An avalanche swept up skiers at Lake Tahoe’s largest ski resort on Jan. 10, 2024, as a 150-foot-wide sheet of snow slid down a mountain slope into a pile 10 feet deep. One person died in the avalanche and three others were rescued, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office in Auburn, California. The slide happened in steep terrain near the KT-22 chairlift, which had just opened for the season that morning.
Avalanche deaths are rare inbounds at ski resorts like Palisades Tahoe, but the risk rises in the backcountry. Nathalie Vriend, a skier and a physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies avalanches, explains what happens in the snowpack when an avalanche begins.
