An avalanche has roared through a section of expert trails at a California ski resort near Lake Tahoe, killing one person and injuring another, as a major storm with snow and gusty winds moved into the region, authorities said.
The avalanche occurred around 9:30am on Wednesday (4:30am Thursday AEDT) at Palisades Tahoe, the resort said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.
“Our patrol and mountain operations teams are performing a search at this time,” the resort said.
Sergeant David Smith, a spokesperson for the Placer County sheriff, said hours later that a male victim died and another male sustained non-life-threatening injuries. He said nobody else was missing.
The avalanche happened just 30 minutes after the resort opened on steep slopes under the K-22 lift, which serves “black diamond” runs for expert skiers and snowboarders.
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It was not immediately known if that area was open Wednesday morning. The resort was closed for the day following the avalanche.
Palisades is on the western side of Lake Tahoe, about 64 kilometres from Reno, Nevada. The resort was a host site for the 1960 Winter Olympics.
Winds gusted in excess of 160 km/h over ridgetops around Lake Tahoe late on Tuesday ahead of a powerful storm expected to bring as much as 60 centimetres of snow to the highest elevations by early Thursday.
The National Weather Service in Reno said 5 centimetres could fall per hour Wednesday around the lake.
A 177 km/h gust was recorded on Tuesday afternoon at the summit of Alpine Meadows, the neighbouring sister resort of Palisades south of Truckee, California, the service said.
A 2020 avalanche at Alpine Meadows killed one skier and seriously injured another a day after a major storm.
An avalanche at Alpine Meadows in March 1982 killed seven people, including several employees of the ski resort.
