One of many world’s foremost avalanche specialists mentioned the components concerned within the deaths of at the least eight skiers in a major slide in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains will come from the survivors.
However Bruce Tremper — the previous director of the Utah Avalanche Heart and writer of the e-book “Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain” — cautioned that it might not “be truthful” at this level to second-guess the choices made by the group’s guides.
“The factor I do know is, in most avalanche accidents, everyone desires to level fingers. All people desires to say, ‘Ought to they’ve identified higher? Did they make a mistake?'” Tremper advised ABC Information.
A rescue ski workforce makes their technique to the world of an avalanche within the Fortress Peak space of Truckee, Calif., February 17, 2026.
Nevada County Sheriff’s Workplace
Tremper mentioned a myriad of things may have performed a job in why the group ended up within the path of the avalanche that overwhelmed them on Tuesday morning within the Fortress Peak space of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
“We actually don’t know till they interview the individuals [who survived] and the knowledge begins popping out,” Tremper mentioned.
He mentioned it is potential that the route the group selected had been declared protected previously throughout days when avalanche hazard is excessive, prefer it was on Tuesday morning.
Location of California avalanche
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“I feel it is simply as believable that they had been doing one thing that was usually protected, however it was simply an unprecedented occasion and that they only occurred to be within the incorrect place on the incorrect time. It is simply dangerous luck.”
The our bodies of seven ladies and a person killed within the avalanche had been recovered, however ongoing inclement climate has prevented search crews from transporting the victims from the backcountry to a morgue within the close by city of Truckee, Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon mentioned at a information convention on Wednesday. A search continues for a second man who was with the group and is presumed lifeless, Moon mentioned.
Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon updates media on rescue efforts following an avalanche at a information convention in Nevada Metropolis, California, February 18, 2026.
Tran Nguyen/AP
Three guides from the Blackbird Mountain Guides, who had been main the group again from a three-day backcountry snowboarding expedition, had been killed within the avalanche, in line with the corporate.
The avalanche occurred close to the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts within the Fortress Peak space, northwest of Truckee, officers mentioned.
Six members of the ski group, together with a fourth information, survived the avalanche and had been rescued Tuesday evenings, authorities mentioned.
Nevada County Sheriff’s Workplace officers monitor an avalanche within the Fortress Peak space of Truckee, Calif., February 17, 2026.
Nevada County Sheriff’s Workplace
In an announcement Wednesday evening, Zeb Blais, founding father of Blackbird Mountain Guides, mentioned the three staff killed within the avalanche had been “extremely skilled members of our information workforce.”
Blais mentioned all the guides had been skilled or licensed in backcountry snowboarding by the American Mountain Guides Affiliation (AMGA). He mentioned the guides had been additionally instructors with the American Institute of Avalanche Analysis and Schooling (AIARE), which he described as “the business customary for avalanche schooling.”
In his assertion, Blais didn’t touch upon the fateful selections made by the guides.
“As well as, guides within the discipline are in communication with senior guides at our base, to debate situations and routing primarily based on situations,” Blais mentioned.
The lethal incident got here amid “excessive” avalanche hazard warnings within the backcountry issued on Tuesday by the Sierra Avalanche Heart, elevating questions on why the group determined to trek out of the rugged space and never keep sheltered within the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts till the main winter storm handed.
“We’re nonetheless in dialog with them on the choice components that they made. However, positively, a heed for everybody,” Sheriff Moon mentioned on Wednesday.
Blais mentioned his firm has suspended all discipline operations by Feb. 22 and “could prolong into the following week or two.”
“There’s nonetheless lots that we’re studying about what occurred. It is too quickly to attract conclusions, however investigations are underway,” mentioned Blais. “We do not have all of the solutions but, and it might be a while earlier than we do.”
After studying of the guides’ credentials and coaching, Tremper mentioned, “You’ll be able to’t get higher than that.”
“Meaning they’d superb coaching, they had been superb at what they do. They had been extremely skilled,” Tremper mentioned.
Tremper mentioned the reason for the catastrophe will stay unknown to the general public till investigators launch their report detailing accounts from the survivors. He warned towards assuming the guides had been reckless.
“All people desires to reply the identical query and it’s not a good technique to method this as a result of if you look backwards in time, it is actually, very easy to see the chain of occasions that occurred that created the accident. However you possibly can by no means try this trying ahead in time,” Tremper mentioned.
He mentioned there’s much more that goes into being a backcountry information than meets the attention.
“To have the ability to make good selections, no person can simply do it alone. You’re employed as a part of a workforce and a part of a system,” Tremper mentioned. “So, the workforce means you’re speaking to all the opposite guides. Like, if it is a helicopter ski guiding operation, you would possibly sit down with 20 completely different guides each morning and each night and do briefing classes.”
Tremper mentioned that in his 29-year profession as an avalanche forecaster, he has investigated roughly 100 avalanche accidents.
“In nearly all the accidents that I’ve investigated … after I put myself of their footwear, it is like: ‘Properly, I may have performed that.’ In actual fact, I’ve performed that earlier than — however I’ve gotten away with it.'”
