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The Placer County Sheriff's Office said in a written statement
that Kenneth Kidd, 66, was the person killed.
Both Kidd and the injured skier were guests of the resort and
not employees, resort officials said. Two other people were hit
by the avalanche but not injured.
"At this point in time, all search efforts have concluded," said
Placer County Sheriff's Office spokesperson David Smith. "There
is nobody else up on the mountain."
Palisades Tahoe, which was formerly known as Squaw Valley and
was the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, is located about 100
miles (161 km) northeast of San Francisco.
The avalanche took place around 9:30 a.m. PT (1730 GMT) in the
"GS gully" area of the ski resort, just off its famed KT-22 ski
lift that opened for the season on Wednesday.
"This is a very sad day for my team," Dee Byrne, president and
chief operating officer of the resort, said at a press
conference. "This is a dynamic situation, we're still undergoing
an investigation."
It was not immediately clear what triggered the avalanche, but
heavy snows and high winds have pounded the mountainous area for
the past day.
Michael Gross, vice president of mountain operations at
Palisades Tahoe, said at the press conference that the resort's
ski patrol had been carrying out avalanche assessments in the
area where the slide took place since Sunday and deemed it safe
to open to the public.
He said it was normal to open a ski run amid heavy snows.
The Placer County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that the
avalanche debris field was approximately 150 feet (45.7 m) wide,
450 feet long and 10 feet deep.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; Additional
reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Bill
Berkrot, Leslie Adler and Jamie Freed)
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