Palisades Tahoe President and COO Dee Byrne said it was still a “dynamic situation” and that an investigation was underway.
“This is a very sad day for my team. … We’ll be working with our agencies, our partners, and providing information and updates as we learn more. Our hearts and condolences go out to the victim, the victim’s family, and everybody else who was involved in the incident,” said Byrne at the press conference.
Both victims were “guests from outside the area,” said Michael Gross, vice president of mountain operations at Palisades Tahoe. He said two other people were also involved, neither of whom were buried or injured by the avalanche.
The avalanche occurred around 9:30 a.m. on steep slopes under the KT-22 lift, which serves “black diamond” runs for skilled skiers and snowboarders. Palisades Tahoe said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that its search teams were checking an area called GS Gully and that both sides of the mountain at the resort would be closed for the rest of the day.
The avalanche happened as a powerful storm was expected to bring as much as 2 feet of snow to the highest elevations by early Thursday.
Palisades, the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, is on the western side of Lake Tahoe, about 40 miles from Reno, Nevada. The National Weather Service in Reno said 2 inches could fall per hour on Wednesday around the lake.
A 110 mph gust was recorded Tuesday afternoon at the summit of Alpine Meadows, the adjoining resort, the weather service said.
Dan Lavely, 67, of Reno, a season pass holder at Palisades, skied mostly at Alpine Meadows on Monday when there was very little snow and the KT-22 lift was closed.
“They didn’t have enough snow to open the lift, it wasn’t even running. … Today was supposed to be the first day they opened KT-22,” he said.
The steep run along the side of the lift is where the grand slalom was held during the 1960 Olympics, he said.
“Really good skiers love it because it’s really steep,” he said. “I remember when I was really young, I was skiing around there. I fell over and slid like two-thirds of the way down the mountain. There was no way to stop because it’s just so steep.”
Lavely doubted many people were on the mountain at the time of Wednesday’s avalanche because of the early hour, the lack of snow and the high winds.
“But there are powder hounds” who “like to ski in this type of storm,” he said.
A 2020 avalanche at Alpine Meadows killed one skier and seriously injured another a day after a major storm. Another avalanche at Alpine Meadows in March 1982 killed seven people, including several employees of the ski resort.
Associated Press writers Christopher Weber, Stefanie Dazio, Scott Sonner and KQED news staff contributed to this report.
