There are a few excellent books about decision making – and many that are not excellent. The former includes, for example, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, Irving Janis’s Groupthink, and Graham Allison’s Essence of Decision. Deciding – how we decide, when we decide, with whom we decide, and why we decide what we decide – is fascinating first because every day each of us decides repeatedly, usually without much if any forethought. And second because we understand intuitively if not intellectually that the leaders to whom we generally defer – politically, professionally, and personally – make decisions that can make, or break, our lives.
Our ongoing interest in decision making explains our so far ongoing interest in a story that broke several weeks ago about an avalanche in California that killed nine people. It was the deadliest such accident in modern California history. And the nine who died were three supremely experienced guides and six supremely experienced backcountry skiers.
Which raises the question – how did this tragic accident happen? Especially given the public warnings that an enormous explosion of snow and ice was not merely possible but probable. And how did this tragic accident happen, especially given that the decision to leave their shelter first was made, and then was implemented during a blinding blizzard with a long way to go before reaching another safe harbor?
Much has been made of the excellence of the nine who died. In addition to the three expert guides, there were six others, each of them also expert skiers who, moreover, were highly accomplished, mature adults who were anything other than foolhardy. And yet. And yet together, as a group (along with four others who managed to survive), they made at least one dreadful decision that with the benefit of hindsight seems both exceedingly reckless and terribly stupid.
The point of this piece is not to blame the victims. Rather it is a reminder that even the best and brightest can and do make decisions that are catastrophically bad. There is an entire literature on this: on bad or deeply flawed decision making, as for example during the war in Vietnam, when America’s political and military leaders made decisions that cost many thousands of their followers their lives for reasons now usually judged wrong-headed.
The avalanche in California is a somewhat similar story, in miniature. It seems the leaders, and their followers, made at least one decision so horribly bad that it cost most of them their lives.
The nine who died fell into two groups: the leaders who were three guides; and their followers who fell into line, who deferred to the professionals. Some pertinent points and lessons to be learned.
- The Sierra Avalanche Center, which forecasts snow conditions in the area, repeatedly warned of avalanche danger due to heavy snow and impending storms.
- People who ski terrain that is familiar to them are more likely to assume that conditions are safe or, at least, that they will master them.
- Backcountry skiers are known for valuing fresh powder to the point where they downplay danger.
- People tend to defer to experts.
- People in small groups tend to conform to the group’s norms. Conversely, people in small groups are reluctant to deviate from what the other group members are doing and saying.
- Statistics show that the risk of flawed decision making goes up in small groups of, specifically, between 6 and 10 people. These numbers give the illusion of safety, and they increase the tolerance for risk.*
- Over time risk-taking tends to become normalized.
- On the morning that the skiers made the decision to leave their hut they knew that the chances of an avalanche had risen from likely to very likely.
- On the morning that the skiers made the decision to leave their hut the guides met separately to discuss among themselves the plan for the day ahead. These guides – the leaders – emerged from their meeting telling the group that they had to leave soon. The option of staying where they were, safely in the hut until the storm blew over, was not raised. It was not raised either by the leaders, or by any of their followers. The followers then did what their leaders told them to do. No questions were asked or hesitations expressed.
- On the morning that the skiers made the decision to leave their hut the winds were gusting at over 50 mph and at times the skiers could see no more than a few feet ahead. Moreover, contrary to what usually is done under such dangerous conditions, most were bunched up front, close to the guides who were their leaders. This atypical proximity was another reason why when the avalanche hit, nine died and only three managed, barely, to escape the same fate.
This story, this case, is likely to be studied for years to come. It is so unnecessarily tragic – so stark an example of bad decision making by both leaders and followers – that it cannot help but be instructive.
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*This quote as well as further information can be found in: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/02/28/us/tahoe-avalanche-survivors.html