Blackbird Mountain Guides Fined

CAL/OSHA, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, issued Blackbird Mountain Guides (BMG) and its successors a list of citations, violations, and fines totaling $151,300 on 8/12/26. CAL/OSHA is the state agency responsible for setting and enforcing workplace safety standards. The fines were handed down as a result of BMG’s involvement on  2/17/26 in the death of nine tourers in an avalanche on the NW face of Perry Peak. The group included 15 skiers total, nine clients and four guides. Three of the deceased tourers were BMG guides. We won’t roll through all the incident details here, but the group was caught during a period of high avalanche danger as they exited from the Frog Lake Backcountry huts, where they had been staying for several days. The storm, which still raged while the group made for an exit, had been predicted.