The families of six friends and mothers who were killed in a Sierra Nevada avalanche this week identified the victims on Thursday and said they were “devastated beyond words.”
In a statement, the families said that the women who died were Carrie Atkin, Liz Clabaugh, Danielle Keatley, Kate Morse, Caroline Sekar and Kate Vitt. The women bonded as most of them raised their families in the Bay Area and enjoyed regular trips to the Tahoe region.
“They were all mothers, wives and friends, all of whom connected through the love of the outdoors,” the families said. “They were passionate, skilled skiers who cherished time together in the mountains.”
The women embarked on a guided, two-night trip to the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts outside Truckee, Calif., that was planned well in advance, according to the statement. They were experienced skiers who were “fully equipped with avalanche safety equipment.”
The families said they had many unanswered questions and requested privacy as they grieved.
Ms. Sekar, 45, lived in San Francisco, and her sister, Ms. Clabaugh, 52, lived in Boise, Idaho.
Ms. Sekar’s husband, Kiren Sekar, 46, provided a separate statement to The New York Times recalling his wife as “authentic and unabashedly unfiltered,” a woman who spread joy and enthusiasm to her circle of friends, her children’s school and her neighborhood.
He said he and his wife were together for more than 20 years and that she raised their two children to love hiking, bicycling and skiing in the mountains.
“Caroline spent her final days doing what she loved best, with the people who loved her most, in her favorite place,” Mr. Sekar wrote. “She was with me, her children and our puppy, and then on one last adventure with her sister and close friends, who she now rests with.”
The brother of Ms. Sekar and Ms. Clabaugh, McAlister Clabaugh, said he was devastated to have lost them both.
“These are two of the best people I’ve ever known,” he said. “They were incredible sisters, mothers, wives and friends. And the idea that they are both gone is, I don’t even know how to put it into words.”
Many in the group had been friends for years, Mr. Clabaugh said, and would meet up for ski trips regularly.
“A lot of the people on that trip were Caroline’s friends who used to do this together,” he said. “There’s a whole community of people, a lot of whom just lost their wives.”
Ms. Sekar had worked in tech, her brother said, but her two children were her passion.
The avalanche was the deadliest in modern California history, and one of the deadliest in the United States.
The families said on Thursday that eight women were on the friends’ ski trip, which indicates that two of the friends survived. Three of the four guides died in the avalanche, according to their employer, Blackbird Mountain Guides. All of the information provided so far, including from the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office, suggests that three other ski clients, all men, survived and were not part of the friend group.
Many of the mothers were connected through Sugar Bowl Academy, a private, ski-focused school that said on Wednesday that multiple victims had ties to its community in Norden, Calif., several miles from where the avalanche occurred.
Apart from the sisters, several other avalanche victims were from Marin County, Calif., just north of San Francisco, according to officials there.
Ms. Morse, 45, lived in Tiburon and worked in biotechnology, according to public records and LinkedIn. Ms. Keatley, 44, lived in Larkspur and worked in the wine business. Ms. Atkin, 46, a leadership coach, had lived in the Bay Area before moving to the town of Norden in the Sierra Nevada.
The Kentfield School District, which runs two schools in Marin County, sent an email to families on Wednesday announcing that Ms. Vitt, the mother of two elementary school students, had died in the avalanche.
“Kate’s two sons,” the letter reads, “are safe and are with their father, Geoff, as they navigate this profound loss. The Vitt family is a cherished part of our community.”
The letter was provided to The New York Times by Brian Colbert, a member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors who represents an area that includes the school and the town of Greenbrae, where the Vitt family lives.
The school district did not return a request for comment, but said in its letter that it would offer counseling for staff members and students when they return next week from their midwinter break, which local families informally refer to as “ski week.”
According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms. Vitt, 43, was a graduate of Boston College and worked as a vice president of product operations and customer success at SiriusXM. Before that, she worked at Pandora, the music app.
Marin County residents were reeling Thursday.
“Frankly, we’re in shock,” Mr. Colbert said. “Everybody knows everybody. It’s gut wrenching because so many people knew these moms.”
Marin County is a constellation of affluent, family-oriented towns where children’s sports and ski vacations in the Tahoe region are a regular part of the culture.
“Tahoe is in some ways our Shangri-La,” Mr. Colbert said. “You’re there in the winter. You’re there in the summer. For many people, it’s the place to recharge and reconnect with folks away from the hectic pace of regular daily life.”
Michael Natenshon, the chief executive of the clothing company Marine Layer and a resident of Mill Valley, said he had gone to high school in Massachusetts with Ms. Keatley, recalling her as a warm, kind person. He had recently met Ms. Vitt at a school fund-raiser, and laughed that their families had played a rousing game of beer pong.
“There’s been a crater blown into the community,” Mr. Natenshon said in an interview. “It feels like a game of one degree of separation to everybody I talk to.”
He said the victims’ families often stayed in the Serene Lakes area near Sugar Bowl as their children skied on the resort’s team. That area is “affectionately known as Mill Valley North,” he said.
“It’s particularly hard because everybody knew the kids,” Mr. Natenshon said. “That’s the part that stings so much.”
Rescue workers have not yet been able to retrieve the eight people who were found dead on the mountain because of severe storm conditions, which were expected to continue at least through Thursday, according to officials with Nevada County, which includes the area where the avalanche struck. They said they would not be releasing the names or any other information about the victims until the bodies had been recovered. A ninth person remains missing but is presumed to be dead, according to officials.
The U.S. Forest Service announced on Thursday that it would close the Castle Peak area, including the avalanche zone, until March 15 because of unstable snowpack conditions and the need for search and rescue crews to recover the bodies.
At an unrelated news conference about funding for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system on Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that he and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, have “a lot of mutual friends” with some of the victims and their families.
The Newsoms grew up in Marin County, and they are raising their four children in Kentfield. Mr. Newsom said he stayed at the same Frog Lake huts about a year ago.
“Our hearts go out to those who lost their lives, and a community of skiers and a community of families from the Bay Area, so many of them so attached to the Sugar Bowl region,” Mr. Newsom said while riding a BART train through San Mateo County.
In the town of Greenbrae, Sheryl Longman, 80, said that she appreciated the four years she lived next door to Ms. Vitt, calling her “a lovely person.” She did not mind the Vitt boys accidentally hitting balls into her garden.
Ms. Vitt, she recalled, had visited her garden just a few weeks ago to see her new crop of red amaryllis flowers.
“They were particularly beautiful, and she noted how pretty they were,” Ms. Longman said.
She gave Ms. Vitt a bulb to plant. It came in a special wax case.
“She took it home and watched it grow,” Ms. Longman said. “She was very delighted to have it.”
Georgia Gee and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research. Laurel Rosenhall contributed reporting.
Sabrina Tavernise is a writer-at-large for The Times, focused on political life in America and how Americans see the changes in Washington.
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