By admin After months of near silence about the decisions made by its guides before the February avalanche that killed nine people in the mountains near Lake Tahoe, Blackbird Mountain Guides published a report that did not assign or accept blame for the tragedy but provided new insights into why trip leaders picked an ultimately fatal route.
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Blackbird hired former American Avalanche Institute owner Don Sharaf, a mountaineering and snow safety expert, to conduct an independent analysis of the incident. Using GPS data, weather records and interviews with Blackbird guides, Sharaf concluded the group of 11 clients and four guides sought to exit the backcountry during a narrow window in a well-forecasted blizzard along a route the company had designated for use during periods of high avalanche danger.
Ultimately, the group strayed too close to the slopes of Perry’s Peak and was caught after a large avalanche released nearly 400 feet above them. The guides were aware the north-facing aspect of Perry’s Peak had known avalanche paths, according to the report, but amid the blizzard may not have realized they had veered into the danger zone.
All but two people — one client and one guide who had momentarily fallen behind the group because of an equipment issue — were buried by the wall of snow that came off the mountain. Those two freed a third person, who was only partially buried, and the three were able to dig out three other skiers.
The remaining nine people died of asphyxiation under the snow, according to coroner reports released last week. Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon quickly opened an investigation into whether there was any criminal negligence in the deaths, which is now under review by the district attorney. Cal-OSHA opened a workplace safety investigation into the company — last month an agency official told The Sacramento Bee that inquiry was still ongoing.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, which drew intense media attention and scrutiny both within and outside the world of backcountry skiing, many questioned why the group had left the safety of well-appointed cabins, called Frog Lake Huts, where they had spent the previous two nights. Had they waited a few days for the blizzard to clear, the thinking went, they could have traveled with less avalanche risk, or at least with clear visibility without being buffeted by swirling snow and high winds.
Sharaf’s report did not indicate that staying at the huts and waiting for better conditions was ever suggested or discussed by the guides running the trip.
In a company addendum to the report, which did not identify its author, Blackbird appeared to rebut those questions. “Trained mountain guides commonly operate during periods of High avalanche danger and active storms by applying established risk-management practices,” the company wrote.
Avalanche danger ratings “are regional forecasts intended to inform terrain selection and decision-making; they are not a prohibition on travel,” the company continued. “(Trained) guides use these forecasts in conjunction with real-time field observations to adjust routes, objectives, and travel techniques as conditions evolve. Guiding under elevated avalanche hazard is a recognized and accepted professional practice when these methods are applied.”
The day of the fatal slide, the Sierra Avalanche Center had issued a warning: “Avalanches could be triggered from very low on the slope in some areas,” the center wrote. “Avalanches from above could travel down through treed terrain, often thought of as ‘safe’ during storms. Travel in, near, or below avalanche terrain is not recommended.”
It remains unclear whether the guides read that specific warning. But the report indicated they were well aware of the avalanche hazards and weather forecasts. The guides discussed those conditions before beginning the three-day, two-night trip and again on the morning of their attempted return to the trailhead. The night before they left the huts for home, 34-year-old guide and trip leader Andrew Alissandratos spoke by phone to the company’s founder, Zachary Blais, according to the independent report.
During that conversation, Alissandratos told Blais he “had exited the Frog Lake Huts before during High Avalanche Danger and felt confident of their planned exit route for the next day,” Sharaf wrote. A four-year veteran of Blackbird Mountain Guides, Alissandratos had led 10 other company trips to Frog Lake Huts and also knew the area from his own snowboarding ventures. Alissandratos was killed by the avalanche, along with two other guides, Nicole Choo, 42, and Mike Henry, 30.
Mountain guides and skiers familiar with the area previously told The Sacramento Bee the valley where the skiers and snowboarders died could be safely navigated during periods of high avalanche danger, but the Blackbird group appeared to have strayed too far to the dangerous side, under Perry’s Peak.
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Experts also told The Bee the guides’ visibility would have been extremely limited by the blinding snow and that digital mapping tools commonly used by skiers on smartphones would have been difficult to use while battling a blizzard and monitoring the well-being of a large group.
Bunched together when slide hits
The group was on the east side of a creek that defined the valley when the avalanche reached them. That morning, a senior Blackbird guide, Jason Smith, had phoned the huts from Truckee to speak to the guides when they met without their clients to plan the exit, according to the report.
As the guides discussed their route, Smith said they should try to get on the far side of the meadow, as far as possible from the known avalanche paths descending from Perry’s Peak. He suggested they cross to the west side of the creek.
Sharaf concluded that may not have been possible. The creek was likely open running water instead of frozen over and bridged by snow, given a six-week period of snow drought and, at times, periods of high temperatures that preceded the February blizzard, he wrote. He analyzed a GPS track left behind by Choo and concluded the group appeared to have tried to cross the creek two or three times.
The report does not say whether the surviving guide described failed creek crossings, though he was interviewed. Two surviving clients told The New York Times, which first reported on Blackbird’s report, that they didn’t remember an attempted creek crossing.
In April, the Sierra Avalanche Center, which is a public-private partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, issued its own report on the avalanche. Its investigators concluded the Blackbird group had violated several elements of avalanche safety protocol, including recommendations on party size. A party of 15 people was well above what was normally recommended for safe travel in avalanche terrain. Larger group sizes could lead to riskier decision-making and place more people in harm’s way, past snow safety research had found.
The Sierra Avalanche Center also noted that when the group was caught, 13 people appeared to have been close together. The other two were separated only by chance. Avalanche safety courses taught people to cross risky sections of a mountain one at a time. That way, if a slide occurred, as few people as possible would be caught and their companions could mount a rescue operation.
According to Blackbird’s report, the party that day was actually made up of two tour groups that had been mixed together. One was composed of eight women, longtime friends and veteran backcountry skiers, and their two guides. Three men who had booked trips separately were assigned another two guides. The groups merged to better break trail through the deepening snow, according to Sharaf’s report.
As for the group being bunched together, Sharaf wrote that amid the storm its members had likely lost track of exactly where they were just before the avalanche hit. Such confusion could explain both why they traveled into a known avalanche path off Perry’s Peak and why skiers were not spread out to avoid the kind of mass burial event that occurred.
“The most likely explanation for the lack of spacing between skiers was that the guides did not recognize that they were in an avalanche path,” he wrote. “Navigating by a digital map on a phone can be impossible in blizzard conditions.”
Blackbird’s addendum did not address where the company would go from here. As of the report’s release, no families of the victims appeared to have filed lawsuits. Blackbird had not publicly detailed any changes to future mountain operations, though its website continued to state the company was not booking new trips.
“There is nothing easy about any part of this,” the company wrote in a news release accompanying the report. “Nine deeply loved people are gone, three of them our own guides. There is still much that remains unknown, but this is the most complete information available so far and we hope the release of this information can help the community begin to heal together.”
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This story was originally published August 10, 2026 at 7:44 AM.