Backcountry huts where Tahoe avalanche victims stayed are extremely popular
The stone lodge at the Frog Lake huts, seen in 2022, offers a commercial-grade kitchen and a communal space for guests to cook food and socialize. (Ryan Salm Photography)
The landscape around Castle Peak where this week's deadly avalanche occurred is, despite its winter dangers, extremely popular among backcountry enthusiasts – and the recently built Frog Lake huts, where the group of skiers caught in the avalanche stayed, have heightened the area's appeal.
"Castle Peak is the definition of a classic spot in the greater Tahoe area," said Brennan Lagasse, a longtime Tahoe ski guide with experience leading trips there. "It's at a high point coming out of Donner Pass and there's a host of ways for a diverse array of recreators to have fun out there."
Backcountry recreation has exploded in popularity since the pandemic, and skiers, snowmobilers and snowshoers from Truckee and Tahoe frequent the Castle Peak area daily, typically venturing out from a couple of trailheads along Interstate-80 west of Truckee and returning to their cars before nightfall. Donner Summit Sno-Park, where the main trailhead into Castle Peak is located, is the busiest of the state's 18 designated snow play areas, according to a State Parks spokesman.
People eager to spend more time exploring the mountains there have had the option to book overnight trips at the Frog Lake huts - three upscale backcountry cabins that opened five years ago.
Many specifics of Tuesday's avalanche - which ranks as the deadliest in California dating back decades - aren't yet clear. But there's no question that the Frog Lake huts hold strong allure for backcountry skiers and snowboarders.
A snowboarder rides one of the spines on the Frog Lake Cliff, which hangs above Frog Lake, at sunrise in 2020. (Ming T. Poon)
The huts, which opened in 2021 and are operated by a local land trust, are a rare commodity in California: the state only contains 14 such accommodations, according to the tracking website Hut Tripper, and the ones at Frog Lake are the newest and perhaps the nicest of them all.
Each hut contains sleeping bunks, heaters, USB wall sockets to charge phones, and a shared bathroom. They also feature panoramic windows that look across the lake to a sheer granite cliff that ignites in vivid golden hues with sunrise each morning.
A historic stone house a few steps from the huts was repurposed into a communal lodge with a large fireplace and an industrial kitchen where guests, who must carry in their own food, cook meals and hang out. The land trust employs a hutmaster to welcome and assist guests. That deep in the mountains, cell service is spotty at best.
Lagasse described the experience of staying at the Frog Lake huts as "world-class" in that they serve as a remote home base for skiers to launch into the wild Sierra surroundings – an adventurer's playground of powder-filled bowls, steep couloirs and tree skiing far from the manicured and oft-crowded trails at Tahoe's ski resorts.
But the thrill of visiting the huts in winter comes with inherent avalanche risk.
There are different routes to and from Frog Lake, but getting there involves at least three miles of skinning - that is, skiing uphill using traction fabric strapped to the bottoms of one's skis. The most common route takes skiers up and over Castle Peak's high shoulder and down toward the lake, out of sight of the I-80 corridor.
Avalanche danger is dictated by a host of shifting variables - slope steepness, snowpack stability, wind loading, air temperature and more - but guides say that much of Castle Peak's ski terrain is graded 30 degrees or steeper, the angle at which snow slabs become potentially perilous.
A view from the stone lodge at the Frog Lake huts looks at Frog Lake Cliff. (Courtesy Patricia West)
"The standard route to and from the huts definitely exposes you to avalanche hazard," said Mike Mourar, an experienced Tahoe ski guide who has led guests to Frog Lake. "It's pretty tricky to get in and out of there."
Still, the huts are in high demand, with bookings for most dates filling up within minutes of becoming available online.
Skiers can book their own stays at Frog Lake – ranging from about $300 per night for pairs to $660 per night for a group of eight – or they can sign on to guided hut trips offered by one of a few guide services permitted to operate in Tahoe National Forest. It's a more expensive option but one that comes with the sense of security that experienced professionals are handling the logistics, including on-the-spot assessments of avalanche risk.
The skiers who were caught in this week's avalanche had booked their trip through Blackbird Mountain Guides, a relatively new company founded in 2020 out of Truckee, that charges $1,800 per person for two-night touring trips to the Frog Lake huts. Blackbird offersavalanche training courses and advertises that its guides are trained or certified by the American Mountain Guides Association. Tahoe-area guides say the company has a solid reputation for safety.
Because of how in-demand the Frog Lake huts are, stays are usually booked months in advance - before skiers have an inkling about the conditions they'll encounter when they arrive. The Truckee Donner Land Trust, which owns and operates the huts, offers 80% refunds to people who cancel bookings more than a month from the start of their trip but states up front that "there is no refund due to weather conditions, poor snow conditions, lack of snow, too much snow or avalanche hazard."
The huts are an extremely popular backcountry lodging option for skiers and snowboarders in Truckee and Tahoe. (Ryan Salm Photography)
Guiding companies typically operate on slim margins and are loath to refund cancellations close to the start of a trip. Blackbird doesn't refund cancellations within two months of a trip and its policy states that "no refunds can be given due to weather, environmental conditions or other unforeseen circumstances beyond our control that causes a trip to be cancelled," including "severe weather, political unrest, health pandemics, airline/transportation strikes, etc."
For those terms, according to Blackbird's trip description, clients receive "incredible access to North Lake Tahoe's most impressive terrain."
Like other guide companies that offer backcountry ski trips, Blackbird requires clients on its Frog Lake trips to carry the requisite backcountry touring gear and avalanche equipment – namely, a beacon, shovel and probe, which are used to survey snowpack as well as to locate and dig out people who become buried in an avalanche. The trip is not appropriate for beginner skiers, according to the company's trip description.
The huts are a unique resource for Tahoe backcountry skiers, Lagasse said. "There's nothing around here like the Frog Lake huts," he said. "What they afford you for terrain is exceptional."
