It had already been a horrific week for skiers in the Sierra Nevada mountains after an avalanche on Tuesday — the deadliest in California’s recorded history — left nine members of a tour group dead.
Just two days later, a search party found another skier dead after he apparently became stranded on a challenging route. And on Friday, two more people died in unrelated incidents at the same ski resort, further raising the week’s death toll.
On the snow-covered peaks around Lake Tahoe, a region straddling the California-Nevada border that hosts some of the most prized ski slopes in the country, 2026 has proved to be a deadly year. At least 15 people have died on the area’s slopes since Jan. 1, including nine members of a backcountry tour group who were killed in the avalanche earlier this week.
The avalanche struck Castle Peak, a backcountry area popular with hikers and skiers, late Tuesday morning, overcoming a group of 15 people on a guided tour. Among those killed were six mothers from the San Francisco Bay Area, who were identified by friends and family as seasoned skiers who had bonded over a love of outdoor adventure, and who had long frequented the Tahoe area.
The group had been making their way through a blizzard back to the trailhead after a stay at the Frog Lake huts, an in-demand overnight destination for backcountry skiers nestled in the Sierra Nevada wilderness. According to Blackbird Mountain Guides, which hosted the tour, three of the group’s four tour guides died in the avalanche.
By nightfall, rescuers using specialized equipment reached a group of six survivors from the group, who had built a makeshift shelter using a tarp. The disaster has raised questions about why the group was on a mountain so soon after forecasters had issued avalanche warnings for the area.
On Saturday, authorities had recovered the bodies of the avalanche victims, including a ninth person who had been missing and presumed dead.
Later in the week, at least three other deaths in the area occurred separately from those resulting from the avalanche. On Thursday, a skier was found dead on a black diamond run at Northstar California Resort, which sits fewer than 20 miles from the Castle Peak area on the northern shore of Lake Tahoe. The skier, Colin Kang, 21, was a recent graduate of San José State University. Authorities believe that he may have died after becoming trapped in a tree well, a pit that can form around the base of trees after heavy snowfall.
And on Friday, two skiers died in unrelated incidents at Heavenly Mountain Resort, whose routes span the border of California and Nevada. One of them was a 58-year-old man who experienced a medical emergency on one of the ski trails, the Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District said in a statement. The other was a 33-year-old man who died while skiing on an intermediate trail.
Three deaths on the slopes also preceded Tuesday’s avalanche. Authorities reported two deaths at Northstar California Resort earlier this month: a 26-year-old man from Los Angeles, and a 53-year-old man from the Bay Area who crashed into another skier.
The first such death this year occurred on Jan. 5, when another avalanche near Castle Peak killed Chris Scott Thomason, 42, a snowmobile rider from Oregon, according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office. The Sacramento Bee reported that, from 2012 through 2025, at least three fatal avalanches occurred within a few miles of the spot.
The U.S. Forest Service announced on Thursday that it would close the Castle Peak area, citing unstable snowpack conditions. Beginning last Sunday, a blizzard dumped several feet of snow in the Lake Tahoe area over several days, prompting avalanche warnings from forecasters and making hazards like tree wells more pronounced.
Chris Hippensteel is a reporter covering breaking news and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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