Ski moms, instructors among victims of Lake Tahoe avalanche, as rescuers battle to recover bodies

Victims of the Lake Tahoe avalanche included women and mothers of competitive youth skiers from a nearby resort, according to local reports.

After days of increasingly brutal conditions in California’s Sierra Nevada, the group of 15 backcountry skiers was slammed Tuesday by a treacherous avalanche the size of a football field that left eight dead and one missing.

All but one of the four professional guides were killed, while the remaining five confirmed victims were clients. One person is still missing, presumed dead.

A person familiar with the circumstances, who requested anonymity due to the situation’s sensitivity, told the San Francisco Chronicle that most of the guests on the tour were “women and mothers of children on the ski team at nearby Sugar Bowl Resort,” the newspaper reported.

The trip, the person said, was part of an annual family excursion during which the husbands went off skiing together, and then the wives took their turn. They clarified that the trips were organized personally by the close-knit parents and had no official affiliation with the resort.

Those on the trip were said to range in age from 30 to 55.

“We are an incredibly close and connected community,” Sugar Bowl Academy executive director Stephen McMahon said in a statement. “This tragedy has affected each and every one of us.”

Authorities described a harrowing scene: survivors scoured the snow for the missing and waited six hours for help to arrive amid blizzard conditions. They found three of the bodies, Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said at a press conference on Wednesday.

“It was reported to us … that they were attempting to go out as a group, that someone saw the avalanche, yelled ‘avalanche’, and it overtook them rather quickly,” Sheriff’s Capt. Russell “Rusty” Greene said.

The identities of those killed are yet to be released, as their bodies remain in the area and authorities are still working to notify next of kin.

Some of the skiers on the trip were from Mill Valley, about 180 miles southwest, Mayor Max Perrey confirmed to The New York Times.

“Our heart in Mill Valley goes out to the families that have been impacted,” Perrey said. “It’s a huge tragedy and a huge loss.”

Another victim was a mom from Marin County, NBC Bay Area confirmed, with friends and locals heartbroken by her death.

“It’s devastating, I mean it’s ski week, she’s got two adorable little kids and we watch them just for the past couple of years walking back and forth from school,” a neighbor said. “She has so much verve and zest for life and she was just a lovely neighbor.”

In another tragic twist, officials revealed that one of the people killed was married to a member of one of the rescue teams sent to search the area for survivors.

“This has not only been challenging for our community, it’s been a challenging rescue, but it’s also been challenging emotionally for our team and our organization,” said Placer County Sheriff Wayne Woo. “We are committed to being here until the end, and making sure we make all of these recoveries.”

Sheriff Woo said at the press conference that the victim, who is yet to be publicly identified, was married to someone from the Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue team, which included 28 members from the Placer County Sheriff’s Office.

The avalanche is the deadliest in the U.S. since 1981, when 11 climbers were killed on Mount Rainier in Washington state, and the second deadliest avalanche near Castle Peak this year, after a snowmobiler was buried in January.

Each winter, the slides kill 25 to 30 people in the country, according to the National Avalanche Center.