NEVADA CITY, Calif. — A California avalanche swept through a guided backcountry ski group Tuesday in the Castle Peak area north of Lake Tahoe, killing eight skiers and leaving a ninth person missing, authorities said. Officials said a powerful winter storm and an unstable snowpack slowed rescuers and pushed the operation from rescue to recovery, Feb. 18, 2026.
Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said the missing skier is presumed dead and that officials have not yet released victims’ names. Officials said the California avalanche was the deadliest single U.S. slide in 45 years — since 1981. The group totaled 15 people — nine women and six men, including four guides — and three of the guides were among those killed, according to an ABC News report.
California avalanche near Castle Peak: what happened
Authorities said the slide was reported about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at roughly 8,200 feet in the Sierra Nevada, near the Frog Lake backcountry huts in Tahoe National Forest. A preliminary assessment put the avalanche at a D2.5 on the Destructive Force Scale — strong enough to injure, bury or kill a person — according to information cited by the Sierra Avalanche Center.
Six survivors were rescued Tuesday evening after they sheltered for hours under a tarp and used emergency beacons and satellite messaging to help rescuers pinpoint their location. Officials said two people were hospitalized, with one still receiving treatment Wednesday.
In a statement, Blackbird Mountain Guides said the group had been staying at the Frog Lake huts since Sunday and was returning to the trailhead at the end of a three-day trip when the avalanche struck.
The California avalanche is being investigated, including why the trip went forward as storm conditions intensified. “We’re still in conversation with them on the decision factors that they made,” Moon said at a news conference.
Why the California avalanche turned deadly
Forecasters had been warning for days that the storm cycle was building dangerous layers in the snowpack. An Associated Press account said the Sierra Avalanche Center issued an avalanche watch early Sunday, then upgraded it to a warning around 5 a.m. Tuesday — hours before the slide near Castle Peak.
The storm that battered the Sierra also snarled travel across the region. The National Weather Service’s winter storm warning for the greater Lake Tahoe area cited additional heavy snow and strong winds that can rapidly load slopes, limit visibility and complicate rescue work.
Moon said search teams got within 2 miles of the avalanche zone by snowcat before switching to skis to reduce the risk of triggering another slide.
Past tragedies that put the California avalanche in context
While rare at this scale, fatal avalanches are not new to California’s mountains. In January 2024, an in-bounds avalanche at Palisades Tahoe during a winter storm killed one man and injured another, according to a KCRA report.
Farther south, a deadly 2008 weekend near Wrightwood underscored how quickly conditions can turn when heavy snow stacks on weaker layers. Three men were killed while skiing out of bounds near Mountain High Resort, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Authorities have also pointed to the last U.S. avalanche with a higher single-event death toll: an ice-and-snow slide on Washington’s Mount Rainier that killed 11 climbers in 1981, detailed by HistoryLink.
For now, officials said recovery efforts near Castle Peak will depend on weather windows and avalanche risk, and they urged backcountry travelers to heed warnings as the storm cycle continues.
