A group of mothers of students at Sugar Bowl Academy, a boarding school for competitive skiers, was part of the three-day back-country skiing expedition that ended in tragedy on Tuesday.

We still don't have most victims' names from the deadly avalanche near Castle Peak Tuesday, but those may arrive soon, and clues about their identities have been trickling out. Of the six survivors, we now know one was a male guide with Blackbird Mountain Guides, and the other five, one man and four women, were clients on the trip.

Three of the ski guides and six other clients are among the dead, and one body remains missing. The deceased are reportedly seven women and two men.

The New York Times reports that two of the deceased women have been identified by their brother as 45-year-old Caroline Sekar of San Francisco and 52-year-old Liz Clabaugh of Boise, Idaho. McAlister Clabaugh, their brother, said that most of the group were part of a close-knit set of college friends who regularly took ski trips together.

"There’s a whole community of people, a lot of whom just lost their wives," Clabough tells the Times.

He said of his sisters, "They were incredible sisters, mothers, wives and friends. And the idea that they are both gone is, I don’t even know how to put it into words."

The mayor of Mill Valley, Max Perrey, said Wednesday that a couple of mothers from Mill Valley were in the ski group, including at least one who died.

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

Also, on Wednesday, Sugar Bowl Academy Executive Director Stephen McMahon sent out an email confirming that "multiple members of the Sugar Bowl Academy community and others with strong connections to Sugar Bowl, Donner Summit, and the backcountry community died" in Tuesday's avalanche.

Perrey could not confirm whether the mothers from Mill Valley also had ties to Sugar Bowl Academy.

Separately, at a Wednesday press conference, Placer County Sheriff Wayne Woo revealed that one of the deceased was the spouse of a member of the Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue Team, as KTVU reports. Woo clarified that the rescue team member was not involved in the avalanche rescue effort on Tuesday.

"As you can understand, 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," Sheriff Woo said, per KTVU.

The group set out on Sunday on the back-country ski trip and spent two nights at the remote Frog Lake huts. An avalanche warning had been issued at 5 am Tuesday along with warnings about the incoming storm. The group nonetheless set out on a return ski trip to a trailhead, and were caught in an avalanche around 11:30 am.

As the Chronicle reports, questions remain for Blackbird Mountain Guides about why the guides decided to leave in those blizzard conditions.

Calling the avalanche an "enormous tragedy," Blackbird founder Zeb Blais tells the paper, "There is still a lot that we’re learning about what happened. It’s too soon to draw conclusions, but investigations are underway. In the meantime, please keep those impacted in your hearts."

Related: How a Three-Day Back-County Ski Expedition Turned Deadly in the Sierra

Photo by Ryan C

*This post has been updated with the identities of the Clabough sisters.