Avalanche risks are everywhere
Skiers at Palisades Tahoe sensed nothing was wrong prior to fatal event
The skiers atop Palisades Tahoe’s KT-22 on early Wednesday felt like the lucky ones: First in the lift line and first on the run, they were eager to carve fresh powder soon after the opening of one of the nation’s most beloved peaks.
But only 30 minutes after the area was opened, with no warning or hint of trouble, the runs fractured, collapsed and buried skiers in a giant apron of snow that was 150 feet wide, 450 feet long and 10 feet deep.
Kenneth Kidd, 66, of Point Reyes and Truckee, was killed in the avalanche. One other person was injured, and two people were trapped by the snow for an unknown period of time.
One thing became clear Thursday, a day after the tragedy: The skiers took no exceptional risks — they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“It felt stable,” said Andrew Hays, a veteran KT22 skier who rushed to the site to join a probe line for missing skiers. “There are certain days that you get out there and you’re like, ‘Holy mackerel, this snow is really touchy.’ You know you’re rolling the dice. You can feel some looseness. You can see some cracking.”
“This didn’t feel like one of those days,” he told the Bay Area News Group.
Neil Lareau, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nevada in Reno, tweeted that he went backcountry touring on Tuesday morning and “encountered no red flags. … I was shocked.”
Avalanches are routine throughout the vast Sierra and frequently occur in remote areas without consequence.
What was stunning about Wednesday’s event was that it was “in bound” — inside the boundaries of the resort, where daily lift tickets can cost up to $270 — within plain view of the elegant European architecture, heated walkways, boutiques and upscale Plumpjack Café.
“If this had been a Friday or the weekend, it would have been a much worse situation,” Hays said. “There could have been dozens of people.”
The avalanche was a reminder that while a snowcapped mountain might look serene from afar, it can be powerful and wildly unpredictable, subject to any number of constantly changing factors.
“There is a misconception that because you’re in the resort, that there is safety,” Hays aIS. While resorts are much safer than backcountry terrain, he added, “the reality is, is that no matter what is done, the risk can never be eliminated. It’s always there. Every part of the mountain can, and will, slide.”
Statistics show that skiing or hiking in avalanche terrain is safe as long as it’s done using risk-reduction measures, such as carrying transceivers, also known as beacons, that emit electronic signals to reveal a buried skier, according to the Utah Avalanche Center.
It’s about the same risk as getting killed while driving a car one hour to the chairlift or trailhead, it reports.
Most resort skiers don’t carry beacons. Out-ofbounds backcountry skiing on 10 avalanche paths per day without beacons or other equipment is more dangerous than hang gliding or sky diving, according to the Center.
On Wednesday, the danger was largely hidden. The Sierra Avalanche Center reports that the weather in early January — with clear skies and temperatures around Lake Tahoe that reached 40 degrees, then dropped below freezing — created a weak layer of snow called “hoar frost,” caused when moisture in the air comes into contact with a cold surface and creates unstable ice crystals. This icy layer is invisible, buried by one to three feet of heavy snow.
The layer’s fragile nature means that fresh snow isn’t bonded to the surface snow beneath it.
“New snow and high winds have loaded existing weak layers in our snowpack,” reported Steve Reynaud, a snow scientist with the Avalanche Center, in a forecast posted early Thursday morning. Throughout the central Sierra, “during our last two storms this past week, avalanches have occurred on this weak layer, and that is expected to continue (Thursday).”
Palisades Tahoe’s ski patrollers had done avalanche control work and assessments since Sunday but provided no specific details about what steps were taken to reduce avalanche risk on KT-22.
After the avalanche Wednesday, Lareau tweeted that he did a closer inspection and found trouble. Buried under fresh snow were icy “facets” that sparkle under sunlight and bounce in a gloved hand, like sugar — evidence of instability and “a rotten snowpack.”
“The old snow metamorphoses into faceted crystals that lack cohesion,” he said Thursday.
But Wednesday’s incoming storm was reason to rejoice for KT-22 devotees. This winter has gotten off to a slow and frustrating start. Although the resort has been open since Thanksgiving weekend, KT-22 had been closed.
“KT is the heart and soul of the mountain,” said Hays, who went to bed Tuesday night with his laptop on his nightstand so he could check conditions immediately upon awakening. “Until KT is open, it doesn’t feel like the resort is really open.”
With famously steep terrain, the peak was named by resort founder Wayne Poulson. On an outing in 1946, his wife, Sandy, struggled to hop down the mountain’s sheer north face, so she descended by traversing it with well-controlled “kick turns” — 22 of them.
Ever since, KT-22 has been the gold standard for Sierra skiers. On powder days, devotees awake at dawn to get early access to unblemished snow.
It’s popular because it offers quick access to some of the fiercest and most interesting lines in the Sierra. In only six minutes, KT-22’s chairlift — dubbed “the best chairlift in North America” by Ski Magazine — carries people up 1,800 vertical feet.
It has been the training ground for famed Olympians such as Julia Mancuso, Jonny Moseley and the late Shane McConkey, who is memorialized by a haunting eagle sculpture atop the mountain’s peak. Young hot-shotters hitting the slopes seek out The Fingers, a rocky cliff zone. OId timers favor Chute 75, a wild ride with a consistent steep pitch.
On Wednesday morning, the GS Gully and Bowl area had many enticing features. Because there’s so little snow, it offered some challenging rocks and narrow chutes as well as a more relaxing wide meadow.
In-bounds accidents are rare, but they happen.
In 2020, a slide near the Scott Chair at Alpine Meadows, part of the Palisades resort, killed skier Cole Comstock. Also in 2020, three people were killed at Idaho’s patrolled Silver Mountain. In 2019, an avalanche ripped across open terrain at Taos Ski Valley, killing two. Seven people were killed in an Alpine Meadows avalanche in 1982.
Wednesday’s tragedy may have been triggered by the weight of skiers on the fresh terrain, said Hays. Avalanches rarely happen spontaneously, and the cause of Wednesday’s tragedy is under investigation.
Skier Darian Shirazi, who was on the chairlift and witnessed people swept by the avalanche from the chairlift, said “several were screaming, as all of GS Bowl slid from top to bottom. … This was a shocking and terrifying experience.”
“You have to accept that there will always be a specter of the unknown,” said Hays, who always wears a beacon.
“The mountains always change. Every storm, every year, will be a little bit different,” he said. “That’s what keeps you coming back.”