Sierra Nevada Avalanche Survivors Describe Fatal Decision to Ski Out in Blizzard Conditions

Two survivors of the deadly February 17 avalanche near Castle Peak in the Sierra Nevada Mountains have provided new details about the group’s decision to venture out during dangerous blizzard conditions that ultimately killed nine people.

Anton Auzans, 37, and Jim Hamilton, 65, told the New York Times that the option to remain at the Frog Lake Backcountry Ski Huts until conditions improved was not discussed with the 11 clients on the Blackbird Mountain Guides expedition.

“I didn’t say anything. I’m not an expert and so I decided to trust the plan,” Auzans told the newspaper.

The group consisted of 15 people total: 11 clients and four guides, according to the Times. The clients were divided into one group of eight women and a second group of three men, including Auzans and Hamilton. Each group had two guides accompanying them, and the two groups joined together for the trek out on February 17.

Questions have emerged about how guides decided to lead the group out at 11:30 a.m. in blizzard conditions when rising avalanche risk had been widely publicized, according to the Times reporting.

Hamilton and an unidentified guide lagged behind the rest of the group due to a ski binding malfunction that prevented it from latching onto his ski. Following the line of ski tracks ahead of them, Hamilton discovered those tracks abruptly ended, according to the Times.

Hamilton had been far enough behind that he neither heard anyone shout “Avalanche!” nor saw the snow slide until he came upon it, the Times reported. He then heard Auzans, whom he had met just two days earlier, shout, “Major avalanche! Major avalanche! We have people buried!”

Auzans, positioned just behind the bulk of the group, witnessed the avalanche hit and took cover behind a tree before being carried by snow into a clearing, according to his account to the Times. He described seeing “a wall of white dotted with strange blurs of color,” identifying those blurs as the skis and clothing of fellow skiers being swept away.

The survivors described digging out two women they found breathing under snow that had transformed from powder into something “as heavy and thick as cement,” according to Auzans’ description to the Times.

After an hour of searching, the survivors decided to stop looking for others, knowing survival chances under the snow were low, and focused on the two they had found alive, according to the Times. The survivors and one guide sheltered under a tarp for more than five hours while rescuers reached the remote location.

Hamilton described Monday’s skiing as exceptional and safe. “It was everything you thought it would be. Just epic. And I never once felt like we were in danger,” he told the Times. “I remember watching the women fly by me and they are having a blast.”

However, as snow intensified Tuesday morning, guides decided to skip a planned ski lap and head directly to the trailhead, though by an altered route to avoid some avalanche danger, according to survivor accounts reported by the Times.

“We have to get out of here now,” the guides reportedly told the group, according to Auzans’ account to the Times.

The guides discussed several routes and ruled out two safer but longer options that would have left clients far from their vehicles, according to the Times. They also avoided Frog Lake Notch, which they had used to enter two days earlier, deeming it too dangerous.

Three other survivors—two women and one man—have declined to speak to the press, while another survivor who was among the four guides has not been reached for comment, according to the Times.