THE NEW YORK TIMES: Two sisters and their friends died in avalanche during Sierra Nevada trek

The Sierra Nevada avalanche this week struck a tight-knit group of six friends, many of them San Francisco Bay Area mothers who loved spending time together in the mountains and whose deaths have devastated their families and local communities.

Eight people died, while a ninth is missing, in the deadliest US avalanche since 1981 when 11 people died.

Sisters Caroline Sekar and Liz Clabaugh were among those who died Tuesday, local time, at the end of a three-day backcountry skiing trek. Sekar, 45, lived in San Francisco, and Clabaugh, 52, lived in Boise, Idaho.

Sekar’s husband, Kiren Sekar, 46, provided a statement to The New York Times recalling his wife as “authentic and unabashedly unfiltered,” a woman who spread joy and enthusiasm to her circle of friends, her children’s school and her neighborhood.

He said that he and his wife were together for more than 20 years and that she raised their two children to love hiking, bicycling and skiing in the mountains.

“Caroline spent her final days doing what she loved best, with the people who loved her most, in her favourite place,” Sekar wrote.

“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 brother of Sekar and Clabaugh, McAlister Clabaugh, said he was devastated to have lost them both.

“These are two of the best people I’ve ever known,” he said. “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.”

Many in the group of 11 skiers had been friends for years, Clabaugh said, and would meet up for ski trips regularly.

“A lot of the people on that trip were Caroline’s friends who used to do this together,” he said. “There’s a whole community of people, a lot of whom just lost their wives.”

Caroline Sekar had worked in tech, her brother said, but her two children were her passion. Kiren Sekar is the chief product officer at Samsara, a technology company in San Francisco, according to his LinkedIn page.

It is not clear whether the family was connected to Sugar Bowl Academy, a private, ski-focused school that said Wednesday that multiple victims had ties to its community in Norden, California, several kilometres from where the avalanche occurred.

Ski competition records show that two Sugar Bowl skiers in prior seasons, as recently as 2024, had the same last name as Caroline Sekar.

Apart from the sisters, several other avalanche victims were from Marin County, California, just north of San Francisco, according to officials there.

The Kentfield School District, which runs two schools in Marin County, sent an email to families Wednesday announcing that Kate Vitt, the mother of two elementary school students, had died in the avalanche.

“Kate’s two sons,” the letter reads, “are safe and are with their father, Geoff, as they navigate this profound loss. The Vitt family is a cherished part of our community.”

The letter was provided to the Times by Brian Colbert, a member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors who represents an area that includes the school and the town of Greenbrae, where the Vitt family lives.

The school district did not return a request for comment but said in its letter that it would offer counseling for staff members and students when they return next week from their midwinter break, which local families informally refer to as “ski week.”

According to her LinkedIn profile, Vitt was a graduate of Boston College and worked as a vice president of product operations and customer success at SiriusXM. Before that, she worked at Pandora, a music app.

Several of the victims are believed to be residents of Marin County, according to Colbert.

“Frankly, we’re in shock,” Colbert said. “Everybody knows everybody. It’s gut-wrenching because so many people knew these moms.”

Marin County is a constellation of affluent, family-oriented towns where children’s sports and ski vacations in the Tahoe region are a regular part of the culture.

“Tahoe is in some ways our Shangri-la,” Colbert said. “You’re there in the winter. You’re there in the summer. For many people, it’s the place to recharge and reconnect with folks away from the hectic pace of regular daily life.”

Rescue workers have not yet been able to retrieve the eight people who were found dead on the mountain because of severe storm conditions, which were expected to continue at least through Thursday, according to officials with Nevada County, which includes the area where the avalanche struck. They said they would not be releasing the names or any other information about the victims until the bodies had been recovered.

A ninth person remains missing but is presumed to be dead, according to officials.

The avalanche was the deadliest in modern California history and one of the deadliest in the United States.

For those who lost their loved ones, “It’s the worst nightmare,” McAlister Clabaugh said.