A day after tragedy at Palisades Tahoe

A Palisades Tahoe ski patroller stands in front of the closed KT 22 lift on Jan. 11, 2024. It’s 7:55 a.m., and the parking lot at Palisades Tahoe is empty. I parked in the first row of a lot by early morning on powder days. Normally, this would be one of the most exuberant days of the winter at Palisades Tahoe: the , following a storm that deposited of snow on in the last 24 hours.

But the mood is far from jovial the morning after an in bounds avalanche and injured three others. By 8 a.m, I’m inside the village’s Coffeebar, where the echoes of an abnormal afternoon the day before still stand: Bar stools are still overturned on tables and day old pastries from the day before still sit next to the register.

Though I’m one of about 15 people inside, it’s quiet. The only notable sounds are the frequent booms from avalanche blasts, the vibrations sending my coffee gently sloshing around in its cardboard cup. During the pauses when the low volume folk music changes songs, the hushed voices in the room fade to near silence.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad After an all day closure yesterday, both Palisades Tahoe and Alpine Meadows are now open. The slow start isn’t necessarily extremely abnormal — some days aren’t as busy as others. But it’s the Thursday before a holiday weekend and a perfect bluebird day with more than a foot of untouched fresh snow.

Still, everyone knows the cause for the calm and why it’s not quite a normal morning in Tahoe. Several hours after the incident Wednesday, Palisades president and chief operating officer Dee Burns said at a press conference that it was still far too early to know exactly why the avalanche occurred.

Approximate area of avalanche in Palisades Tahoe, Jan. 10, 2024. On Wednesday, Jan. 10, just three hours before tragedy struck, the Sierra Avalanche Center had already posted its . It rated terrain above, below and near tree line as at “considerable” risk — the third of five tiers, ranging from 1 (low risk) to 5 (extreme risk).

“Natural avalanches possible,” reads the description for “considerable” risk, “human triggered avalanches likely.” The bowl under KT 22 where the avalanche occurred is steep and hadn’t yet been skied on for the season, two factors that can increase the risk of avalanches. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Palisades Tahoe does its own avalanche forecasting, , vice president of mountain operations at the resort.

Palisades Tahoe ski patrol had been practicing avalanche control measures on the terrain under the KT 22 since Sunday, he said in a press conference. Control measures at Palisades include the use of , plus up to 500 hand charges to trigger controlled avalanches before the mountain opens, sending any loose slabs of snow falling down the slopes before opening for guests.

Gross stood behind his team on Wednesday afternoon, stating, “We have decades’ worth of weather data that we’re always resourcing and referencing. It’s looking at current forecasts, it’s looking at all different models. It’s looking at wind speed, snowpack, density, wind direction ...” “The people that are doing the work are truly experts in their field,” he added.

“Most of them have been working in it for 10 to 20 years, some of them upwards of 50 years.” Palisades Tahoe Thursday morning that the KT 22 lift would be closed indefinitely, as the avalanche blocked the access road used to bring safety and grooming equipment to the summit. The resort declined additional interview requests, providing only a statement , and didn’t offer any additional information on whether any of the four guests found after the avalanche wore safety gear.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad In most places in the U.S., at least those devoid of ski resorts, a foot of fresh snow is more of a prompt to stay home than a call to action. But in Tahoe, it’s a blessing. One word of is enough to make dedicated skiers rearrange their work schedules to vie for the privilege of fresh tracks first thing in the morning.

But the bounty also carries an escalated risk of avalanches, especially when a weak snow layer gets covered with a layer of thicker, heavier snow, as was the case on Wednesday. The local daily report noted two significant factors that could lead to large avalanches that day: a stratified snowpack and strong winds that could create dangerous cornices.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad Avalanche forecasting is a science, but the conclusions made on a daily basis serve to temper, not eliminate, the risk. A “low” avalanche risk means a smaller chance of an avalanche occurring, but it’s never an absolute zero. It’s a complex calculation, weighing factors like the thickness and gradient of the snowpack, slope angle and aspect, wind speed and direction, whether the region has seen recent periods of melting and thawing, and dozens of other variables, some more quantifiable than others.

Rescue workers recover a body on April 2, 1982, buried in the parking lot of the Alpine Meadows ski resort after an avalanche that killed seven people rolled through the area. As tourist friendly as Tahoe ski resorts are — a recent report estimated that about 30,000 people visit — in bounds avalanches are an ongoing reality in the region’s Sierra Nevada.

And they don’t hesitate to remind skiers over and over of this fact: A at Alpine Meadows claimed the life of one skier and left another grievously injured, and in 2017, on state Route 89 between Alpine Meadows and Palisades Tahoe when their car was covered in snow after an avalanche. In December 2012, at different Tahoe resorts killed both a ski patrol employee at Alpine Meadows and a Truckee resident at Donner Ski Ranch.

The frequency of avalanches in Tahoe’s backcountry is far higher, in 2022 and 2023. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Tahoe’s place in the annals of avalanche history was cemented in its most infamous incident: at Alpine Meadows, which killed seven people and left sole survivor Anna Conrad in a local hospital for just over two months.

The tragedy was also a watershed moment for avalanche forecasting. Conrad’s rescue was the — now used at many ski resorts, including Palisades Tahoe — and led to the , one of the first science based organizations researching and studying and advising on avalanche risk in mountain terrain. While the risk is real, Jayne Thompson Nolan, executive director of the , says that shouldn’t deter people from skiing — but it should remind them that safety needs to be part of their routine.

“Avalanche accidents in ski areas are uncommon, but they do occur,” she says. “For example, we have had 244 avalanche fatalities in the US in the last 10 years. Seven, or 3% of these fatalities, happened within ski area boundaries.” She says the Wednesday avalanche at Palisades Tahoe seems to have been a — one of the more straightforward ways an avalanche can occur, caused by a top layer of snow heavier than the layer below it.

This was the same type of risk mentioned in the Sierra Avalanche Center forecast on the morning of the avalanche. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Skiers should also have a level of awareness of weather patterns in general. “We are experiencing a period of elevated avalanche danger across the western U.S.,” Nolan says.

“The elevated danger ratings we’re seeing are due to a major weather pattern shift across the western U.S., with multiple storm systems bringing heavy snow and strong winds. Due to relatively dry conditions earlier this winter, any new snow load is being deposited on generally very weak and faceted snowpack, which results in a rapidly increasing avalanche hazard.” Truckee local Erik Johnson displays his avalanche beacon, a device that aids rescuers in finding skiers buried under snow, on Jan.

11, 2024. For Truckee local Erik Johnson, the disaster won’t put him off skiing, but it has changed his habits. While waiting for the lifts to open, I ask if the avalanche had made him any more hesitant to hit the slopes today. Advertisement Article continues below this ad “Nope,” he says, before reaching down and grabbing the black and white avalanche beacon strapped across the chest of his yellow ski bib.

“I’m wearing a beacon. I’m just going to start wearing a beacon on every powder day.” Before moving to Truckee, he skied primarily at Mammoth Mountain, and says it would sometimes require beacons on high risk days, refusing to let skiers without them on the lifts. I ask if he thinks they should do that here.

“I would think it’s a bad idea,” he begins, only to quickly pivot. “Actually, people may gain awareness if they’re sitting in line and they say, ‘Hey, guys, only people with beacons can go up,’” he says. “Then people may think, ‘Hey, I gotta go get a beacon.’” For some, the avalanche may be a hard reminder of what they already know: Even at a resort, with , half day ski lessons, there’s no such thing as a full assurance of safety on the mountains.

The Village at Palisades Tahoe on Jan. 11, 2024. By 9:25 am on Thursday morning, none of the lifts were spinning yet. The Palisades mobile app read “on hold” for everything scheduled to open at 9 a.m., save for the shuttle between the Alpine Meadows and Palisades Tahoe parking lot. There was a long line of people waiting for the funitel transport, one of the quickest ways to access the resort’s midmountain terrain when KT 22 is closed, to start spinning.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad The coffee shop began filling in as skiers and boarders looked for a place to sit to wait for an operations update. But the energy remained still, and you could hear muted voices from across the room. As skiers started leaving for the lift lines, I overheard more than a few conversations end with, “Be safe out there.” Finally, around 10:15 a.m, a few lower mountain lifts dropped their ropes.

I talked to a few skiers in line, asking if they planned to avoid any of the mountain’s steeper or more advanced terrain. The avalanche the day before occurred just below an area of the resort called McConkey’s, a double black diamond series of chutes and rocky faces that’s arguably the most advanced terrain on the 3,600 acre resort.

“Ah, not really, but I don’t think we’d go to that kind of area, anyway,” said Jess, a skier from Marin County here in advance of the three day holiday weekend. Before I could ask her anything else, a collective cheer started going through the long line as it became clear the lift was opening.

“Woooo hoooo” — or “yew,” as the would say — yelled a group of 20 something guys who started zipping their jackets and pulling their gloves back on. Some skiers who had abandoned hope only a few minutes before turned around to try to reclaim their places in line, and people sitting at the tables just outside the resort’s nearby Pocket Bar quickly abandon their coffee cups and muffin wrappers as they hustled to pull their skis off the rack and claim a place in line.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad By 10:30 a.m., it was back to business for Palisades Tahoe. — — — —.