We are all human, and we all make mistakes. 

????

When did you decide to wake up?

It might be productive to keep this going.

This is a lot better than discussing “scholarly literature”.

Obviously it is a historic event. What might be learned from it depends on how serious, and brave, participants in these conversations are willing to be. And how willing to listen. And not make assumptions.

Anyway Bruno, I think this post of yours is pretty good. At least someone is showing signs of waking up. And a little courage.

MPwrote:

The things about this accident that boggles the mind:
 What exactly was the game plan for the party if they had, in fact, managed to safely ski out to their parked cars at boreal/donner summit sno park? The only road out of there was closed and unplowed, i80 was closed,  everything was under multiple feet of snow, etc... They would have been stuck at their cars. Even if they had skied out directly from frog lake through carpenter valley back to the truckee area, they wouldn't have been able to make it back to the bay area (since the freeway was closed), where most of the clients lived. In other words, there was no world where leaving frog lake hut actually got the clients home sooner. 

 

It is possible they could have been unable to use their vehicles, but it is also very possible they could have just driven home. Closing I-80 means shutting off access to most users. I myself have on one occasion been allowed to enter the closed section of I-80, and during a major storm at that. They probably had that part of things figured out. I would hope so.

A little known fact is that when all the major passes are closed, the next pass north of Donner Summit, don’t remember if that is hwy 49, or 89, virtually never closes. It has plowing priority, due to being a designated civil defense route. During my 12 winters living in Truckee I had to use that route at least once.

For reasons explained upthread, and other reasons, Euer valley seems a no-brainer as the preferred alternative, to me. All important things considered, the other alternate routes only offer a small improvement. But WTF do I know.

Eric Craigwrote:

It is possible they could have been unable to use their vehicles, but it is also very possible they could have just driven home. Closing I-80 means shutting off access to most users. I myself have on one occasion been allowed to entered the closed section of I-80, and during a major storm at that. They probably had that part of things figured out. I would hope so.

A little known fact is that when all the major passes are closed, the next pass north of Donner Summit, don’t remember if that is hwy 49, or 89, virtually never closes. It has plowing priority, due to being a designated civil defense route. During my 12 winters living in Truckee I had to use that route at least once.

For reasons explained upthread, and other reasons, Euer valley seems a no-brainer as the preferred alternative, to me. All important things considered, the other alternate routes only offer a small improvement. But WTF do I know.

1) they still needed to get there cars from the snopark to i80-- again, with the amount of snow that fell and everything being closed, i don't think they would have been able to drive the 500 feet to get on the freeway... . 

2) maybe i80 from boreal to truckee might have driveable, but not i80 to bay area (where the clients lived). Again, it snowed like 9 feet in a short period of time, so i am skeptical they could have gotten out in either direction.

People in very capable 4WD with real snow tires can both handle remarkable amounts of new snow and also totally overestimate their ability to do so.

If there was a "take home" message here for me, it would have been radio contact with "basecamp" that would have been the calmer head(s) telling them to stay put. The guides on the spot would have been under tremendous pressure to move out. Conditions (wind) also may have significantly worsened during the attempted journey out or been way greater than they realized from the hut.

As much as this may have been "type 2 fun on a stormy day" for the well-equipped, the dangers for a large and presumably low experienced (guided) group in such conditions are significant. Any hold up can quickly become life threatening due to hypothermia and smaller individuals are particularly susceptible to their cores losing heat fast. A broken binding or a twisted knee and everyone in the group is in deep shit from the cold if they can't keep moving.

That said, I will beat a dead horse and say that I seriously doubt one single person here would stand on the spot where they got hit and say they were clearly in great danger from an avalanche that day due to the extraordinarily long runout this avalanche generated (data presented showed this to be an incredibly rare long runout event for the Sierra). I would bet we all have made bigger dice rolls, if inadvertently. They were in the danger zone, far below a probably invisible to them trigger point, for mere minutes. Just incredibly bad luck, imo.

Is this a place for a discussion? Or not?

Sorry you felt attacked.

Almost the only things for certain are the avalanche forecast for the day and that a bunch of people died. 

The discussion of "whether the group could have actually gotten home if they left in a middle of a snow storm" seems valid. There has been some conjecture that group dynamics related to "clients + guides wanting to get home on schedule" as driving part of the decision making of the accident. I just wanted to point out that, in this specific accident, it's not clear that you could actually get home once you got to your car. This would be another reason why staying put at frog lake seemed like the obviously correct thing to do.
(I don't feel attacked by your comment-, btw, thanks for chiming in on the discussion. And for reference, have skiied in frog lake many times, and I was a few miles away from boreal/castle peak at the time of this accident-- so I am aware of the conditions that existed at the time). 

Hey MP, thanks for your response, especially the fact you weren’t far away and have knowledge of the specific area.  It doesn’t really change anything in my mind. But, as I said, you could be right. And me wrong. You certainly are right about the possibility of them not being able to get home. I just don’t see that as being particularly important. If it was, that’s not good.

When I started this thread, with my guide’s perspective on things, I was pretty sure this was an extraordinary event. Simply a wrong place at the wrong time deal. Which clearly it was, but I no longer believe it so simple, and maybe not so extraordinary (except for the results). The two things that caused my change are how the few available facts fit the whole picture, and some of the statements made here by other posters. In fact, a lot of the statements.

I am going to continue following this both here, and elsewhere. There’s a lot of stuff missing, a lot of stuff unexplained.

Regarding BbCc’s comment below, that’s another (unknowingly?) vote for the Euer Valley exit. Snowmobiles and snowcats already at the end of the trip out, which presumably could have been deployed to assist the exit if warranted. A warm lodge there. Food, hot drinks. Close to downtown Truckee. A short drop down from Frog Lake to get out of the worst wind and to zero avalanche hazard. About zero chance of getting lost………..

Would a radio/sat call to guide service have managed to get snowmobile transport to the vehicles for I-80 extraction had the ski out effort been successful?

The "get home desire" is powerful, even in other activities. I have driven a small motorcycle 3 hours thru a Southern Minnesota blizzard to "get home" for Thanksgiving break. Successful leaving college town on the second attempt. Could have stayed in dorms for the week with other students not heading home. Inadequate blizzard-wear, under-powered motorcycle, fixated on getting there.

For anyone not familiar with truly foul wind-drifts, the open plains peppered with farm steads creates spicey drifts to drive thru. Hard to see them thru high-wind-ground-blown-snow and darkness. The blizzard at Truckee was worse. My sincerest condolences to all involved.

MPwrote:

1) they still needed to get there cars from the snopark to i80-- again, with the amount of snow that fell and everything being closed, i don't think they would have been able to drive the 500 feet to get on the freeway... . 

2) maybe i80 from boreal to truckee might have driveable, but not i80 to bay area (where the clients lived). Again, it snowed like 9 feet in a short period of time, so i am skeptical they could have gotten out in either direction.

You are posting with too much hindsight. 

Just because the hwy is closed does not mean there is not active plowing occurring. I80 over Donner gets closed because of too many people who cannot drive in such conditions and letting them through means people getting stuck and rescues. Much better to close the hwy and let the plow operators have a vehicle free road to work than to stop and have to rescue people.

As for the amount of snow that fell. While nine feet did fall that was over four days. They went out on day two of the storm. When they left Frog Lake two to three of snow had fallen in the first 24 hours. By the time they would have reached their vehicles there would be four to five feet of snow. Significant but again not unreasonable to clear a vehicle and be able to get on the highway given it had been plowed the previous day and into that day.

Also note, here was the closure for the day of the accident.

February 17, 2026 7:30 AM I 80 is closed in both directions for Big Rigs and to all traffic westbound at stateline due to spin out heavy snow and zero visibility. 

The group was moving about an hour later so even with the guides communicating with the office that morning it is unlikely that they knew about the hwy closure.

Riding motorcycles in the snow on pavement is insanely sketch and miserably cold.  The power of wanting to get home is strong... ps. Responding to the guy who rode his scooter through a  snow storm to get home... 

May be there needs to be a rule or advisement that when the Avalanche Center assesses the avalanche risk to be above a certain level that all commercial operations should cease or shelter in place if at all possible?

This would considerably elevate the operations liability (for example) and may lead to more trips getting cancelled etc in the interest of public safety?

Just spit balling here, don't crucify meh.

John Tuttlewrote:

May be there needs to be a rule or advisement that when the Avalanche Center assesses the avalanche risk to be above a certain level that all commercial operations should cease or shelter in place if at all possible?

This would considerably elevate the operations liability (for example) and may lead to more trips getting cancelled etc in the interest of public safety?

Such operational decisions often get made the insurance companies as the basis for coverage. 

Inherent risk. Inherent.

Each person in that group, from guide to the least proficient, was 100% responsible for their own decisions to be there. 

And every time any one of us heads into the backcountry, it's on us, each of us, 100%, every time.

Guides did this, guides did that - irrelevant. The clients plopped their money down and took their chances, same as any one of us might have done. I find the endless nitpicking to be somewhat useful hindsight, sure. But if assigning blame, it starts and ends with each individual.

As it would for any one of us. The guide is not responsible for our lives. We are, as individuals.