Woman with NH ties among those killed in Sierra Nevada avalanche

A woman with ties to the Upper Valley was among six friends who died in an avalanche in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Tuesday.

Kate Vitt, who lived in Greenbrae, Calif., was on a backcountry ski trip with a group of close-knit friends all of whom had experience skiing in the wilderness.

The friends were accompanied by a group of guides on their three-day excursion to Frog Lake huts, near Castle Peak, a mountain in California.

Two of the guides died in the avalanche and one more is missing and presumed dead, the New York Times reported on Friday.

Originally from Colorado, Vitt was married to Geoffrey Vitt, a Norwich native who graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004. Kate Vitt graduated from Boston College the same year, and she previously worked for SiriusXM and Pandora, her LinkedIn page states.

The Vitts have two sons who are in elementary school, the New York Times reported.

Kate Vitt’s father-in-law is Norwich attorney Geoffrey Vitt, of Vitt & Nunan, PLC, the lawyer’s ex-wife Noelle Vitt confirmed in a text message. She declined to otherwise comment on the incident.

Efforts to reach the elder Geoffrey Vitt on Friday were unsuccessful.

The other five friends killed in the avalanche were Carrie Atkin, Liz Clabaugh and her sister Caroline Sekar, Danielle Keatley and Kate Morse.

The six friends lived in the Bay Area, Idaho and near Lake Tahoe.

Two other friends made it out of the storm alive and were rescued with four others, including one guide.

The skiers began the trip amid mounting warnings about the avalanche, which is considered the deadliest in the country since 1981, when 11 climbers met their death on Washington state’s Mount Rainier. 

As of Friday, crews were hoping to attempt to recover the victims’ bodies after days of dangerous weather forced them to wait.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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