Six of the nine victims' names have now been released from Tuesday's avalanche tragedy in Nevada County, and they were a group of women who'd bonded over their love of skiing and the outdoors.
The trip, planned far in advance, was to ski the back country near Donner Pass — in what's known to be one of the snowiest spots in the western hemisphere — and visit some well appointed, remote ski huts that had been built in the last few years.
Six of the women on the ski expedition, all friends with ties to the Bay Area, regularly traveled together with their families. We learned Thursday that two of them were sisters, 45-year-old Caroline Sekar of San Francisco and 52-year-old Liz Clabaugh of Boise, Idaho.
Sekar's husband, Kiren Sekar, has since given a statement to the New York Times, saying, "Caroline spent her final days doing what she loved best, with the people who loved her most, in her favorite place." He added, "She was with me, her children and our puppy, and then on one last adventure with her sister and close friends, who she now rests with."
The other four avalanche victims to be identified are Carrie Atkin, Danielle Keatley, Kate Morse, and Kate Vitt. Various media reports have suggested the women were college friends from Stanford, but according to LinkedIn, as far as we can tell, Sekar attended Stanford, but her sister and several of the others attended college elsewhere.
Vitt was an employee at Sirius/XM, and previously worked at Pandora, according to her LinkedIn. KTVU reports that she was a mother of two and a resident of Greenbrae.
A joint statement issued Thursday by the families of the six women said, "They were all mothers, wives and friends, all of whom connected through the love of the outdoors. They were passionate, skilled skiers who cherished time together in the mountains."
Sarah Reynaud, who works as a back-country educator and guide, was scheduled to be on this same trip to the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts with her family, but canceled at the last minute when her daughter got sick. As she tells Bay Area News Group, the huts were constructed five years ago and opened to public access after Frog Lake, and the land around it, was privately owned for almost a century. The property includes a historic stone house, built in the 1930s, where communal meals are enjoyed, and several barebones cabins with hot running water, flush toilets, and heat.
The property was purchased by the Truckee Donner Land Trust, in partnership with the Trust for Public Land and The Nature Conservancy, for $15 million in 2020.
"I was excited to go,” Reynaud tells the news group. “It’s a beautiful place that the land trust has put together."
The other three deceased are reportedly two men and one woman whose names have not been released. If initial reports were correct, that four guides were on the trip and one survived, these other three may all have all been guides with Blackbird Mountain Guides.
All of the victims' remains were still on the mountain as of Friday, because snow conditions have made recovery impossible the past three days.
A vigil for the victims is scheduled on Sunday at 6 pm in Truckee.
Previously: Group of Ski Moms, Including One From SF and One From Marin, Among 9 Avalanche Victims
Top image via Truckee Donner Land Trust
