Donner Summit in blizzard-like conditions on Wednesday as severe snowstorms hit much of the Tahoe-Truckee area.
Six women killed Tuesday in an avalanche near Truckee were close friends from the Bay Area, Idaho and the Lake Tahoe region who had extensive ski experience and bonded over their shared love of the outdoors, according to a statement from their families released Thursday.
A spokesperson representing their families identified six of the victims as Carrie Atkin, Liz Clabaugh, Danielle Keatley, Kate Morse, Caroline Sekar and Kate Vitt, noting they were all mothers, wives and passionate skiers “who cherished time together in the mountains.” Records show the women were in their 40s and early 50s.
“We are devastated beyond words,” their families said in the statement. “Our focus right now is supporting our children through this incredible tragedy and honoring the lives of these extraordinary women.”
Officials said eight people were confirmed dead after an avalanche struck their group of 15 people around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. A ninth person who remained missing was presumed dead.
The skiers, including four employees of Blackbird Mountain Guides and their clients, were heading back to the trailhead following a multiday backcountry ski trip at the Frog Lake huts outside Truckee when an avalanche the size of a football field struck, according to local authorities. Six people were rescued from the mountain.
The incident marked the deadliest American avalanche in decades.
The Nevada County Sheriff’s Office has not confirmed the identities of any victim, saying in an update that weather conditions were too hazardous Thursday to extricate them from the avalanche site. The recovery was expected to “carry into the weekend,” the agency said.
Eight friends planned the expedition well in advance and went into the mountains fully equipped with avalanche safety equipment, according to their families. Three more Blackbird clients were on the trip, too, along with the four guides, according to officials.
Kate Morse of Marin County was killed in the avalanche.
“They were experienced backcountry skiers who deeply respected the mountains. They were trained and prepared for backcountry travel and trusted their professional guides on this trip,” the families said of the women.
The victims’ families said they were grateful for the rescue efforts by local authorities and volunteer groups, and for the outpouring of support from the community.
“We are heartbroken and are doing our best to care for one another and our families in the way we know these women would have wanted,” the families said.
Carrie Atkin, who lived in the Tahoe area, was killed by an avalanche Tuesday.
Authorities said three ski guides were killed in the incident, although they have not been identified. One victim was the spouse of a search and rescue crew member.
John Lauer, an avid backcountry splitboarder who works at a Truckee ski shop, said he was friends with some of the guides on the trip but declined to name them.
“Those guides that were leading that group are some of the best mountain people I know,” he said. “They are consummate professionals. … Nobody was new at this — this was no one’s first rodeo.”
Liz Clabaugh, pictured in a photo shared to her Instagram account, was killed along with her sister Caroline Sekar in Tuesday’s avalanche.
Among the women identified as victims were two sisters, according to a New York Times report. One of them, Clabaugh, worked at St. Luke’s Health System in Boise, Idaho, as a labor and delivery nurse, according to her neighbors. Her sister, Sekar, worked in tech as a consultant and graduated from Stanford, her social media profile shows.
Sekar was “the sunshine” of the block in Bernal Heights where she lived with her husband and two children, said neighbor Jen Wofford. When Wofford moved in across the street six years ago, Sekar dropped off homemade cookies.
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“Even when talking about a topic that could potentially be negative, she was positive,” Wofford said. “I never heard her say an unkind word about any person. She was always smiling, always polite, would do any little thing to help out a neighbor. If I forgot to get my veggie box, I would open the door on the next day and it would just be there.”
Caroline Sekar, pictured with her husband Kiren Sekar, lived in San Francisco.
Sekar forged a close community in the neighborhood, Wofford said — organizing local produce pickups from her porch, creating a parent group chat and occasionally blocking off their leafy street for informal block parties. She worked as a consultant, loved building with Legos and was an avid, “very skilled” skier, Wofford said.
Wofford learned of her friend’s death yesterday, when Sekar’s husband texted a group of their neighbors to inform them. She had seen news coverage of the avalanche but had no idea Sekar was in the group that was buried.
“I have her packages,” Wofford said. “We get each other’s packages when we’re out of town. It just felt not real. We’re all very connected here, so we’ve all been messaging. Another friend and I just sat on my floor and cried for a long time.”
Her daughter and Sekar’s daughter are both 10 and close friends, she said, and “everyone is mom to all” in their neighborhood. Sekar also has a son, who Wofford said is around 13.
Siobhan Quinn, another friend of Sekar’s, said she was a “go-to parent” and an active volunteer at the school their children attended.
“During COVID we got together a lot,” Quinn said. “Our kids were all friends. We projected movies onto her garage and closed off the street with our own cones, and Caroline and her home were always the center of it.”
Her husband, Kiren Sekar, said in a statement that she had been “happiest channeling it into adventures in the mountains — on foot, on skis, or on a bike — with us by her side. She was my love, my teammate, and the best partner I could have asked for over twenty blessed years. She raised our kids into kind, curious, and independent adolescents. Her best qualities are now a part of who they are, and they’ll carry her spirit with them for the rest of their lives.”
Many of the victims were moms whose children were involved in the Sugar Bowl Academy, a ski school for kids and young adults on Donner Summit, including Keatley, a Larkspur resident.
Danielle Keatley was one of six friends killed in an avalanche on Tuesday.
Her neighbor, Margie Reis, described Keatley as a strong woman. The family was outdoorsy, adventurous and gone most weekends in the winter, Reis said.
“They lived for skiing,” she said. “That’s what they did.”
Keatley and her husband ran a wine business and regularly hosted tastings in their home. During town events, the couple often donated bottles. They had “been very involved in the community,” Reis said, and theirs was “always an open door.”
“They were very much in love,” she said.
Keatley grew up near the Berkshire Mountains in northwestern Connecticut and attended the University of Virginia before moving to San Francisco, according to a bio on the wine company’s website.
Reis added that their area of Larkspur is close and always bands together when tragedy strikes. “This is definitely going to hit this community hard,” she said.
Avalanche victim Kate Vitt with her husband in a photo posted to her X account.
Another victim, Vitt, previously worked as an executive at SiriusXM radio. Her father, Peter Coakley, declined to comment to the Chronicle.
A neighbor of the Vitt family on a verdant cul de sac in Greenbrae described them as very active. Kate Vitt was “vibrant” and “devoted” to her two young sons, whom she walked to school every day, Sheryl Longman said.
“She had everything she could ever want,” Longman said. “She had a nice husband, good kids, good job.”
Sheryl Longman, next-door neighbor of Tahoe avalanche victim Kate Vitt, holds a holiday card she received from her neighbor as she recalls fond memories of Vitt and her children.
Longman’s backyard shares a fence with the Vitts’ property and the kids’ balls would often end up on her side, lodged in tree branches or bushes. She’d retrieve them and leave them at the bottom of her driveway for the family to pick up.
As she spoke, Longman gripped a Christmas card from the family, the four of them grinning in front of a mountain lake, their new puppy, Smokey, cradled in Vitt’s arms.
Anna Bauman joined the Chronicle in March 2025 as a breaking news reporter. Previously, she was an investigative reporter at Open Vallejo and before that, an education reporter at the Houston Chronicle, where her work earned recognition from the Texas Managing Editor Awards in 2024. A Kansas City native, Anna’s early career traces back to San Francisco as a breaking news reporter for the Chronicle through the Hearst Journalism Fellowship program, which includes two 12-month rotations at Hearst’s top newspapers. During her fellowship, she reported on the COVID-19 pandemic, the police killing of Sean Monterrosa in Vallejo, and played a key role in the Chronicle’s award-winning coverage of the Kincade Fire in 2019.
Kate Talerico is a reporter covering the East Bay, with a focus on Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda County. Before joining the Chronicle, she covered housing at the Mercury News, reporting on changes to the real estate industry and tracking how housing policy is shaped and implemented. Her first journalism job was at the Idaho Statesman, where she covered Boise’s growth leading up to the pandemic. She also lived in France for two years, teaching English to high school students. Kate graduated from Brown University with a degree in urban studies.
Alyce McFadden is a City Hall reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle covering the Board of Supervisors. McFadden previously worked at the New York Times, where she was a news assistant and reporting fellow. She covered Andrew Cuomo’s history of sexual harassment, the trial of the man accused of attacking Salman Rushdie, the Los Angeles wildfires and the reaction to the killing of Charlie Kirk. McFadden has also written for Law360, OpenSecrets and the Maine Beacon. She’s a graduate of Bowdoin College, where she studied government and legal studies and was editor in chief of the student paper.
Lucy Hodgman is a Hearst Fellow on the Climate Team at the San Francisco Chronicle, covering seismic building issues, homeowners insurance and breaking energy and environment news. She previously covered politics for the Times Union, in Albany, New York, and breaking news for Politico and the Sacramento Bee.
