One person was killed and three injured after a huge mass of snow cascaded down the mountainside at Palisades Tahoe, a popular California ski resort, the local sheriff’s office said.

The avalanche took place around 9:30 a.m. local time Wednesday in an area known as the GS bowl — a black diamond ski run that sits below a popular lift called KT-22 — just 30 minutes after it opened for the season.

The snow explosion closed down the ski resort, a site of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games, in Olympic Valley, Calif., on the western side of Lake Tahoe. The incident prompted a large response from several search-and-rescue teams. More than 100 people combed through a debris field “approximately 150 feet wide, 450 feet long and 10 feet deep,” the Placer County Sheriff’s Office said.

The deceased person has been identified as Kenneth Kidd, 66, a resident of both Point Reyes and the Truckee area, by the sheriff’s office. “Our heart felt condolences go out to the family and friends of Mr. Kidd,” it said in a statement.

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Kidd was pronounced dead by Tahoe Forest Hospital. Three other skiers sustained injuries that weren’t life-threatening, and they were released after initial treatment, the resort said.

“The entire Palisades Tahoe team, including all of the first responders, extend their deepest sympathies to the family and friends of those involved in the incident,” it said in a statement. “The cause of the avalanche is under investigation.”

The Palisades Tahoe resort, which receives over 400 inches of snow each year on average, said it will remain closed Thursday after continued heavy snow overnight and road closures.

Dee Byrne, Palisades Tahoe’s president and chief operating officer, appeared shaken at a Wednesday news conference, telling reporters it was “a very sad day,” with many questions remaining about what triggered the avalanche and whether it was safe for skiers to be present on the mountain.

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“We’re still undergoing an investigation,” she said. “We’ll be working with our agencies, our partners and providing that information, those updates, as we learn more.”

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Before the avalanche hit beneath KT-22, which provides access to some of the resort’s most steep and challenging terrain, the ski patrol had since Sunday been doing “avalanche control assessments.” These involved evaluating weather conditions and setting up all the safety and hazard markings in preparation for the staple chairlift opening for the first time in the season, said Michael Gross, vice president of mountain operations at Palisades Tahoe.

But as a large storm system moved in from the north, the Sierra Nevada was forecast to receive a significant amount of snow all of Wednesday. The Sierra Avalanche Center had warned of “considerable” avalanche risk at all elevations on Wednesday in the Sierra backcountry.

Despite the snowstorm and blizzard conditions in Lake Tahoe, Gross told a news conference Wednesday that conditions were deemed safe “based on our expertise and our experience and the history.” His team, he added, consults with experts who have decades of experience doing forecasting.

It’s unclear what spurred the snow to rush down a trail within the resort. The likelihood of an avalanche — and resulting deaths — occurring within a ski resort is low, compared with such an incident happening in a mountainous backcountry area, said Richard Penniman, a California-based ski safety expert and avalanche specialist.

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“All ski resorts in the U.S. and Canada use active avalanche control,” Penniman said, referring to a process that involves deliberately triggering an avalanche when the mountain is clear of people, thereby preventing it from happening unexpectedly.

As ski resorts have become more crowded, there is an increased demand for untracked snow, leading resorts to expand into less frequented areas, and heightened pressures on ski resort management to open, even when it may not be safe, according to Penniman.

“The customers have the right to assume that the ski resorts have taken all necessary precautions and have opened areas that have been controlled and are safe,” Penniman said.

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Patrick Lacey, a spokesman for Palisades Tahoe, said the resort’s ski patrol did avalanche control work to open the KT-22 terrain, and at the news conference Wednesday, resort leaders said they had been in touch with experts about the weather forecast.

Even when resorts do everything right, nature can still be unpredictable.

“It’s not a black-and-white thing in the avalanche world, trying to predict when and where avalanches are going to occur,” Penniman said. “We pretty much know where they’re going to occur, but when is always a huge forecasting problem.”

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