After days of increasingly brutal conditions in California’s Sierra Nevada, a group of 15 backcountry skiers set out for home. But as they left remote huts at thousands of feet of elevation and trekked back toward the trailhead, they were slammed by a treacherous avalanche that left eight dead and one missing.
With avalanche warnings in effect through early Thursday, officials were still waiting for the powerful storm to clear so they could recover the bodies of the victims of Tuesday's avalanche, the nation’s deadliest in nearly half a century. Officials have not yet released the names.
